Environmental problems – An overview - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 4

sources, the waste problem, and the waste hierarchy. We will also discuss the problem
of pollution and the contaminants of air, water, and soil, the spatial and time frame
of pollution and environmental deterioration in the following text. Deteriorated and
endangered ecosystems and the problem of the contaminated site, including inherited
and industrially polluted sites and their management are the main focus of this topic.
In this chapter, a short summary will be given on this complex problem.
2 ECOSYSTEM
In general terms, ecosystem means the whole of the aquatic and terrestrial complex
of local flora, fauna and abiotic environmental compartments. The UNEP Conven-
tion on Biological Diversity (CBD, 1992) defines an “ecosystem'' as a “dynamic
complex of plant, animal and microorganism communities and their nonliving envi-
ronment interacting as a functional unit.'' Lately, the concept of ecosystem has been
extended to the urban ecosystem and we can say that ecosystem is the whole of
the globe.
This functional unit has the ability to preserve its integrity, maintain and regener-
ate itself, adapt itself to changes in climatic and environmental conditions, and provide
the terrestrial flora and fauna with many benefits such as food, habitat, shelter, breed-
ing places. The benefits used by human life and industry are generally referred to as
“ecosystem services.'' Anthropogenic overuse of ecosystem services such as fertile soil,
natural biomass production, drinking water, clean air, waste decomposition capacity,
stocks of primary materials lead to the deterioration of the ecosystem.
Land contamination by chemicals is one of the most important deteriorating fac-
tors, and while planning the sustainable remediation of a contaminated site, we must
consider the changes in the state of the ecosystem. Our global ecosystem has its intrin-
sic development phases from the birth through the youth and adulthood to the ageing
and death. The development of the global ecosystem is characterized by homeostatic
plateaus which express a dynamic equilibrium controlled by negative feedback proce-
dures. Whenever positive trends are superimposed on them, the result is a decline from
a steady state.
The COHAB Initiative (Co-Operation on Health and Biodiversity)—an interna-
tional work program on human well-being and sustainable development—demands
that the truly sustainable development must incorporate all areas of human activities
and interactions with the environment, and therefore, requires that social, economic,
public health and environmental needs be resolved holistically. In order to fully achieve
sustainable progress—whether at local, national, regional, or international levels—
policy makers, scientists, stakeholders, and the wider public must work together
(COHAB Initiative, 2010).
Conservation of the sustainable use of the environment is the basis of the protection
from natural disasters and to combat poverty and hunger. Fresh water, clean air, food
resources, control of diseases and pests are ensured by good quality ecosystem in
a dynamic equilibrium. Global also means that one event at the first place is not
independent of another event at a second place. Every local environmental disruption
may extend far beyond the locality, i.e., it influences the global ecosystem, its function,
and natural trends.