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ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
Lecture 1 Environmental issues
MSc. Nguyen Hong Lan
OUTLINE
What is environmental science
Types of Natural Resources
Ecological footprints
Environmental issues
Principles of sustainability
2
What is Environment?
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The combination of all things and factors external to the
individual or population of organisms (Wright, 2005)
All external conditions and factors, living and nonliving that
effect any living organism or other specified system (Miller and
Spoolman, 2012)
Include living (biotic )and non-living (abiotic) things
Key words • Effect
• Biotic and abiotic factors
+ What is Environmental Science?
• The branch of science concerned with environmental issues
(Wright, 2005)
• Interdisciplinary study that used information and ideas from
the physical sciences, social sciences and the humanities to
learn how nature works, how we interact with the
environment and how we can deal with environment
problems.
Key words
• Study • How we interact with
environment
• How nature works
• How we can dealt with
environmental problems
Environmental science
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Environmental
science is a multi-disciplinary subject that requires the participation and support of almost all sciences
What is environmental science? 6
Biology is the study of
living organisms
What is environmental science? 7
Chemistry is the
study chemicals
and their
interactions
What is environmental science? 8
Physics is the study
of matter and energy
What is environmental science? 9
Earth science is the study of earth’s nonliving
systems
What is environmental science? 10
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Social science is the study of human populations
What is environmental science? 12
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Ecology is a key component of
Environmental science
Ecology studies how organisms,
or living things, interact with one
another and with their
environment
Ecosystem is a set of organisms
within a defined area or volume
interacting with one another and
with their environment of nonliving
matter and energy
What is environmental science? 13
What makes up a marine ecosystem?
+ Goal of Environmental Science
Why we have to study about Environmental Science?
1. To learn how nature works
2. Understand how we interact with environment
3. Live more sustainably
4. Find way to deal with environmental problems
OUTLINE
What is environmental science
Types of Natural Resources
Ecological footprints
Environmental issues
Principles of sustainability
15
Natural capital
+ Natural capital = Natural resources + Natural services
+ Natural capital
Natural capital = Natural resources + Natural services
Natural capital: Natural resources that keeps all forms of life
alive and support our economics
Natural services: Processes in nature (nutrient cycling, water
purification)
Natural resources are materials and energy in natural that are
essential or useful to humans. Some are directly available and
others need some effort.
Renewable resource (air, water, soil, wind…). Can be
replenished in days to hundred years
Non-renewable resource (copper, oil and coal)
+ Capital degradation
Non-renewable resources
Non-renewable resources
exist in a fixed quantity of
stock
Nonrenewable resource
forms more slowly than it is
used up
Non-renewable resources
include fossil fuels like coal,
oil and natural gas, metallic
minerals, non-metallic
minerals
Resource is said to be
depleted when almost used
up 20
Non-renewable resources
Some non-renewable resources
can be recycled or reused
3Rs of more sustainable use:
Reduce (use less), Reuse (use a
resource over and over), Recycle
(processing it into new materials)
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Tragedy of the Commons
In 1968, the biologist
Garrett Hardin called the
degradation of openly
shared resources the
tragedy of the commons :
In a “commons” open to
all, unregulated use will
deplete limited
resources.
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Overfishing
Tragedy of the Commons
Conflicts arise when people
share resources
If no one takes responsibility
for the resource it will get
overused and become
degraded/depleted
Example: Renewable
resources like trees cut faster
than they formed
How do we avoid this?
(video)
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OUTLINE
What is environmental science
Types of Natural Resources
Ecological footprints
Environmental issues
Principles of sustainability
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Human’s impact over history
Wherever
humans have
hunted, grown
food, or settled
we have changed
the environment.
How have those
changes impacted
the environment
over human
history?
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Hunter-Gatherers
Most of human history
People who obtained food
by moving around
collecting plants and
hunting wild animals.
Why didn’t they have a
large impact on the
environment?
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Agricultural revolution
Plants and animals were
domesticated and
population grew.
10,000 years ago
Life got easier
Population grew
Towns began forming
Impact on environment
grew
More land used
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Industrial revolution
Caused a shift to fossil fuels
as an energy source.
1800s
Life got easier
Advances in technology
People lived longer
People moved to cities
away from farms
Increased environmental
impact WHY???
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+ Ecological footprints
The amount of biologically productive land and
water needed to supply a population
Measure the average environmental impact of
population in different countries and areas
Per capita ecological footprint is the average
ecological footprint of an individual in a given
country or area.
+ Ecological footprints
When use of renewable resource exceeds its natural replacement rate,
we have environmental degradation
+ Ecological footprints
2 major ways to deal with difficult problems of
degradation:
Used shared renewable resources at rates well
below their estimated sustainable yields
Convert open-access renewable resources to private
ownership
+ Ecological footprints
Natural capital use and degradation: Total and per capital ecological
footprints of selected countries (top). Ecological footprint was at least 30%
higher than the earth’s ecological capacity (bottom)
Who uses most resources?
Developed countries like the
U.S. (high personal wealth)
have high consumption rates
Developing countries: have
high population growth,
poverty and lower resource
consumption
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+ Ecological footprints
+ Ecological footprints
IPAT is another environmental impact
+model
Rich and poor countries have different environmental impact
Simple model of Ehrlich and Holdren (1970)
I = PxAxT
I: Environmental impact
P: Population
A: Affluence per person
T: Technology used
From sustainability viewpoint, priorities in the use of non-
renewable resources should be: reuse, reduce and recycle
(3Rs).
Ecological footprint
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By simple model of Ehrlich and Holdren (1970)
I=PxAxT
Based on your knowledge and understanding of the
environmental impact model (developed by Paul
Ehrlich and John Holdren in 1970s), explain how the
United States, with the population of only about one-
quarter that of India, has the ecological footprint nearly
seven (07) times that of India?
OUTLINE
What is environmental science
Types of Natural Resources
Ecological footprints
Environmental issues
Principles of sustainability
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+ Environmental dilemmas
Are situation where self-interest lead human beings to mismanage
natural resource
1. Pollution
2. Global warming and climate change
3. Habitat destruction and land degradation
4. Natural resource shortage
5. Food shortage and famine
6. Loss of biodiversity and extinction
7. Energy source
8. Hazardous waste
Pollution
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Contamination of the environment by a chemical or other agent
that is harmful to health, survival, or activities of human or
other organism
Air, water, soil pollution
Pollutants could come from many different sources. They
could be inorganic compound (heavy metal, radioactive..),
organic compound (oil, pesticide..), biological (pathogen,
bacteria) or gas (CFC, CO2 , methane…)
Eutrophication is the ecosystem response to the addition of
artificial or natural substance (such as Nitrogen and
Phosphorus) to aquatic system. Example: Algae bloom, red tide
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Severe cultural eutrophication has covered this lake near
Water pollution
Point sources discharge pollutants
at specific locations through drain
pipes, ditches, or sewer lines into
bodies of surface water
Nonpoint sources are broad, diffuse
areas, rather than points, from
which pollutants enter bodies of
surface water or air
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Water pollution
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• Polluted ocean due to oil spill
Thi Vai River, Vung Tau
Water pollution
Pollution from domestic wastewater in Nhieu Loc canal,
HCMC
Air population
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Air pollutants could be
solid, liquid or gas that
from natural processes or
human activities.
Some issues:
Green-house effect
Ozone depletion
Acid rain
Visual pollution
Climate change and global warming
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Global warming
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Global warming:
Warming of the
earth’s lower
atmosphere
(troposphere) because
of increases in the
concentrations of one
of more greenhouse
gas (CO2, NOx… )
Greenhouse effect:
Heat is trapped.
WHY DO WE HAVE
ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS?
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Experts have identified four basic
causes of environmental problems
1. Population growth.
2. Unsustainable resource use.
3. Poverty.
4. Excluding environmental costs from
market prices.
Human population growth
The world’s population
presently grows by about
250,000 people per day.
This is roughly equivalent to
adding a new U.S. city of Los
Angeles, California, every 2
weeks, a new France every 9
months, and a new United
States—the world’s third most
populous country—about every
4 years.
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12
11
10
9
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Billions of people
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7
6
5
4
3
Industrial revolution
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Black Death—the Plague
1
0
2–5 million 8000 6000 4000 2000 2000 2100
years Time B. C. A. D.
Hunting and Agricultural revolution Industrial
gathering revolution
Fig. 1-11, p. 16
+ Human population
Human population
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The impact on environment increase with the growth of
human population and economic pattern.
To survive, human have modified, cultivated, built on and
degraded a large and increasing portion of earth’s natural
systems.
World population up to over 7.7 billion (16/9/ 2019)
The rate at which world’s population is growing has slowed
but is still increasing rapidly.
Rate 2.2% in 1963 and down to rate about 1.2% per year
(2005), 1.14% /year (2012) and 1.13 / year (2015)
Over-population leads to:
Resource depletion
Resource degradation
Pollution
Loss of biodiversity
TECHNOLOGY Taiwan tai
Giant Mekong catfish
BI
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Resource consumption
Underconsumption
Overconsumption
Affluenza: unsustainable
addiction to overconsumption
and materialism.
Poverty
Poverty
About 43% human live in extreme poverty
At least 11 billion people lack of adequate supply of
drinking water
At least 60 million people face severe food shortage due
to disasters and conflicts
When poor people exploit all resources at their living
place, they start to migrate to other location.
However, as a report of World Bank, the wealthiest (less
than 20% of world population) consume 80% of the world
resources.
Prices do not include the value of
natural capital
Using resources to provide goods and services does
not include its harmful environmental costs
Tax subsidies encourage the depletion and
degradation of natural capital
+ Sustainability
Our lives and economies depend on energy, natural resources
and natural services
Human are living unsustainability by depleting and
degrading natural capital
Living sustainably means living off the earth’s natural
income without depleting or degrading the natural capital
that supplies it.
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Sustainability
Three key subjects include social science, economics and
environment (Sustainable development)
The goal for
awareness of
environment and
global most
concerned issue
are sustainable
development
Three principles of sustainability
Reliance on solar
energy
Biodiversity
Nutrient recycling
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Solutions
Principles of Sustainability
How Nature Works Lessons for Us
Runs on renewable Rely mostly on renewable
solar energy. solar energy.
Recycles nutrients Prevent and reduce
and wastes. There pollution and recycle
is little waste in and reuse resources.
nature.
Preserve biodiversity
Uses biodiversity to
by protecting ecosystem
maintain itself and
services and habitats
adapt to new environ-
and preventing
mental conditions.
premature extinction of
species.
Controls a species’
population size and Reduce human births and
resource use by wasteful resource
interactions with its use to prevent
environment and environmental overload
other species. and depletion and
degradation of resources.
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Sustainability is not about the Earth.
The Earth is Fine.
Sustainability is about the survival of Humanity (the
human species) going forward- our children’s and
their children’s future
This is what is at risk!
Video
Watch a clip : A speech of Severn Suzuki –
12 years old, at UN Earth Summit in Brazil, 1992
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJJGuIZVfLM
1. List all environmental issue that she has included in her
speech
2. How can she attract the audiences to focus on her point
of view on environment issues.
Lesson 2
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Ecology: The basic of Environmental Science:
Reading : Chapter 2 and 3 of Miller T.G. and
Spoolman S.E. (2010), Environmental Science, 14th
edition, Cengage Learning Publisher, USA
