Week 1 - Landscapes

Question 1

What are the four great realms?

Answer 1

1. Biosphere - Anything living – Bacteria, human, organisms on land and air
2. Atmosphere - Hydrogen, Oxygen, Co2, Methane
3. Lithosphere - Soil, Earth’s crust, lithosphere rocks (they weather and you get your soil)
4. Hydrosphere - Snow, Water, Ice – dealing mainly water on the land

Question 2

What is a landscape?

Answer 2

An area of land that has a distinct form, shape or pattern to it.
A bioregion that shares common characteristics
- landform patterns
- natural resources (soils, water, animal and plants)
Examples: savannah, woodlands, grasslands, mallee.
It is also a coherent area that people relate to e.g. catchment.

In agriculture:
May include dominant type of farming systems
- grazing, horticulture, irrigated cropping.

Question 3

What is a water catchment? What is its purpose?

Answer 3

• A catchment is an area where water is collected by the natural landscape. Imagine cupping your hands in a downpour of rain and collecting water in them.
• A healthy water catchment provides high-quality drinking water and supports livelihoods such as agriculture, recreational angling and water sports. It also supports local ecosystems so plants, animals, fish and insects that depend on having healthy water can thrive and flourish.

Question 4

What is a natural environment?

Answer 4

Is a system made up of sub-systems, elements and processes that were formed and continue to exist and function without the intervention of humans.
Natural Environments is distinguished by components/attributes/elements/ecological units
– climate, weather, soils, rocks, vegetation, water, animals etc.
- and natural processes (rockslide, evaporation of water, soil erosion)
which are happening within the boundaries components or sub system.
It also constitutes natural resources and their physical processes outside their boundaries.

Question 5

What is a system?

Answer 5

It means a set or collection of things that are somehow related or organised
In natural environments we study flow systems: flow of energy and/or matter.
- Open flow systems: Inputs & outputs of energy and matter e.g river system
- Closed flow systems? – is when matter stays in the cycle, nothing goes in or out e.g water & carbon cycle
Global warming issue is we are releasing more carbon then previously present i.e. burning fossil fuels
- Energy can go in and out of the system
- When you change the scale you can change the system i.e. water cycle, to river cycle, to ocean cycle

Question 6

What is a feedback loop?

Answer 6

Flow in one pathway increases or decreases the flow in another pathway within a system
- Positive feedback: enhances or increases the flow in a pathway
- Negative feedback: decreases the flow and generates equilibrium
*Both help viability and maintain the system
Feedback loop e.g. submit assignment and get no feedback you may repeat same mistakes
- People die, they become humus in the soil making it more fertile, how it maintains itself and thrives. Lets thrown in deforestation, less roots in soil = less erosion, interrupt that feedback loop soil less fertile more erosion so then less trees

Examples:
positive feedback loops - Antartic ice reflects solar radiation back into the atmosphere, keeping it cooler. Ice melts, less surface to reflect the light back, creating water, temperature of water rises, melting more ice.
- Permafrost – they trap carbon, comes out as methane

Negative (interrupts the flow) = virus, immune system. Predators increases then prey decreases, so predators will then decrease

Question 7

What makes up a SCALE?

Answer 7

Time: temporal
Space: spatial