- What what are the component of environment?
- What is the interaction between them?
If the above mentioned question is your querie, so for the answer keep reading this blog.
Here we covered all the major components of the environment with their importance, occupancy and why they are useful for us.
We also tried to discuss interaction between these components.
you want to know exact meaning of environment check out this article first.
If you already know that then keep reading this article.
Environment can be divided into four components
Atmosphere
Atmosphere is the mixture of various gases and water vapours and sub atomic particles that entirely covers the earth expanding outward several thousand kilometres .
The major gases in pollution free dry air are nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%) Argon (0.9 -1.0) and carbon dioxide.
The minor gases include neon ,helium ,methane ,hydrogen ,carbon monoxide ,ozone.
Most of the above values remain practically unchanged with respect to time.
However the concentration of carbon dioxide is increasing by about 1.5 PPM as a result of deforestation and increased air pollution from automobiles and industries.
Structure of atmosphere
On the basis of temperature profiles and other related phenomena ,atmosphere is divided into five major layer.
Troposphere ->
Troposphere is the lowest portion of the atmosphere which extended up to 8 km at the poles and 16 km at equator.
On an average is extended up to 10 to 11 kilometre from the Earth surface. The temperature in this region decrease at the rate 5-7° Celsius per kilometre .
There are stronger vertical air movement in this region which are responsible for the rapid and complete mixing.
Short term properties of the troposphere (temperature ,wind, pressure, humidity, cloud ) at a given place and time are called weather.
Stratosphere ->
It is above troposphere and extended up to 55 km. Up to 20 km temperature remains constant then increases with increase in the height . Ozone layer is in this layer.
Mesosphere ->
It is the layer above stratosphere and extended up to 80 km . Here temperature decrease slowly with altitude but then sharply to about - 75° Celsius.
Thermosphere->
Temperature increases rapidly with increase in height. The heating of the layer is due to the absorption of the solar energy .
Within the thermosphere there is a layer of charged particle known as ionosphere.
Exosphere->
Very little is known about this layer. That exist above the ionosphere and extended up to 2000 kilometre above the earth.
This layer is almost airless and empty. It probably contain hydrogen gas in ionized state .
It has a very high temperature.(>1200°C).
Hydrosphere
The hydrosphere is in fact the water environment. About 70% of the Earth is covered by water.
That's why the earth is known as "blue planet "
Water is available in sea, ocean, lack, river, glacier and groundwater.
Water sources water volume
Ocean and sea 96.5
Glacier 1.73
Lakes 0.013
It is estimated that the hydrosphere contain about 1360 million cubic kilometre of water out of which 97% is in the oceans and sea, 2% in glacier and ice caps.
While remaining 1% fresh water is available for human consumption.
Water is the main constituent in all the living organism and act as an important resource for human life .
According to the report, an ordinary person can survive up to 4 days without water.
Hydrosphere also provides food and other useful resources like petroleum, natural gases ,precious metal like gold and silver and by using today's technology we can also produce electricity.
Lithosphere
The outer soil crust or solid portion of the Earth is known is lithosphere.
Lithosphere contains, forest ,deserts and also provide useful mineral ,resources like petroleum, food and other important stuff.
It also contain all organic as well inorganic matter and some extent of atmosphere and hydrosphere.
This lithosphere is divided into seven continents.
Continent land
Asia 30%
Europe 20.3%
Africa 16.3%
North America 12%
South America 8.9%
Australia 6.7%
Antarctica 5.2%
These seven continents are divided into 195 countries in which China is largest and Vatican city is smallest country of the world.
Lithosphere providers food, without land human are not able to produce food.
It provides ecosystem to all organisms . It gives shelter to all forms of life . Major population of Earth live on the land.
Biosphere
Biosphere is the outer crust of the earth which includes all the organisms and their environment.
It is also known as a sum or combination of other components of the environment.
It extends from the lowest sea bed level to about 24 km of the atmosphere.
The living organisms interact with one another in biosphere and sustain their life.
The life supporting resources are also available from the biosphere. The organisms on biosphere are divided into plant kingdom and animal kingdom.
Through this sustaining and assimilative capacity of the biosphere is tremendous but it is not infinite .
The system is in operation for millions of year but now it is showing stress, primarily due to the impact of human upon environment.
Interaction Between Different Components of Environment.
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Interelationship between verious
Components of Environment |
There are four major environmental component or conceptual sphere.
Atmosphere ,hydrosphere ,lithosphere and biosphere.
A schematic representation of the four environmental component and their interrelationship is shown in the figure
Circle represent the sphere and the curved arrows indicate the flow path of matter.
There is a closed, dynamic, inseperable, organic coupling or interrelationship among the environmental component.
If one component or linkages changes, all other components respond.
Every spear has two way linkage to every other sphere including itself.
The two ways to linkage signifies that matter may flow from one company to another in both directions.
Some arrows shows the transfer within a given component from one location to another indicated movement of the substance from one physical location to other without leaving this sphere.
Since matter cannot be destroyed or created the major objective is to find the location and chemical form of the substance at any given time.
The atmosphere may be considered as a transport component that moves substances from atmosphere sources to the receptors .
Its storage capacity is small compared to the other spheres but is has an immense (great) capacity for spatially redistribution matter.
The hydrosphere may be further classified into two sub-components:
One is conveyor that is a River system which collects the substances within the watershed and delivers them to the second sub-component that is ocean.
The lithosphere is solid shell of inorganic material on the surface of the earth. It is composed of soil particles and underlying rocks down to depth of 50 kilometre.
Within the soil biochemical reactions by microorganisms are responsible for most of the chemical changes of matter . However, soil and rocks are mainly storage components for deposited matter.
The biosphere is the thin shell of organic matter on the earth surface comprising of all the living things .
It occupies the least volume of all sphere but it is the cause of majority of the flow of matter across the nature.
Weathering through hydrologic cycle ,blowing winds and volcanic releases are some of the mobilizing agents.
The biosphere is responsible for the grand scale recycling of energy and matter on the earth.
The mobilization of matter is not restricted to a small area.
For example; burning of forest not only changes chemical form of matter but also result in atmospheric transport and deposition.
Some of the biologically released chemicals including carbon ,nitrogen and sulphur have long atmospheric residence times, resulting in continental and global scale redistribution.
Conclusion
I hope through this article on your queries about components of the environment will be solved.
We also tried to find out how futher we can divide this component.
I hope this article give all your answers completed.
For more queries comment down below
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