ENS 290: REVIEW OF BASIC

CONCEPTS IN ENVIRONMENTAL
GEOGRAPHY
From:
Strahler and Strahler, 1979. Elements of Physical Geography. New
York: John Wiley and Sons.

By:
Doracie B. Zoleta-Nantes
Southern Luzon State University
September 13, 2020
 The EARTH - OUR HABITAT

Astronomical aspects of the physical as

environmental controls.
u The notion of the spherical earth
u Sailors observation of an optical phenomena -
sea surface is not flat, but curved
u Telescope, and the earth’s curvature.

u The sunset phenomenon and the peaks of high

mountains
u The ancient Greeks believed the earth to be
spherical.
EARTH ROTATION AND THE GEOGRAPHIC GRID

u Earth’s rotation on its axis and revolution around the sun

u One earth turn with respect to the sun defines the SOLAR
DAY.
u 24 hours - mean duration of the solar days
u Coordination and regulation of all cultural aspects of
human life
u Earth’s rotation and its cultural and physical effects.
u Earth’s spin on an axis and the system of geographic grid
 The direction of earth rotation

(1) looking down on the north pole of

the earth; the direction of turning is
counterclockwise.

(2) “the eastward rotation of the earth.”

(1) The direction of rotation of the earth

and the apparent motion of the sun,
moon and stars
u the earth’s spin and the generation of a
curved line. north pole
u one earth-turn and a full circle of parallel of and the south
latitude (Figure 1,4) pole, as fixed
points of
u The EQUATOR - a unique circle on the sphere
reference
u PARALLELS OF LATITUDE

u connecting one pole to the other, is known

as a MERIDIAN OF LONGITUDE
u Can pass through any point on the earth’s
surface.
Meridians define the cardinal directions east
and west.
u Every point on the globe has its unique
combination of one parallel and one meridian;
u defining the position of the point.
u The total system of parallels and meridians forms a
network of intersecting circles,
u It is a network of imaginary lines to pinpoint all
features of the earth’s spherical surface.

u LATITUDE is a measure of the position of a given

point in terms of the angular distance between the
equator and the poles.
u Latitude is an indicator of how far north or south
of the equator is situated
u Latitude is measured in degrees of arc
from the equator (0 degree) toward the
pole, where the value reaches 90 degrees
u All points north of the equator ---in the
northern hemisphere, that is --- are
designated as north latitude.
u All points south of the equator -- in the
southern hemisphere -- are designated as
south latitude.
u How to measure a latitude along a
meridian
u A latitude is an arc of that meridian.
u LONGITUDE is a measure of the position of a
point eastward or westward with respect to a
chosen reference meridian, called the prime
meridian.
u As figure 1.5 shows, the point P lies at
longitude 60 degrees west (long. 60 degrees
West).
u the Greenwich meridian
u The longitude of any given point on the globe
is measured eastward, or westward, from this
meridian
u Longitude may range from 0 degree to 180
degrees, east or west.
u Statements of latitude and longitude tell nothing about
distance in kilometers or miles.
u One degree of latitude is approximately equivalent to 111
km (69 miles) of surface distance in the north-south
direction.
u The value can be rounded off to 110 km (70 mi) for
multiplying in your head.
u East-west distances cannot be converted so easily from
degrees of longitude into kilometers because of the
convergence of meridians in the poleward direction.
u Only at the equator is a degree of longitude equivalent to
111km (69mi).
u At Latitude 60 degrees N or S, one degree of longitude is
reduced to half its equatorial value, or about 56km (35mi).
u Global time – another culture system is global time, determined by the
unceasing westward procession of imaginary hour circles.
u Besides generating the geographic grid, the rotation of a spherical earth has a
cultural impact on us through the phenomenon of global time.
u Our clocks run by the sun’s schedule, but the sun sends us only a single set of
parallel rays.
u This means that what is noon for persons on one side of the globe is midnight
for persons on the opposite side.
PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF EARTH ROTATION
u Earth rotation and environmental processes.
u Rotation and a daily, or diurnal rhythm on many
phenomena to which plants and animals respond.
u Plants respond to the daily rhythm by storing energy
during the day and releasing it at night.
u Animals adjust their activities to the daily rhythm, some
preferring the day, others the night for food-gathering
activities.
Earth rotation causes the flow paths of both air and water to be consistently turned in
direction:
- - toward the right hand in the northern hemisphere and toward the left in the
southern hemisphere.

This phenomenon goes by the name of the Coriolis effect.

The moon and its gravitational attraction on the earth - tidal motions cause water
currents of alternating direction to flow in shallow waters of the coastal zone.
Effects on livelihood systems and Existence of plants and animals

Earth rotation and

the Coriolis effect
u Simultaneously with its rotation on an axis,
the earth is is motion in an orbit around the sun.
This motion is called REVOLUTION.
u The earth completes its circuit about thesun
in about 365 ¼ days , a period known as the
TROPICAL YEAR.
u The important point about the period of the
earth’s revolution is that it sets the timing for THE EARTH
climatic seasons that profoundly influence life on IN ORBIT
areth
AROUND
u The Seasons – while its axis remains tilted, the
earth revolves about the sun to give us our THE SUN
astronomical seasons.
 THE HUMAN ENVIRONMENT

u The Life layer - a shallow zone at the surface of the lands and
oceans
u Understanding the spread of human beings and their
institutions on earth
u Inorganic earth realms – the life layer draws its qualities from
three inorganic earth realms; atmosphere, hydrosphere and
lithosphere

u The habitat of any plant or animal is the physical

environment in which any life form is most likely to be found –
for we are dependent on the habitats for food.
u The quality of the physical environment of the land is
established by factors, forces, and inputs coming from both the
atmosphere above and the solid earth below
u The gaseous realm–dictates climate, which governs
the exchange of heat and water between the
atmosphere and the ground.
u The atmosphere also supplies vital that are The
needed to sustain all life of the lands. atmosphere
u There is an OZONE Layer which is found at the
stratosphere which sets in at an altitude of about 20
km and extends upwards to 55 km.

u The ozone layer is a region of concentration of the

form of oxygen molecule known as ozone (O3) in
which three oxygen atoms are combined instead of
the usual two atoms.
u If these ultraviolet rays were to reach the earth’s
surface in full intensity, all exposed bacteria would be
destroyed and animal tissues severely damaged
 Water permeates the life layer, the overlying
atmosphere, and the underlying solid earth.
The hydrosphere includes all free water as water vapor,
liquid water, and ice.
u Water held in the soil within reach of plant roots,
comprises 0.005 percent.
The
u surface water amounts to about 0.02 percent of the
hydrosphere.
u subsurface water; makes up just over 0.6 percent of the
HYDROSPHERE
hydrosphere.
u water held as vapor and cloud particles in the
atmosphere is very small – that is 0.001 percent of the
hydrosphere;
- its Importance is enormous because this is the avenue of
supply of all fresh water.
u The importance of the oceans is felt in a wide range of dimensions
and scales.
u As we shall see, the oceans effectively moderate the seasonal
extremes of temperature over much od the earth’s surface.
u The ocean’s supply water vapor to the atmosphere and are the basic
source of all rain that falls on the lands.
u This rainfall, the source of human’s vital freshwater supplies
originates from the ocean surface by a process of distillation of salt
water.
u Oceans have served as source of food and trackless surfaces of
transport important to humn civilization development.

THE OCEANS
u The solid earth realm, or A mineral is a naturally occurring
lithosphere is earth’s shell, of rigid inorganic substance, usually
brittle rock. possessing definite chemical
u The solid earth is also the basic composition and a characteristic
source of many nutrient elements, atomic structure. ; e.g., the table salt.
without which plants and animals There are many harder ones, such as
cannot live.
aluminum, calcium, magnesium,
u The lithosphere ranges in thickness titanium. .
from 40-80 km. ; thickest under the
continents (8)km) and thinnest
(40km) under the ocean basins. THE LITHOSPHERE
u It is divided into lithospheric plates
that glide on the soft layer beneath
the lithosphere called as
ASTHENOSPHERE.
THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT INORGANIC
REALMS:

u (1) The three spheres of inorganic matter occupy layer like shells over the
globe because of differences in the density of the three type of substances
u

u (2) Each of the three spheres has a distinctive chemical makeup,

inherited from its origin in the geologic past.
u (3) the biosphere requires materials from all three inorganic spheres.

u The flow systems in the MATERIAL CYCLES include the organisms in the
biosphere.
u These elements are eleased from organic matters as they decompose
and are returned to the inorganic realms.
 THE PLACE OF THE BIOSPHERE AMONG THE
INORGANIC REALMS
u The biosphere had its origins after the atmosphere, hydrosphere, ad
lithosphere – that is where life come into existence.
u No evidence has yet been found to pinpoint the time when life began on
our planet,
u However, the event is often placed roughly at 3 and ½ billion years ago.
u This is about one billion years after the planet came into existence.
u As we have seen, the first billion years was probably a period of great
igneous disruption during which outgassing was in progress.
u Only after the internal structure of the earth was stabilized and early
continents and ocean basins appeared was the environment favorable for life
to evolve.
u At first, the biosphere was limited to a layer well
below the surface of the ocean, for the oxygen content
of the atmosphere was extremely low.
u There was no ozone layer to shield the ocean and
land surface from intense ultraviolet radiation from
the sun.
u By about – 1 billion years, the oxygen content of the
atmosphere had increased enough that an ozone layer
could form.
u Then complex life forms could survive in very
shallow oceanwater and it was not long before land
plants appeared and the first forests came into
existence about 400 million years ago.
u The diversified lifeforms were spread over the
entire land and water surface of the earth
u The chemical composition of terrestrial life use Of the
readily available chemical ingredients from those interacting
realms,
u Environmental regions have different special life-supporting
qualities
u Acting together, the inputs of energy and materials into the
life layer from atmosphere and solid earth determine the
quality of the environmental region; and, the richness or
poverty of organic life it can support
u A given environmental region usually has certain definite
location on the globe in terms of latitude and continental
position.
u A major goal of environmental geography is to evaluate each
environmental region in terms of its life-support capacity.
u It is vital to have a clear OUR IMPACT ON
understanding of the environment in
THE
planning for the survival o f the earth’s
rapidly expanding human population. ENVIRONMENT
u Survival will not only depend on how
much fresh water and food is available
but also on protecting the environment
from forms of pollution and destruction
that will reduce the capacity of the land
to furnish those necessities.
u As environmental scientist, we need
to evaluate the impact of human
activities on the natural environment.
 This is the end of the lecture.

uTo kick off the activities in this class,

please undertake and complete
ACTIVITY 1 and ACTIVITY 2.