Human impacts on cold enviromnets

fragility of cold environments

fragility of cold environments

• developments occur slowly

• long term carbon and methane stores with high albedo

• once damaged takes long time to recover

• slow to adapt

• limited day light

human activities

• high value

• indigenous people have adapted to landscape

  • lifestyle sustainable

• exploitation has become larger

• imediate and long term impacts of damage to ecosystem

mineral extraction

• valuable reserves of gold, silver iron ore and copper

• may countries increasing mining activities

• ground and surface water contamination

• mining produces solid and liquid waste

• provides waste that needs to be cleared

• not always dealt with effectively casing pollution

energy extraction

• gas and oil are abundant

• heat from buildings leads to permafrost melting

• oil spills pollute wildlife

fishing

• good fish stocks

• unusual fish species

• over-fishing has lead to depletion of fish stocks

• bottom trawling disrupts ecosystems

Tourism

• increased tourism

• approximately 170000 tourist visited antarctic in 2020

• seeds from non-native plants arrived with tourism

• adventure tourism popular

• developments may affect migratory patterns

climate change and cold environments

• rise in global temp has lead to ice melting

• melting ice releases methane leading to increased temp

• sea level rise leads to flooding

• permafrost melting reduces tourism

• cutting off access

• flooding and landslides