Anthropization

In geography and ecology, anthropization is the conversion of open spaces, landscapes, and natural environments by human action.^[1]

Anthropic erosion is the process of human action degrading terrain and soil.

An area may be classified as anthropized even though it looks natural, such as grasslands that have been deforested by humans. It can be difficult to determine how much a site has been anthropized in the case of urbanization because one must be able to estimate the state of the landscape before significant human action.^{[citation needed]}

YouTube Encyclopedic

1/1
Views:
1 388

Transcription

Earth Inhabited by seven billion people and this number continues to grow In the year 2008, for the first time in its history the world's urban population exceeded its rural population As the population increases the need for urban land also increases In the coming decades our planet will be one dominated by large cities However, increasing urban land use means reducing the land for agriculture If we want to understand for how much longer will planet Earth continue to feed its population we need to ask ourselves: how much will the population grow? how much will urban land use increase as a result of its demographic growth? how much will agricultural land decrease? We need to understand if the growth of cities and the reduction in agricultural land can ever reach a balance and when this balance point will ever be reached A city consumes, produces waste, and grows: a metabolic process similar to a living organism, but we don't know if an urban metabolism is sustainable, as that of a living system How does one measure the relationship between a population and anthropized soil? Data shows that this relationship follows a law, the so-called law of scale that describes, through the index beta, how much land will be shared due to infrastructure, equipment and services Can one therefore estimate what portion of our planet will be urbanized in fifty years' time? We can assume that the available agricultural land produces enough food to maintain the existing population and enough food to make it grow The increase in population determines the reduction in rural areas and the possibility to produce new food sources This process tends toward a limit called the carrying capacity a limit beyond which the expansion of population would bring a shortage of resources The critical threshold limits between the city and the rural area is determined by the beta index of the law of scale Carrying capacity depends on the population's growth rate and the rate of urbanisation of agricultural land Which is the limits of this process? Let's examine the beta index: If this number is low the number of people who can live in the cities and have enough food is large, but if the index increases the carrying capacity collapses rapidly This limit also depends on eating habits: A vegetarian uses five times less agricultural land than one who primarily eats meat A city of meat-eaters expands slightly but can host few individuals and needs large grazing areas The city's growth rate always has a limit because it consumes land that could have been used to produce food If the scale law allows the measurement of land consumption related to population growth then it would be possible to plan a city that grows in a sustainable way When the population growth is not sustainable it is necessary to intervene with strategies for urban reorganisation strategies can reduce the law of scale index to bring it to a value lower than 0,5 In today's world this number is dangerously close to the critical threshold How can we lower such values? One possibility is to reduce the expansion of cities and the consumption of more land introducing a border between the city and rural areas, stopping the expansion of widespread cities Additionally the city needs to be reorganized internally by increasing collective spaces, rationalizing infrastructure, re-using unused spaces, and creating green spaces and urban gardens The beta value needs to be reduced, to improve resilience of large cities For the next fifty years, this planet of cities is the challenge for the scientific community and the entire population.

Origin

The earliest known stages of anthropization can be found as early as the Neolithic era and the basic farmland created in that time.^[2] With the continually-growing population of humans, the land that the Earth provides has been appropriated over the years. The ecological footprint created by anthropization is continually growing despite efficiency and technique improvements made in anthropization..

Whether anthropized or not, all land seldom a few locations has been claimed. Outside of the largely inhospitable Arctic and Antarctic circles and large portions of other uninhabitable landscapes, much of the globe has been used or altered in some direct way by humans. Land has been appropriated for many different reasons, but ultimately the outcome is typically a short-term benefit for humans. An area is anthropized is some way to make land available for housing, to harvest the resources, to create space for some anthropological reason, or many other possibilities.

Processes and effects

Agriculture

The root of many early forms of civilization, agriculture has been a primary reason for anthropization. To cultivate food or breed animals, humans must alter land—till soil or build structures—to facilitate agriculture. This can lead to soil erosion and pollution (pesticides, greenhouse gas emissions, etc.), and subsequently habitat fragmentation and overall an increased ecological footprint. Agriculture and industry often overlap, and industry produces many of these effects too.

Urban development

Especially with approximately 7.5 Billion humans inhabiting the Earth,^[3] this typically aligns with an increase in residences worldwide. Over the years, humans have built on land to meet their needs and wants. These actions range from small villages to massive factories, water parks, and apartments. Urbanization and development of human residences can significantly affect the environment. Not only does the physical space of buildings fragment habitats and possibly endanger species, but it fundamentally alters the habitat for any other living being. For some species, this effect can be inconsequential, but for many this can have a dramatic impact. The biosphere is very much interconnected, and this means that if one organism is affected, then as a result the other organisms within this ecosystem and food chain are also affected.

As well, within the last century, any urbanized area requires roads for transportation. This transportation is a continued source of pollution, and the roads can be a source of soil erosion.

Industry and technology

To support humans, industrial buildings and processes are apparently essential. Urban development and agriculture require that people produce, refined, or construct many things. Key to this is that factories require that people gather the materials they need to create a product. The wide range of products in this anthropological age use a plethora of substances that must be harvested or produced. Many of these materials are non-renewable (e.g., fossil fuel, metal ores, etc.) and the harvest of these results in relatively permanent anthropization. For resources that depend on in high quantity, this can also mean temporary depletion or damage to the source of the resource (e.g., depletion or pollution of fresh water reserves,^[4] improper or inefficient silviculture, etc.). Even sustainable or renewable industrial anthropization still affects the environment. While the resource in question may not be in jeopardy, the harvest and processing can still change and damage the environment.

Science

Anthropization can also be a result of scientific endeavours. This can manifest as construction of structures to aid in scientific discovery and observation. This can range from structures such as observatories, or on the opposite scale the Large Hadron Collider. These and many other things are built and used to enhance knowledge of sciences. They do however require space and energy.

Energy

To power the ever-growing human race, energy is needed. Power-harvesting structures are built to harness energy, such as dams, windmills, and nuclear reactors. These sources of energy ultimately fuel the rest of anthropological activity and are essential in this way. However many of these methods have consequences. With dams, construction aside, they can cause flooding, habitat fragmentation, and other effects. With nuclear reactors, they have a lasting effect in that typically a lifespan of one of these is around 50 years^[5] and afterwards the nuclear waste must be dealt with, and the structure itself must be shut down and cannot be used further. To safely dispose of this even low-level waste can take hundreds of years, ranging upwards with increased radioactivity.^[6] To produce and as a result of this production of energy, it requires a lot of anthropized land.

Evolution of anthropization

Changes in population directly effect anthropological impact—but changes in technology and knowledge have greatly changed anthropization throughout the Holocene. The tools and methods that humans use to anthropize have changed drastically. For examples, the great pyramids in Egypt were not constructed by some large machine, but instead by thousands of humans. They were still able to build massive monuments, but the efficiency of their efforts and environmental damage was very different from what would be possible today. This shows that the environmental effect of modern anthropization is generally greater, not just because of the increase in population. Pollution and loss of biodiversity in Egypt was largely natural, not man-made, and anthropization existed on a much lower level.

As the human population of Earth increase, this anthropization will continue to evolve.

References

^ "Anthropization - Hypergéo". www.hypergeo.eu. Retrieved 2016-05-17.
^ "Anthropization - Hypergéo". www.hypergeo.eu. Retrieved 2016-05-17.
^ "World Population Clock: 7.5 Billion People (2017) - Worldometers". www.worldometers.info. Retrieved 2017-01-30.
^ "How Water Sources are Being Depleted". PureDrinkableWater. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
^ Voosen, Paul. "How Long Can a Nuclear Reactor Last?". Scientific American. Retrieved 2017-01-31.
^ Miller, G. Tyler, David F. Hackett, and Carl Eric Wolfe. Living in the Environment. 4th ed. Toronto: Nelson Education, 2017. 454-55. Print.

External links

Look up anthropization in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Media related to Anthropization at Wikimedia Commons

v t e Sustainability
Outline Index
Principles	Anthropocene Business action on climate change Business ethics Co-benefits of climate change mitigation Corporate sustainability Earth system governance Ecological modernization Environmental governance Environmentalism Ethical consumerism Global catastrophic risk Green economy Green growth Human impact on the environment Longtermism Planetary boundaries Social sustainability Stewardship Sustainability studies Capitalism Development Developmment goals Finance
Consumption	Anthropization Anti-consumerism Circular economy Earth Overshoot Day Ecological footprint Ethical Green Micro-sustainability Over-consumption Product stewardship Simple living Social return on investment Steady-state economy Sustainability Advertising Brand Marketing myopia Sustainable Consumer behaviour Market Systemic change resistance Tragedy of the commons
World population	Birth control Demographic transition Family planning Control Sustainable population Women's education and empowerment
Technology	Appropriate Digital sustainability Ecotechnology Environmental technology Environmental design High-performance buildings Natural building Superinsulation Sustainability science Sustainable architecture Sustainable design Sustainable design standards Sustainable flooring Sustainable industries Sustainable lighting Sustainable packaging Sustainable transport
Biodiversity	Biosecurity Biosphere Conservation biology Endangered species Holocene extinction Invasive species
Energy	Carbon footprint Climate change mitigation Conservation Descent Efficiency Electrification Emissions trading Energy conservation Energy efficiency implementation Fossil fuel divestment Fossil-fuel phase-out Peak oil Poverty Rebound effect Renewable
Food	Civic agriculture Climate-smart agriculture Community-supported agriculture Cultured meat Forest gardening Foodscaping Local Permaculture Security Sustainable agriculture Sustainable diet Sustainable fishery Urban horticulture Vegetable box scheme
Water	Conservation Desertification Efficiency Footprint Reclaimed Sanitation Scarcity Security
Accountability	Corporate environmental responsibility Corporate social responsibility Environmental accounting Environmental full-cost accounting Environmental planning Sustainability Accounting Measurement Metrics and indices Reporting Standards and certification Sustainable yield
Applications	Advertising Art Building insulation Business City Climate finance College programs Community Disinvestment Eco-capitalism Eco-investing Ecovillage Education Environmental finance Ethical banking Fashion Gardening Geopark Green Development Development Infrastructure Marketing Vehicle Impact investing Landscape Livelihood Living Low-impact development Market Music Organic movement Organizations Practices Procurement Public interest design Radical sustainability Refurbishment Social design Socially responsible business Socially responsible marketing Sourcing Space Sustainability organization Tourism Transport Urban drainage systems Urban infrastructure Urbanism
Sustainable management	Environmental Fisheries Forest Humanistic capitalism Landscape Materials Natural resource Planetary Waste
Agreements and conferences	UN Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm 1972) Brundtlandt Commission Report (1983) Our Common Future (1987) Earth Summit (1992) Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992) Agenda 21 (1992) Convention on Biological Diversity (1992) ICPD Programme of Action (1994) Lisbon Principles (1997) Kyoto Protocol (1997) Earth Charter (2000) UN Millennium Declaration (2000) Earth Summit 2002 (Rio+10, Johannesburg) UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20, 2012) Sustainable Development Goals (2015) Paris Agreement (2015) UN Ocean Conference (2017)
Category Lists Science Studies Degrees