Environmental problems – An overview - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 28

6 DETERIORATED ECOSYSTEMS IN GENERAL

Deterioration of ecosystems results in a disadvantageous change in diversity and the
loss of ecosystem services. At the current rate of ecosystem deterioration, 43% of
earth's terrestrial area is not able to provide the ecosystem services it used to do (Urban-
ska et al., 2000). As these benefits normally provided by nature must be substituted by
industrial activity, preserving and improving the state of ecosystems is an economical
demand as well.
In the following section, we classify environmental deteriorations and damage in
ecosystem services caused by human activities.

6.1 Damage in the ecosystem's provisioning services
- Resource depletion : Exploitation of natural resources on an unnecessary scale,
overconsumption, consumer society, “built-in'' obsolescence of products;
- Air pollution : Incineration, sulfur and nitrogen oxides emission, particulate matter
pollution, volatile pollutants;
- Water pollution : Eutrophication, ocean acidification, marine pollution, marine
debris, ocean dumping, thermal pollution of waters, urban runoff, agricultural
runoff, oil spills, ship pollution, wastewater load, emerging pollutants (persistent
toxicants with long-term effects) in waters;
- Fishing : Overfishing, illegal fishing, blast fishing, bottom trawling, the use of ghost
nets, whaling, shark finning;
- Soil degradation : Pollution, desertification, erosion, organic matter depletion,
acidification, salination and sodification, compaction;
- Intensive farming and poor farming techniques : Overgrazing, monoculture, inad-
equate irrigation, environmental effects of husbandry and meat production,
inadequate and overuse of agrochemicals;
- Overexploitation of minerals by mining : Acid mine drainage, mountaintop

removal mining, slurry and other mine-waste impoundments;
- Energy : Inefficient energy transfer and utilization, low rate of renewable energy
commercialization and use, inadequate energy conservation;
- Dams : high environmental impact and risk of dams;
- Nuclear energy : High risk of nuclear accidents, causing nuclear meltdown and
fallout, radioactive waste, the lack of the developments on nuclear safety and
innovative, safe technologies;
- Genetic engineering : Genetic pollution, unethical use of genetically modified
organisms.

6.2 Damage in the ecosystem's regulating services
- Anthropogenic surplus in element cycling has the most serious global effects on
air, water, and soil. Carbon cycling is characterized by about 2 Gt/year missing
sink (approximately 8% of the global C-flux), nitrogen shows about 0.1 Gt/year
more use from atmospheric reserve than return by denitrification (approximately
25% of the global N-flux), and about 0.3 Gt/year more sulfur “production'' than
use. The sulfur surplus is accumulated mainly in waters and soils (approximately