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Anthropogenic activities also include discrete elements like the use of fire, domestication of plants and animals, soil development, the establishment of settlements and irrigation. [3] River ecosystems have been transformed downstream from the point of pollution.
The term anthropogenic designates an effect or object resulting from human activity. The term was first used in the technical sense by Russian geologist Alexey Pavlov, and it was first used in English by British ecologist Arthur Tansley in reference to human influences on climax plant communities. [20]
Massive amounts of irrigation in agrarian Central Asia have led to the reduction in size of endorheic lakes. The Aral Sea was once the second largest endorheic lake in the world, but anthropogenic effects such as bad irrigation practices have led to this lake's drastic decrease in size and turn into a desert named the Aralkum Desert. [citation ...
Acid rain can have harmful effects on plants, aquatic ecosystems and infrastructure. [67] [68] Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have increased since the 1850s due anthropogenic influences (emissions of greenhouse gases). [69] This leads to ocean acidification and is another form of water pollution from atmospheric contributions. [70]
The Gobi Desert is the fastest expanding desert on Earth, as it transforms over 3,600 square kilometres (1,400 square miles) of grassland into wasteland annually. [58] Although the Gobi Desert itself is still a distance away from Beijing , reports from field studies state there are large sand dunes forming only 70 km (43.5 mi) outside the city.
When anthropogenic contaminants are dissolved or suspended in runoff, the human impact is expanded to create water pollution. This pollutant load can reach various receiving waters such as streams, rivers, lakes, estuaries and oceans with resultant water chemistry changes to these water systems and their related ecosystems.
World leaders are meeting in Paris this month in what amounts to a last-ditch effort to avert the worst ravages of climate change. Climatologists now say that the best case scenario — assuming immediate and dramatic emissions curbs — is that planetary surface temperatures will increase by at least 2 degrees Celsius in the coming decades.
When a species is removed from a river ecosystem the intensity of the effect is related to the connectedness of the species to the food web. [38] An invasive species could be removed with little to no effect, but if important and native primary producers, prey or predatory fish are removed you could have a negative trophic cascade . [ 38 ]