Week 2 - System, Cycles & Changes

Question 1

Articulate the differences between weak and strong definitions of sustainability

Answer 1

Weak vs Strong sustainability (precautionary principle):

Precautionary Principle says… If you don’t know what the outcomes of a certain action err on the side of caution.
Strong - more critical view of sustainability and how it can be disrupted
Weak -

Value the environment through ecosystem services of NRM system
Accommodate the intergeneration effects & deliver intragenerational equity
Development vs growth

Question 2

Discuss the different lenses that may be used to evaluate sustainable land resource management.

Question 3

List attributes of resilient farming systems

Question 4

What is Sustainability? What is Resilience?

Answer 4

Resilience is “…the measure of degree to which a natural system (landscape and agroecosystem) can resist change, undergo it and then return to its natural state”

Question 5

Is sustainability possible?

Question 6

How has biodiversity been affected by human modification of the landscape?

Question 7

How might carbon storage affect the sustainability of agroecosystems?

Question 8

What are some of the advantages/disadvantages of catchment based management?

Question 9

What are some of the grand challenges for the world?

Question 10

What is a System?

Answer 10

A regularly interacting or independent group of items forming a unified whole. Performing one or more functions.
- Bodies/objects, components, substances, natural objects and forces, individual living things

E.g. climate, water cycle, flow system,
operating system, digestive system,

Question 11

What is the lithosphere?

Answer 11

Is the solid outer part of the Earth, including brittle upper portion of the mantle and crust.
Rocks and Soils

Question 12

What is Atmosphere?

Answer 12

Is the layer of mixture of gases that envelope a planets surface. Held by gravitational force. 
Made up of sublayers (ground up): 
- Troposphere
- Stratosphere
- Meosphere
- Thermosphere
- Exosphere

Question 13

What is the Hydrosphere?

Answer 13

Component of Earth where water is in its liquid state.

Cryosphere is the store of water in its solid form - frozen water, snow, ice, glaciers

Question 14

What is the Biosphere?

Answer 14

Living component of Earth systems.

Global ecosystems - part of ecosystems where life exists

Question 15

List the three types of systems

Answer 15

1. Isolated - no exchange of energy or matter with surroundings
2. Closed - where energy can be exchanged with environment but not matter
3. Open - dynamic exchange of matter/energy with adjacent regions

Question 16

What are biogeochemical cycles?

What are the Forms? Components?

Answer 16

Pathways through which essential elements are exchanged (C, N, S, P, H20).
Flows in two forms:
- Biotic (biological) components and processes
- Abiotic (geological and chemical)

Components:

• Active (dynamic) pools
• Storage (stable) pools

Question 17

List some Biogeochemical Cycles

Answer 17

Carbon cycle
Water Cycle (closed system) - dependent on scales and change

Question 18

Describe Spatial Scale and relate to agriculture

Answer 18

Spatial Scale - it determines the

• areal extent of study
• the dominant features, processes & phenomena
• methods of representation and analysis
• types of systems being examined

4 types
Global, Continental, Regional, Local

Important to be able to relate to scale to understand how regions are operating ecologically - e.g. comparing one specific nature park with other nature parks

Question 19

Describe Change

Answer 19

Equilibrium - Steady state in which the flowrates in various pathways stay the same
*systems will respond to changes in energy or mass inputs/outputs/availability

Feedback processes are set into motion:

• Positive - where output/result enhances original change
• Negative - where output/result brings system back to original state

Question 20

Systems, Cycle and Change - What does this mean for us?

Answer 20

When working in these fields (agriculture) we need to understand:

1. Systems we are operating within, the interconnections and how we might change it
2. Cycles and operations of these systems - the changes these systems could go via positive and negative feedback
3. Scales of time and space - how have they formed or come into being over time and how they may change in the future
   * Human Impacts cant be separated from this

Question 21

Systems, Cycle and Change - What does this mean for us?

Answer 21

When working in these fields (agriculture) we need to understand:
1. Systems we are operating within, the interconnections and how we might change it
2. Cycles and operations of these systems - the changes these systems could go via positive and negative feedback
3. Scales of time and space - how have they formed or come into being over time and how they may change in the future
*Human Impacts cant be separated from this
Examples: How climatic systems are shifting down south, how we are getting warmer climate.