Anthropogenic pressure on the

environment
 Anthropogenic pressure
Anthropogenic pressure is result of human activity,
that has an effect on biophysical environments.
The term anthropogenic designates an effect or
object resulting from human activity. The term
was first used in English by British ecologist
Arthur Tansley in reference to human influence
on climax plant communities. The term has an
objective character.
Nowadays, we live in the environment, which is
changed by human. It is no more natural.
 Milestones
I milestone
domestication of some animals and plants and semi-
permanent settlement

II milestone
The “taming” of wind - using wind in oceanic sailing and
development of navigation

III milestone
Development of industry, particularly of chemical industry,
which introduced into the environment unknown in nature
chemical compounds
 I milestone
The anthropogenic pressure began with
domestication of some animals and plants and
semi-permanent settlement. It was 9000 – 8000
years BC (10000 years ago). Domestication of
plants means, that seeds were consciously and
intentionally selected and kept for the next
season. People had to stay in one place long
enough to collect crops. Only after that, they
could move to another place.
Examples from Asia Minor from the area of the Fertile
Crescent are well documented by archaeologists

Before people settled down in

various parts of the world,
humans lived as nomads for
tens of thousands of years.
Nomads are people who have
no permanent home and travel
in search of food and safety.

The Fertile Crescent is a boomerang-shaped region

that extends from the eastern shore of the
Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf.
 Domestication of animals
Species Place of domestication Time of domestication
Dog Many places in Europe, Asia and North The oldest find is dating 31 000 years ago
America (Denmark, Germany, England, Iran, at Goyet Cave in Belgium
Israel, Turkey, Japan, areas of Idaho –USA)
Sheep Iraq 11 000 years ago

Goat Iran 10 000 years ago

Pig Greece /Turkey 9 000 years ago

Cow Greece (Thessaly) 9 000 years ago

Turkey (Anatolia)
Horse Ukraine 6 350 years ago

Silkworm China 5 500 years ago

Llama Peru 5 500 years ago

Donkey Egypt 5 000 years ago

Camel The Arabian Peninsula 5 000 years ago

Bee Egypt / Mexico 5 000 years ago

Hen Pakistan 4 000 years ago

 Domestication of plants
Species Place of domestication Time of domestication

Wheat Mesopotamia 10 000 years ago

Barley Mesopotamia 10 000 years ago
Millet China 8 000 years ago
Tomato Latin America 8 000 years ago
Pumpkin Latin America 8 000 years ago
Rice China 7 000 yeras ago
Maize Latin America 7 000 years ago
 II Milestone
The “taming” of wind - using wind in oceanic
sailing and development of navigation
Christopher Columbus, and his four across
Atlantic Ocean exploration voyages with
successful attempts of establishing
a settlement on the island Hispaniola.
He initiated the process of Spanish
colonization, which foreshadowed general
European colonization of the "New World".
 II Milestone
Columbus' initial 1492 voyage came at
a critical time of emerging modern western
imperialism and economic competition
between developing kingdoms seeking wealth
from the establishment of trade routes and
colonies. Columbus’ voyages have moulded
the future of European colonization and
encouraged European exploration of foreign
lands for centuries to come.
 II Milestone
Europeans liked very much their lifestyle,
religion, habits in production and
consumption. They tried to spread all of them,
wherever they reached. By the way they had
spread germs (microbes) and different species
of plants and animals. They brought exotic
species to Europe and from one continent to
another.
 II Milestone
Conscious introduction of species:
• Coffee
• Tea
• Sugarcane
• Potatoes
• Eucalyptus
• Soy
• …
 Examples of spreading species
• Coffee
For coffee bush, country of origin is Ethiopia. The Dutch
founded first coffee plantation on Ceylon island in 1658.
Then they spread coffee cultivation on Java and other
islands. The French had plantations on Martinique and in
French Guyana.
In 1719 the Portuguese stole coffee plants from Guyana and
soon were very successful with cultivation of coffee bushes
in Brazil. Coffee started to be very popular and relatively
cheap. It stopped to be a beverage for social elites.
In 19th century and first decades of 20th century Brazil
monopolised the coffee market.
Main producers of coffee (million tons)
• Brazil 2,44
• Vietnam 1,17
• Colombia 0,88
• Indonesia 0,70
• India 0,28
• Ethiopia 0,26
• Mexico 0,25
• Peru 0,25
• Guatemala 0,24
• Honduras 0,20
Word total: 8,34
Examples of spreading species
Sugarcane
Country of origin: New
Guinea (?) (Pacific Ocean)
 Main producers of sugarcane (million
tonnes 2015)
• Brazil 728,1
• India 349,5
• China 123,5
• Thailand 96,5
• Pakistan 58,5
• Mexico 51,7
• Colombia 38,7
• Philippines 32,9
• United States 28,0
• Indonesia 27,4
 Examples of spreading species
• Tea
Country of origin: China
Main producers of tea (Metric Tonnes)
• China 1,640,310
• India 966,733
• Kenya 369,400
• Sri Lanka 340,000
• Turkey 230,115
• Vietnam 217,000
• Iran 158,910
• Indonesia 150,478
• Argentina 102,890
• Japan 85,990
 Spreading of animal species-
examples

• Horses in Americas and Australia (intentional)

• Goats on Galapagos (coincidental)
• Rabbits in Australia (coincidental)
 Impact on the environment
Growth of population (bln.)
Year Population Year Populatio
1000 0,31 1980 4,44
1500 0,5 1990 5,27
1800 0,98 2000 6,06
1900 1,65 2010 6,79
1910 1,75 2020 7,50
1920 1,86 2030 8,11
1930 2,07 2040 8,58
1940 2,30 2050 8,91
1950 2,52 2100 9,46
1960 3,02
1970 3,70 Source: United
Nations Population
Division
 Impact of settlement and
urbanization 1.
• Occupation of space for residential,
commercial, industrial, and transportation
uses,
• Conversion of forests, meadows, and other
lands for housing, transportation, and
commercial purposes,
• Concentration of waste products, sewage, and
debris, with disposal ramifications,
• Gas and dust emission,
 Impact of settlement and
urbanization 2.
• Noise emission,
• Light pollution,
• Sanitary risks,
• Urban heat island effect,
• Increase the amount of impervious surfaces
 Impact of agriculture 1.

• Natural habitat fragmentation and conversion

into farming fields and pastures, including
clear cutting of forests, (tropical rainforests!),
• Diversion of surface water (rivers) and
extraction of groundwater;
• Ground water salinization due to inadequate
drainage;
• Pollution of soil and water by chemicals found
in fertilizer and pesticides;
 Example: Aral See
In the 1960s, the Soviet Union
undertook a major water diversion
project on the arid plains of Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The
region’s two major rivers, fed by
snowmelt and precipitation in faraway
mountains, were used to transform the
desert into farms for cotton and other
crops. Before the project, the Syr Darya
and the Amu Darya rivers flowed down
from the mountains, cut northwest
through the Kyzylkum Desert, and finally
pooled together in the lowest part of the
basin. The lake they made, the Aral Sea,
was once the fourth largest in the world.
Although irrigation made the desert
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of- bloom, it devastated the Aral Sea.
change/AralSea
 Impact of agriculture 2.
• Freshwater ecology degradation - eutrophication (nutrient-
enrichment) of surface water - runoff caused algal blooms
and resulting anoxic environments in lakes, ponds, and
streams,
• Genetic pollution of native flora and habitats,
• Deforestation - disturbance practices for creation of
temporarily rich soils; such as slash-and-char for "terra
preta" - a type of very dark, fertile manmade
(anthropogenic) soil found in the Amazon Basin. It is also
known as "Amazonian dark earth" or "Indian black earth".
• Converting old or second growth mixed woodlands into
plantation monocultures.
 Impact of industry 1
• Emissions of gases and dust into the
atmosphere, leading to climate change, ozone
layer depletion etc.
• Waste disposal practices,
• Water pollution,
• Soil pollution and degradation,
• Light pollution,
• Noise pollution,
 Impact of industry 2
• Environmental acidification (surface water, soil,
precipitation),
• Electromagnetic radiation,
• Ionizing radiation,
• Natural resources exploitation,
• Landscape degradation,
• Soil compression, reducing groundwater
recharging.
• Health risk,
• Environmental damage risk.
 Impact of mining
• Removal of topsoil,
• Water pollution,
• Diversion and pollution of groundwater by mine
tunnels and shafts, (dry wells),
• Surface degradation by piles and mining wastes –
tailing mine repositories,
• Air pollution by mining activity and refining processes,
• Altering of nitrogen cycle by mining of guano,
• Creation of artificial wetlands and lakes in opencast
mining areas, providing habitat for introduced species,
and possibly endangered species.
Bełchatów – brown coal mining and
electro power station
 Brown coal open mine Olbersdorf
Germany

The Olbersdorfer See is an opencast mine in the area of the municipality

Olbersdorf in the district Görlitz in Germany. With 60 hectares, it is the largest
water area in the vicinity of Zittau and serves as recreational and recreational
waters.

Circular trails of 4.5 kilometers and 6 kilometers in length lead around the
lake. The storage volume of the lake, which is up to 40 meters deep, is around
6 million cubic meters. Its water surface is at an altitude of 236.5 meters
above sea level.
 Impact of transport
• Occupation of space,
• Surface fragmentation,
• Noise emission,
• Air pollution,
• Water pollution,
• Landscape degradation,
• Sea oil spills,
• Degradation of natural ecosystems,
• Waste, wrecks.
 Impact of services
• Pollutant emissions,
• Waste production,
• Occupation of space by infrastructure,
• Risk to sensitive ecosystems (particularly
caused by tourist sector),
• Natural resource exploitation.
 Global environmental problems
• Problems, which arise and which we can
observe only on the global level (ozone
depletion, climate change, degradation of
atmosphere, ocean pollution ...)

• Problems, which are global because of their

universality (land degradation, waste disposal,
habitat destruction, sewage...)
 Pollution
Pollution of air, water and soil require millions of
years to recoup. Industry and motor vehicle exhaust
are the main source of pollutants. Heavy metals,
nitrates and plastic are responsible for pollution.
• water pollution is caused by oil spill, acid rain,
urban runoff;
• air pollution is caused by various gases and toxins
released by industries and factories and
combustion of fossil fuels;
• soil pollution is majorly caused by industrial
waste that deprives soil from essential nutrients.
 Atmosphere degradation
and air pollution
Emissions which trigger:
• climate change (greenhouse gases – carbon
dioxide, methane, water vapor, nitrous oxide,
ozone and industrial gases)
• ozone layer depletion (chlorofluorocarbons)
• acid rain (sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides)
 Climate change
Climate change is an environmental problem
that has surfaced in last couple of decades. It
occurs due to rise in global warming (increase in
average temperature of atmosphere) by burning
of fossil fuels and release of harmful gases by
industries and agriculture (animal breeding) and
land use change.
 Climate change
Nowadays polar sea ice and some mountain
glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate.
It’s perhaps the most dramatic, visual evidence
of global warming. Climate change has various
harmful effects not limited to melting of polar
ice. This is the cause of change in seasons,
occurrence of new diseases, frequent
occurrence of floods and change in overall
weather scenario.
 Ozone layer depletion 1
The ozone layer is an invisible layer around the
planet that protects us from the sun’s harmful UV
radiation. Depletion of the crucial Ozone layer of
the atmosphere is attributed to pollution caused by
Chlorine and Bromide found in Chloro-floro carbons
(CFC’s). Once these toxic gases reach the upper
atmosphere, they cause a hole in the ozone layer,
the biggest of which is above the Antarctic. The
CFCs are banned in many industries and consumer
products.
 Ozone layer depletion 2
A chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) is an organic compound
that contains carbon, chlorine, and fluorine,
produced as a volatile derivative of methane and
ethane. They are also commonly known by the
DuPont trade name Freon. The most common
representative is dichlorodifluoromethane (R-12 or
Freon-12). Many CFCs have been widely used as
refrigerants, propellants (in aerosol applications),
blowing agents, and solvents in aerosol sprays, air-
conditioners, refrigerators, air-conditioned cars,
pesticides, fire-extinguisher, flame retardants etc.
They contribute to ozone depletion.
 Ozone layer depletion 3
Applications exploit the low toxicity, low reactivity,
and low flammability of the CFCs and HCFCs. Every
permutation of fluorine, chlorine, and hydrogen
based on methane and ethane has been examined
and most have been commercialized.
Billions of kilograms of chlorodifluoromethane are
produced annually as a precursor to
tetrafluoroethylene, the monomer that is converted
into Teflon.
Acid rain (sulphur dioxide, nitrogen
oxides)
Acid rain occurs due to the presence of certain
pollutants in the atmosphere. It can be caused due to
combustion of fossil fuels or erupting volcanoes or
rotting vegetation which release sulfur dioxide and
nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere. Nitrogen oxides
can also be produced naturally by lightning strikes.
It is a form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, i.e.
elevated levels of hydrogen ions (low pH). It can have
harmful effects on plants, aquatic animals, and
infrastructure through the process of wet deposition.
Acid rain occurs when dew point is reached in the
troposphere and SOx and/or NOx are present.
 Loss of Biodiversity
Human activity is leading to the extinction of
species and habitats and loss of bio-diversity.
Ecosystems, which took millions of years to perfect,
are in danger when any species population is
declining. Habitat degradation is currently the main
anthropogenic cause of species extinctions. The
main cause of habitat degradation worldwide is
agriculture, with urban sprawl, logging, mining and
some fishing practices. Balance of natural processes
is crucial to the survival of the ecosystem and
human activity threatens the same.
 Examples
• the physical destruction of a habitat, both
directly (deforestation for agriculture
development or timber) and indirectly
(burning fossil fuels);
• mammal extinction;
• destruction of coral reefs in oceans;
• the ocean dead zones,
• deforestation, etc.
 Mammal extinction
One of four mammals is threatened with
extinction. That’s 25%, a huge number that
will totally change the ecology of every corner
of the earth. We could see thousands of
species die out in our lifetime. The rate of
habitat loss and hunting in crucial areas like
Southeast Asia, Central Africa and Central and
South America is growing rapidly. animals
barely have a chance.
 Mammals extinction - Australia
• In Australia 10% of its 273 terrestrial
mammals, has become extinct since European
settlement - a loss of one to two species per
decade);
• 21% of Australia's mammals are threatened
 Endangered species - Poland

pygmy owl
Brown bear

wolf

grey seal

Lynx
porpoise
 Ocean acidification
It is a direct impact of excessive production of
CO2. 25% of CO2 produced by humans. The
ocean acidity has increased by the last 250 years
but by 2100, it may shoot up by 150%. The main
impact is on shellfish and plankton in the same
way as human osteoporosis.
 The ocean dead zones
In oceans around the world, there are “dead zones” -
areas that are devoid of nearly all life. These “dead
zones” are characterized by a lack of oxygen. They are
caused by excess nitrogen from farm fertilizers, and
sewage. The number of dead zones has been growing
fast – since the 1960’s, the number of dead zones has
doubled every 10 years. They range in size from less
than a square mile to 45,000 square miles. In March
2004, UN Environment Programme published its first
Global Environment Outlook Year Book (GEO Year Book
2003), it reported 146 dead zones in the world's
oceans where marine life could not be supported due
to depleted oxygen levels.
The ocean dead zones

The most infamous one of

all is in the Gulf of Mexico it
is a product of toxic sludge
that flows down the
Mississippi from farms in
the Midwest.
Collapsing fish stock – overfishing and
other threats to fish population
Millions of people across the world depend on
fish as a major staple in their diet. Commercial
fishermen have been pulling such a huge
quantity of fish from the oceans, that we are
heading toward a global collapse of all species
currently fished – possibly as soon as the year
2048. Like large-scale mammal extinction, the
collapse of fish species would have a major
impact on the world’s ecosystems.
 Deforestation
Forests are natural sinks of carbon dioxide and
produce fresh oxygen as well as helps in
regulating temperature and rainfall. At present
forests cover 30% of the land. Deforestation
simply means clearing of green cover and make
that land available for residential, industrial or
commercial purpose.
 Amazon rainforest
Half of the Amazon rainforest is likely to be
destroyed or severely damaged by 2030.
 Amazon rainforest
Agriculture, drought, fire, livestock ranching,
reduced rainfall, triggered by global warming cause
major damage of the Amazon rainforest. These
factors will destroy up to 80 percent of the rain
forest’s wildlife. Losing 60 percent of the rain
forests would accelerate global warming and affect
rainfall in places sometimes far away from places
where rain forest normally grow. Massive
destruction of the rain forests would have a domino
effect on the rest of the world.
 Desertification
The melting mountain glaciers provide less and less
water feeding the river (e.g. Yangtze, Brahmaputra,
Indus, Mekong, Irrawaddy in Asia, Rhone in
Europe).
One in ten rivers does not reach its natural estuary
for at least part of the year because of using its
water in economic purposes (irrigation of fields, but
also golf courses, living purposes, industry,
recreation (swimming pools).
Some areas receive less rainfall because of climate
change.
 Microplastics
Microplastics, which are particles measuring less
than 5 mm, are of increasing concern. They not
only become more relevant as other plastic
marine litter breaks down into tiny particles,
they also interact with species in a range of
marine habitats. A new study takes a look at
how global climate change and the impact of
changing ocean circulation affects the
distribution of marine microplastic litter.
Microplastic in oceans
 Anthropocene
The name Anthropocene is a combination of anthropo- from
anthropos (Ancient Greek: ἄνθρωπος) meaning "human" and
-cene from kainos (Ancient Greek: καινός) meaning "new" or
"recent.„
The term anthropocene is used in scientific contexts. The new
epoch has no agreed start-date, but one proposal, based on
atmospheric evidence, is to fix the start with the Industrial
Revolution c. 1780, with the invention of the steam engine.
Evidence of relative human impact – such as the growing
human influence on land use, ecosystems, biodiversity, and
species extinction – is substantial; scientists think that human
impact has significantly changed (or halted) the growth of
biodiversity.
 Anthropocene
The concept of the Anthropocene was popularized
by Paul Crutzen -a Dutch, Nobel Prize-winning (1995),
atmospheric chemist.

The theory of the Anthropocene is based on the assumption

that, due to the effects of increased population and economic
development on the global environment, humanity should be
considered a major geological and geobiological factor on Earth.
Along with other scientists, Paul Crutzen, who coined the term,
argued human-induced changes in the earth system were of
such deep impact and long duration that one could speak of a
new epoch in Earth’s history. In addition, the Anthropocene
concept argues for a new, holistic view of the role of humans in
shaping natural systems.
Jan Zalasiewicz - Emeritus profesor of
palaeobiology at Univesity of Leicester
2011 The Anthropocene: a new epoch of geological time? Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society (WILLIAMS, M., ZALASIEWICZ, J., HAYWOOD,
A. & ELLIS M.)
2010. The Planet in a Pebble: a Journey through Earth History. Oxford
University Press.
2008. The Earth After Us: The Legacy That Humans Will Leave In The Rocks.
Oxford University Press.