Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
ROY M. HARRISON
Division of Environmental Health and Risk Management, School of
Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham,
Edgbaston, B15 2TT, Birmingham, UK
1.1 THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
It may surprise the student of today to learn that 'the environment' has not
always been topical and indeed that environmental issues have become a
matter of widespread public concern only over the past 20 years or so.
Nonetheless, basic environmental science has existed as a facet of human
scientific endeavour since the earliest days of scientific investigation. In the
physical sciences, disciplines such as geology, geophysics, meteorology,
oceanography, and hydrology, and in the life sciences, ecology, have a long
and proud scientific tradition. These fundamental environmental sciences
underpin our understanding of the natural world and its current-day
counterpart perturbed by human activity, in which we all live.
The environmental physical sciences have traditionally been concerned
with individual environmental compartments. Thus, geology is centred
primarily on the solid earth, meteorology on the atmosphere, oceanog-
raphy upon the salt-water basins, and hydrology upon the behaviour of
freshwaters. In general (but not exclusively) it has been the physical
behaviour of these media which has been traditionally perceived as
important. Accordingly, dynamic meteorology is concerned primarily
with the physical processes responsible for atmospheric motion, and
climatology with temporal and spatial patterns in physical properties of
the atmosphere (temperature, rainfall, etc.). It is only more recently that
chemical behaviour has been perceived as being important in many of
these areas. Thus, while atmospheric chemical processes are at least as
important as physical processes in many environmental problems such as
stratospheric ozone depletion, the lack of chemical knowledge has been
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