Knowledge Station 2020/2021

GERGS AYYAD 01553058768

Chapter (8): Externalities and Environmental Problems
Ecosystem: It is a set of living and non-living elements that interacts with each other regularly
and continuously to ensure a balance between those elements that lead to continuous life.
This system is called "re-life system."
The elements of Ecosystem: The elements of Ecosystem can be divided into four basic groups:
1-Non-living elements: Such as air, water, gas, metals, and soil.
2-Living productive elements: this group includes plant organisms that produce the Food
required for the third group.
3-Living consuming elements: it includes man and living being that gets its food from the
previous groups.
4-Unbundled elements: they are the elements that analyze organic substances, whether plant or
animal and turn them into its origins that are in the first group.
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Environment Definition: Everything surrounds us, involving living and non-living elements such
as air, water, land, soil, plants, animals and human beings. The environment also includes our
built, social and economic surroundings.
Environmental policy: It is the guidelines and rules for managing and protecting the environment.
Environmental sustainability: It maintains the environment in a responsible way to keep it
healthy for future generations.
Environmental Aspect: It is an element of human activity, product, or service that can interact
positively or negatively with the environment.
Environmental Impact: The change to the environment, whether good or bad wholly or partially
results from human activities, products or services.
Environmental Equilibrium: It means that the elements of Ecosystem associated with natural
cycles ensure its existence in the proportions created by God. Environmental Equilibrium breaks
down by adding an element to or decrease one or more from the Environmental system.
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Effluent, Degradation and Emissions:
Effluent: What sewage and industrial plants let out of the waste liquid.
Degradation: The lowering of the quality of the environment through human activities, e.g. river
degradation, soil degradation.
Emissions: Substances or fluids that are discharged or sent out such as car fumes "exhaust."
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Types of environment:
1-Natural environment: It includes all living and non-living organisms and all aspects of the
physical presence that surround men such as the ocean, air, water, land and space.
2-Industrial environment: These include physical infrastructure, which are man-made, such as
roads, bridges, airports, hospitals, industrial areas, commercial centers.
3-Social environment: It is a set of laws and regulations that organize the relations between
human beings as well as political and social institutions.
4-Cultural environment: These include the prevailing values, knowledge and the arts.
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The Economy and the Environment: It is an illustration of the primary linkages among
economic activity, human welfare, and the environment.

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Shows the relation between the environment and the
economy as we notice that the purpose of economic
activity is to satisfy human needs and achieve welfare
through production and consumption of goods by using
available resources in an environment this results in
residuals that are recycled or emissions come back to
the environment and its components of air, water and land.

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Shows in detail that emissions are coming from

operations of different production come back to
environmental components of air, water and land.
It has a general influence on welfare and causes
damages to environmental systems and man.

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Environmental Pollution: There is no accurate definition for the environmental pollution. It is
associated mainly with the ecological system, and the efficiency of this system reduces
significantly when a change in the harmonious movement occurs between the various factors of
the system. The quantitative or qualitative change which occurs to these elements causes a defect
in the equilibrium of the stated system. Hence, (the environmental pollution causes the addition of
an element which is non-existent in the environmental system or an increase or decrease in the
existence of one of its elements which eventually leads to the occurrence of defects in the
equilibrium of the system.)
The Following are examples of the definitions of the Environmental Pollution:
The existing status in the environment itself or resulted from the changes occurring in it which
cause harm, disease, or death either directly or indirectly or through the violation in the prevailing
environment systems.
Every quantitative or qualitative change in the components of the environments results in harms
in the lives of the living creatures such as humans or animal or plant as the environmental systems
cannot cope with it without causing an imbalance in its equilibrium.
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Any physical or chemical or biological changes which cause harmful effects on air, water or
earth or cause harm to the human health and cause negative effects on the production process in
the case of the renewable resources.

Anything caused as a result of the used technology, adds a strange material to air, water or the
earth cover in a quantitative form which influences the type of resources, causes non-suitability
and the loss of its properties or influence the stability of using these resources.

It becomes clear that all the definitions confirm that the environmental pollution cause harm
to the humans on the one hand and also causes defects in the environmental balance on the
other hand.
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Types of Environmental Pollutants: The environment pollutants are divided into the following:
Dividing the Pollutants according to the Absorptive Capacity of the Environment:
1) Accumulative Pollutants: These accumulative pollutants are those pollutants whose coping
capacity of the environment is low or equals zero. Therefore, it accumulates in the natural
environment across the time. These types of pollutants are defined as (Stock Pollutants) such as
Radioactive Waste, Heavy Metals such as Lead, Mercury, various Plastics).
2) Non-Accumulative Pollutants: These are those pollutants whose coping capacity of the
environment is large and hence they don't accumulate in the natural environment as they disappear
quickly after their emission. These types of pollutants are called (Flow Pollutants) such as Carbon
Dioxide, Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrous Oxides and Noise.
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Dividing the Pollutants According to the Horizontal Zone of Influence:
1) Local Pollutants: These are the pollutants which cause harm near their emission source.
Examples of these pollutants are Noise, Visual Impairments.

2) Regional Pollutants: These are the pollutants which cause harm far away from their emission
sources. Examples of these pollutants are:-
Carbon Dioxide: Sulfur Dioxide results from Coal Emissions, which are responsible for the
problem of Acid Rain as Sulfur Dioxide takes the form of gases, which comes out from the
industrial disposals and from the incomplete burning of the fuel.

3) Global Pollutants: The Global Pollutants are those pollutants which cause harm through
concentrating on the atmosphere of the earth.
Examples of this type of pollutants are:
Chlorofluoro carbon Substance: This substance is produced after the use of cooling gas used in
the production of refrigerators and air-conditioning systems.

Carbon Dioxide: This Pollutant is considered among the international pollutants because of its
contribution to the (Greenhouse Effect). It means the rise in the atmosphere temperature in the
world resulted from the defect in the natural equilibrium which occurs between the internal and
the external sun ray to and from the earth's atmosphere.

Good luck
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