Question one

Urbanization is a process of population growth in cities as people move towards the cities. The urbanization trend is plus to development for it brings about industrialization and the rebirth of companies. Urbanization brings in the convenience of goods and decentralization of services with people being able to gain more access to educational and health facilities among others which are almost readily available in the cities. With more urbanization, there is more economic growth and therefore more development. As people move to the cities they are more enlightened and educated and can plan their families well and significantly help in population control. However urbanization also has negative impacts on development and population control. Uncontrolled urbanization can easily lead to food shortage and high living costs, this potentially affects development as many people in the cities become unemployed. The more the urbanization, the more the shortage in property. Population control may be hard to manage as people takes to slums owing to unemployment and poverty and end up raising the birth rate for uninformed family planning.

Question 2

In ecosystems, energy flows when nutrients are cycled to achieve some balance. The major human impacts on the carbon, phosphorous, and cycles include: the carbon cycle is impacted by human beings as they add more carbon dioxide to the ecosystem industrialization and burning of fossil fuels. On burning gas, coal or oil, more carbon is released to the atmosphere. By adding manure and fertilizers to farms, human beings end up adding phosphates to the environment thus the possibility of eutrophication. Also the nitrogen cycle is much impacted by humans in times when they apply nitrogen fertilizers to plants to help them grow and yield. This passes nitrates down to the soil. In the case of rainfall and running water the nitrates are carried by the water to water collection areas causing eutrophication.

 

Question 3

In Biodiversity, HIPPO is an acronym for the threats to biodiversity and in full, it stands for: Habitat Loss, Invasive Species, Pollution, Human Population, and Overharvesting. Habitat Loss occurs when a particular usable habitat is converted to an unusable habitat. For instance deforestation for firewood of for mining activities e.g. the amazon rainforest deforested for agriculture.  Invasive Species includes a species preying on another or a certain species moving to a certain location and predating on the resident species to their extinction. For instance the brown tree snake in Guam. Pollution includes the discharge and release of toxic chemicals and metals into the environment causing species to extinctions. For instance toxic fertilizers which end up in the lakes killing aqua-life. Human population transfigures the growth in population causing people to destroy habitats. For instance, due to population growth forests have been brought down to allow the construction of houses killing the habitats for various animals and the tree to. Overharvesting includes over hunting of targeted species, for instance the Mega-fauna extinction.

 

Question 4

Subsistence agriculture can be defined as self-sufficiency type of agriculture whereby farmers grown what is enough for them and their families. There is hardly much surplus left for future remedy or for trade. On the other hand modern agriculture is wide production agricultural practice in which hybrid seeds which are technologically developed are grown. It applies much technology in fertilizers, equipment, irrigation and pesticides, this practice has lots of surplus and is mainly done for agribusiness and trade. The major components of the agricultural revolution include the use of technology to modify seeds for better harvest, use of fertilizers and pesticides, and the use of irrigation. Subsistence farming rarely hurts the environment. However modern agriculture is a major threat to environment as farmers use toxic chemicals to grow their crops which end up harming the environment, in the effort to make more profits, modern farmers end up carrying deforestation which is a harmful practice to the environment too.