 “The earth provides enough to satisfy

every person’s need but not every

person’s greed”
- Mahatma Gandhi

 Definition : It is the physical and

biotic habitat that surrounds us.
 Landmark judgment of
supreme court

 To prescribe a course on the

environment for colleges
 To consider the feasibility of
making it compulsory subject at
every level in college education.
 ENVIRONMENTAL
LEGISLATION
 Article 51A(g) of the constitution provides “It
shall be the duty of every citizen of India to
protect & improve the natural environment
including forests, lakes, rivers& wildlife& to
have compassion for living creatures.
 Article 48-A of the constitution provides “The
state shall Endeavour to protect & improve the
environment & to safeguard forests & wildlife
of the country”
 Legal Obligation
 VTU has introduced the subject at I Year level
as a Core Subject, in compliance with UGC
directive (2005) Supreme Court in it’s
Judgment has made learning of the subject
Mandatory at Under Graduate Level.
(1991)University Grants Commission has
Directed all affiliated institutions to
compulsorily teach the subject, for all the
branches of Engineering (2004).
You are going to be Modern day Professionals

Being Modern day Professionals, You will be

required to encounter Environment related problems
at all levels- Most importantly as Technical Managers
directly facing the Society at large.
 
What do You Mean by this ?
In what way we are responsible ?
 Industrial Investors
Technical
Professionals

Society in General

SOCIETAL PYRAMID

OH! We are a class of our own

Industrial Usage

Societal Usage

RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION PYRAMID

But our base is shaky!! We got to face the Problems !!

Bosses will ask you to face the public !!
 Environmentalism...

 Who initiated environmentalism?

 Its Rachel Carson
 She in 1962 published a book named “Silent
Spring”
 In that she explained about DDT’s health
hazards.

 Its James
Lovelock in 1972 Created the
“Gaia Theory” and continued the
environmental awareness.
 The science that deals with our eco system is
Ecology.
 Berry commoner explains about ecology as
“The 1st law of ecology is that everything is
related to everything else”
 According to him an ecosystem can be viewed
as a biotic assemblage of plants, animals,
microbes taken together with their physico-
chemical environment.
 The term ecosystem was coined in 1935 by
the British ecologist Sir Arthur George
Tansley, who described natural systems in
“constant interchange among their living
and nonliving parts”

 The term “Ecology” is derived from GREEK

“oikos” which means “House”

 Similarly the term “Ecosystem” was

originated from FRENCH
 The external
factors may be either
living
organisms (biotic
factors) or nonliving
variables (abiotic
factors), The
interactions of
organisms with biotic
and abiotic factors
form an ecosystem.
Redwood National Park, which covers 455 sq km (176 sq mi) along
California’s northwestern coast, represents one of the last remaining
ancient redwood forests in the world
Grass Lands: Millions of hectares of grass
lands has been over grazed, some especially
in Africa and in the middle east have been
converted to desert.
 Ecology mainly has 3 groups:
 Producers: Plants, bacteria that have
capacity of producing their own food
 Consumers: Animals that obtain energy and
protein directly by grazing, feeding on
other animals or both
 Decomposers/Recyclers: These are fungi
and bacteria that decompose the organic
matter into inorganic substances that can be
reused. So these are the “Recyclers of
biosphere”.
Some terms about ecosystem:

 Ecological footprint: The minimum area

where in components of ecosystem can
sustain to live indefinite period.

 Homeostasis: The tendency of ecosystem to

maintain an equilibrium and to resist the
changes
 Two important aspects of ecology:


Autecology- It is a study of individual species
and its population


Synecology- It is the study of communities, their
composition and their behavior
Biome & ecosystem:
1)Terrestrial :-Forest, grassland, desert, mountain
etc.
2)Aquatic :-Running water (lotic) standing water
(lentic), marine

 BIOME is a large area with similar flora& fauna &

micro organism
Eg: Mountain , tundra ,temperate marine\island
desert , tropical dry forest , cold climate forest ,
grassland , tropical rain forest.
COMPONENTS OF ECOSYSTEM:

 Biotic:- a) Autotrophs:- organisms which can

produce their own food- green plants- they
are known as producers
b)Heterotrophs: those organisms which
depends directly or indirectly upon the auto
trophs for their food, thus known as
consumers
 Abiotic components:The physical
environment with its several
interacting variables constitutes
several nonliving components , It
consists of lithosphere, water of the
hydrosphere, the gaseous mixture in
the air& radiant solar energy.
 A single energy source for all – SUN.
 Schematically an ecosystem can be shown as

External External
world world

Producers Consumers Recyclers

Ecological Succession
 Ecological succession is a process through which
ecosystems tend to change over a period of time.

 Succession can be related to seasonal environmental

changes, which create changes in the community of
plants and animals living in the ecosystem. Other
succession events may take much longer periods of
time extending to several decades.
Anthroposystem:
 It is an open system.

 Energy flow is by mobilizers which is

Mobilizers

Producers Consumers Recyclers

 It is actually an open system
 In this system unlike eco system large
amount of energy or matter is transferred
from producer to consumers, whereas in
ecosystem it is from producer to
recyclers.
 A close physical proximity is present in
ecosystem, while it is absent in
anthroposystem.
Overflowing
Landfill
 Water getting polluted

Monuments
collapsing
 Biome can be defined as various similar
eco systems throughout the world
together.
 Is a large area with similar flora, fauna
and the micro organisms.
 The major biomes are mountains, forests,
marine/ island, deserts, grassland,
savannah etc.,
 So clearly a biome consists of many eco
systems which have same features but not
the vice-versa.
 Now energy flow in any biome/ eco system
can be shown as

Producers Consumers
SUN

Inorganic
Nutrient pool Decomposers
 Energy flows through the eco system in
the form of C-C bonds.

 C-C bond rupture makes possible the

formation of CO2

 Inorganic nutrient will be usually in the

form of essential elements like P, S, Ca,
Na, Fe, Zn, etc.,
(1)Food chain:
It’s a path of food from a given
Consumer back to producer.

Ex:
Grass- Grasshopper- Mouse- Snake- Hawk
 The 3 main basic categories:


The predator chain- starts from a plant base and
goes from smaller to larger animals

The parasitic chain- goes from larger to smaller
organisms

The saprophytic chain-goes from dead matter to
micro organisms
Presence of many food chains in
environment produces a food web.
(2) Ecological pyramids:

 Charles Elton in 1927 , a British ecologist

developed this concept.
 It involves the arrangement of trophic
levels.
 At each trophic level number of
organisms decreases.
 Trophic level refers to an organism’s
position in the food chain.
  A diagram that shows a general ecological pyramid

Higher
carnivo
rous

Carnivorous

Primary consumers

Bacteria/
algae/producers

“An environment having systematic food

chains/ food webs OR ecological pyramids
without any imbalances/disturbances is said to
be an “balanced eco system”.
 Some points about aquatic
system:
 3 main ecological categories:


Planktons- Small / microscopic, free floating
organisms

Nektons- Larger / more strongly swimming
organisms

Benthos- Abyssal organisms
 Human activities have the capacity
to alter the ecosystem in ways that
threaten the every processes and
components upon which human
depend!!!
The activities may be listed as
a) The process of exhausting fossil fuels

b) Almost more than half of earth’s land

has been transformed
c) More than half of accessible water has
been consumed
d) Increase in greenhouse gases
concentration
e) Marine and terrestrial areas including
fisheries has been exploited
 So there is a need of creation of
environmental awareness among the
public and the students.
 Scientific and engineering research is also
playing an important role in
understanding and protecting the
environment
Some environmental Movements:


Chipko Movement- Sundarlal
Bahuguna

Narmada Bachao- Medha Patkar

Save water- Shree Padre
5th JUNE