Geoenvironment Management and Sustainability - Sustainable Practices in Geoenvironmental Engineering - page 4

implementation technology. A large proportion of these actions are not willful. The adverse
impacts on the environment and the geoenvironment in particular, resulting from many
of these actions are the result of a lack of understanding of the fragility of the geoenviron-
mental systems. A pertinent example of this is the presence of historic and orphan toxic
and nontoxic waste-polluted sites populating the land surface in many parts of the world.
These are the legacy of our historic lack of appreciation of the damage done to the land
environment by the many activities in support of production of goods and services. These
kinds of goods and activities are necessary items in support of industrial development and
a vibrant society. Not all of the kinds or types of natural and man-made impacts on the
geoenvironment resulting from these activities can be considered. The geoenvironmental
impacts that are health-threatening constitute the major focus of this topic. By and large,
these (impacts) result from discharges from industrial operations and urban activities. A
more detailed description and discussion of the anthropogenic impacts on the geoenvi-
ronment will be considered in the next chapter.
1.2 Geoenvironment, Ecosystems, and Resources
The geoenvironment is a speciic compartment of the environment, and as such, concerns
itself with the various elements and interactions occurring in the domain deined by the
dry solid land mass identiied as terra irma. These include a signiicant portion of the
geosphere and portions of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and anthrosphere.
We consider the geosphere to include the inorganic mantle and crust of the Earth,
including the land mass and the oceanic crust. Also included in this category are
the solid layers (soil and rock mass) stretching downward from the mantle and
crust. One could say that one part of the geoenvironment is the terra irma compo-
nent of the geosphere—as seen in Figure 1.1.
The hydrosphere refers to all the forms of water on Earth, i.e., oceans, rivers, lakes,
ponds, wetlands, estuaries, inlets, aquifers, groundwater, coastal waters, snow,
and ice. The geoenvironment includes all the receiving waters contained within
the terra irma in the hydrosphere . This excludes oceans and seas, but is meant
to include rivers, lakes, ponds, inlets, wetlands, estuaries, coastal marine waters,
groundwater, and aquifers. The inclusion of coastal (marine) environment in the
geoenvironment is predicated on the fact that these waters are impacted by the
discharge of contaminants in the coastal regions via runoffs on land and dis-
charge of polluted waters from rivers or streams. Chapter 8 examines sustainabil-
ity issues of coastal marine environment in detail.
The biosphere is the zone that includes all living organisms, and the environment is
the biophysical system wherein all the biotic and abiotic organisms in the geo-
sphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere interact. The geoenvironment includes the
life zones in or on terra irma from the biosphere .
The atmosphere refers to all the gases in air that interact with the land environment
(terra irma).
The anthrosphere refers to the various environmental compartments impacted by
humans and their activities.