Transcript Soil Pollution

Land Usage and
Management
Land Usage
• We use land for several things:
– Residential- Homes and living spaces
– Agricultural- Land that produces food for
human consumption
– Industrial- Factories and places that make
items
– Commercial- Stores and places that make
money
– Wild Lands-Land that is not used for
anything, but allowed to be natural and
wild.
Land Usage
• Any time that humans use land, they
change the native ecosystem.
• Forests become grasslands (NYS),
deserts become grasslands (Las Vegas)
• This can change the biodiversity of an
ecosystem
Just outside Las
Vegas
Desert Rose Golf
Club, Las Vegas
Why Do Humans Change the
Ecosystems?
• To have a place to
live (residential)
• To grow food
(agricultural)
• To have a place to
make stuff
(industrial)
• To have a place to
buy stuff
(commercial)
Residential Issues
• Houses take up space! AND people
want lush green grass yards!
• Suburban sprawl-The spread of
housing developments around the
outside of cities
– Often built on wetlands
– Generate tons of solid waste (waste that
is solid)
Agricultural Issues
• A lot of land is used to grow just one
kind of plant (crop)
• Often harsh chemical pesticides and
fertilizers are used
• These pesticides can runoff and
containment water supplies
Industrial Issues
• Industry uses a lot of water…195 billion
gallons of water per day.
• Industry also has to get rid of its waste
products. To do this cheaply, they just
dump the wastes into the nearest stream…
– This causes pollution, and is illegal, but its
expensive to get rid of the waste ecologically,
so some companies still pollute.
Superfund
• Superfund is a law
• It states that when the EPA identifies
polluters, they can make those polluters
clean up the pollution
• OR make the polluters pay to have it
cleaned up.
• Sometimes, they can’t find or make the
polluters pay though
• The money for Superfund comes from
taxes on oil and energy companies
Commercial Issues
• Commercial properties take up SPACE.
• This is space that organisms can’t use
anymore.
• Also, commercial properties produce a lot
of waste, both water and solid.
• Parking Lots!
Wild Spaces
• Parks are NOT wild! They are gardens,
where humans sculpture them for their
own uses.
• True wilderness areas are free from the
direct influence of humans
• The Endangered Species Act of 1972
preserves the habitat (land) of
endangered species