Pollution management: A three level model

Pollution cannot be eliminated by just deciding that we won't use electric power, nor if we just stop developing industries. Pollution cannot be erased, but we can do something about it. The course of action must be treated from three different basis. The generation of the pollutants, the release of them and the impact that they have on the environment at the long-run. This is describe as a three level model:
Human activity producing pollutant
Improve human attitude towards taking consideration of the environment equilibrium towards
education: people would know the real sources of pollution and the effects they have over the environment. The point is that they actively engage in the pollution management and take a part of creating alternative processes.
incentives and penalties: the behavior of the people is difficult to change. Sometimes even if we understand the awful conditions, caused mainly by human action, of the environment, we don’t want to take part of improving them. Incentives and penalties might be the answer to push people and motivate them to take part of the change.

• Development of alternative tech
  
• Adoption of alternative lifestyles
  
• Reducing, reusing, recycling. Recycling campaigning are nowadays supported all around the world, but even if they are helpful and have positive effects, it should be the last R to implement. First we must try to reduce the resources that we use and trying to reuse this resources in every possible way.

Polluting Disposable Container.

Release of pollutant into the environment
Regulating and reducing at points of emission. A lot of businesses are working without caring about the impact that they have over the environment. They want to reduce costs and increase profit. What to do?

• Standards. I mean, if we know that something is doing harm why not to stop it. Regulation could be the solution. If applied, businesses will be forced to care. Maybe at the end they will find their own real ecological consciousness.
  
• Measures to extract pollutants on ecosystem

Long term impact of pollutant and reducing ecosystem
Clearing up pollutant and restoring ecosystem:

• Extracting and removing pollutant from ecosystem
  
• Replanting and restoring animal populations

Direct and Indirect Measurements

Direct sampling

• In situ. Actually, in the studied place.

Reliable and the best option because of the exact results gases
It is difficult to carry all of the instruments

• Ex situ. Off from the place where sample is established

Use of more methods and instruments, flexible
You cannot experiment instantly and so the sample could suffer some changes.
Shipping and handling is necessary.
When measuring pollution, direct measurements could be use to measure the concentration of:

• gases
• particulate matter
• pH
• dissolved oxygen
• biomass content
• salts
• conductivity
• turbidly

Most of the measurements are giving in units per area, or per
Indirect sample
These measurements are the ones where we measure one factor in order to study or get conclusions for other factor. They don’t really tell you the concentration, you need to interpret them.
Examples of it are

• Indicator species,  They define an specific area or a specific biome
• Biodiversity indexes
• Chromatography
• Spectroscopy

Against the idealism of carrying capacity

A population model assumes that the use of resources is equal to all of the individuals. The think here is that we are talking about “individuals” not hard numbers. They have different needs and life conditions. That’s why we cannot take the entire population of the world as in uniform conditions in order to establish the carrying capacity (K)
The individual/population resource use is a dynamic principle. We also must we aware that resources vary with time and space. Some of this variations are given by:

• MEDCs and LEDCs
• Urban vs. rural
• Young communities vs. older communities

However we need to manage carrying capacity to our advantage.
It might be trough pollution control
POLLUTION MANAGEMET
Natural income –> Human activity –> wastes –>  pollution
Pollution:the addition of a substance of agent to the environment by human activity at a rate grater that that at which it can be rendered harmless by the environment.
Major sources of pollution

• Combustion
• Domestic waste
• Industrial waste
• Agricultural waste

Pollution by noise, by heat.
Sources:

• Point source
• Non-point source

Detection and monitoring

• Directly. measure with a particular variable to refer an specific pollution factor. (CO2 presence in the atmosphere)
• Indirectly. Impact. uses a variable that depends on a specific factor. (e.g. acid rain: a wide range of possibilities to measure the impact; salinity on the atmosphere)

Pollution indicators

• Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD): amount of dissolved oxygen required to break down the organic material in a water volume through anaerobic or aerobic activity
• Indicator species (biotic index 1-10) through invertebrates

Three-level model of pollution management.
replace, regulate and restore
Waste management

Population Pyramids

They are a useful graphic, also called age-sex pyramids, representation that give us the information to analyze population distribution and population change

Population numbers are the x-axis and age groups are on the y-axis.

*As we can see it can also be focused on only one sector of the population.

It shows:

• How many individuals are alive in different age groups cohorts in a country or region for any given year.
• Show the male-female ratio

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Types of Pyramid Shapes.

Stage 1. Expanding – High CBR *(, rapid fall in each upward age group due to high CDR, short life expectancy.

Stage 2. Expanding – High CBR, fall in

CDR as more individuals live to the middle age, slightly life expectancy.

Stage 3. Stationary – declining CBR, low CDR, more individuals live to old age.

Stage 4. Contracting – low CBR, low CDR, higher dependency ratio (those that cannot work), longer life expectanxy

LEDC’s tend to be in stage 1 and 2, while MEDC’s are in the 3 and 4 stages.

Measures of Population Changes

Population change around time by the action of factors such as birth and death rate and migration.

The basic rate for measuring the fluctuations in population are the following:

Crude Birth Rate (CBR)

The number of births per 1000 individuals in a population per year.

Number of births x 1000

population size

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Crude Death Rate (CDR)

The number of deaths per 1000 individuals in a population per year.

Number of deaths x 1000

population size

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Natural Increase Rate

NIR = (CBR - CDR) / 10

Doesn’t consider immigration and emigration.

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Doubling time

The time in years it takes a population to double its size.

Doubling time = 70 / NIR

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Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

It is the average number of children that each woman has over her life time. It shows the potential of population change.

• A TFR > 2.0 results in a population increase
• A TFR < 2.0 results in a population decrease
• A TFR = 2.0 results in a stable population

In developing countries, the fertility rate is usually higher than in MEDC’s

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Humans impact on the environment is not just given out by its growth, but also by resource use and pollution. It’s impact is affecter by:

• It’s affected by the amount of wealth
• Resource desire
• Resource need

Individuals in a population, specially in a human population, interact with the environment in different ways. We cannot generalize for all the organisms within a population.

Wait for a detailed list of identification of resource use and waste profiles in a further post.

The measuring Roll

The measurements information is used to value the state of things (good or wrong) and then act towards control the variables.

The methods for measuring biomass vary between ecosystems, biomes and type of organism.

It is important in the vegetation measurement, representing an indicator of productivity and of ecological and management processes in the vegetation.

Vegetation biomass measuring tell us what plant dominates a land by controlling the nutrients and water resources. Estimates of biomass and residual biomass also strongly influence the hydrologic properties of the site including infiltration, runoff, and erosion. Biomass of both grasses and woody plants constitute potential fuels that can be measured to assess the risk of wildfire.

Biomass can be directly measured with little training, although, it is time consuming.

*http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/measuring-biomass.html

The above MODIS Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) map above shows the density of plant growth over the entire globe. Very low values of EVI (white and brown areas) correspond to barren areas of rock, sand, or snow. Moderate values (light greens) represent shrub and grassland, while high values indicate temperate and tropical rainforests (dark greens). The MODIS EVI gives scientists a new tool for monitoring major fluctuations in vegetation and understanding how they affect, and are affected by, regional climate trends.

The biomass of a trophic level is likely to be proportional to the number of organisms and the energy found in each level. This could be graphically shown by the use of the ecological pyramid, which are graphical representations of the trophic structure of ecosystems:

*http://scienceaid.co.uk/biology/ecology/food.html

References.

http://www.cnr.uidaho.edu/veg_measure/Modules/Lessons/Module%206/6_2_Why%20Measure%20Biomass.htm