CPSC wk6-wk10

ENVIRONMENTALISM 2/20

-Worldviews are basic beliefs that are used to make sense of the world around us

• Adopting a worldview is not usually a rational process but it can strongly influence our behavior
• People can't always communicate because of their views.

Towards nature

1. Wilderness chaos domain of evil spirits and wild beasts > middle distance > garden city, oasis, paradise/civilization
2. Protected wilderness, remnant, paradise, endangered wildlife > despoiled or damaged forest > industrialized farmland > modern metropolis

Domination of Nature

1. A worldview that regards humans as superior to nature and holds that we can use other organisms or resources in any way we choose

Stewardship: a philosophy that holds that humans have a responsibility to manage, care for and improve nature

Fredrick Olmsted- preserved parks bc he believed they nurtured democracy, and built community–hated organizations ( no straight lines)

Riverside IL, was influenced by him

He published his first book Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England. He used his literary activities to oppose the westward expansion of slavery and to argue for the abolition of slavery by the southern states.

Active participation in attempts to solve environmental and resource problems

-Humans have always inhabited both the natural world and the social world

Environment:

• Circumstances or conditions that surround an organism or groups of organisms
• The complex of social or cultural conditions that affect an individual or community

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Four Stages

1. Pragmatic Resource Conservation
   1. George Perkins(wrote:man and nature); Theodore Roosevelt & his conservation advisor, Gifford Pinocht
   2. Pragmatic utilitarian conservation; multiple-use policies of USFS
2. Moral & Aesthetic Nature Preservation
   1. Nature deserves to exist for its own sake- regardless of the degree of usefulness to humans (biocentric observation)
   2. John Muir- geologist, author & 1st president of the Sierra Club
3. Concern about Health & Ecological Damage
4. Global Environmental Citizenship
5. Not mutually exclusive; parts of each persist today in the environmental movement

Modern Environmental Movement

• Industrial explosion of WW II added new concerns to the environmental agenda
• Rachel Carson- biologist, writer, ecologist; Silent Springs wasn’t taken seriously - she said we were advancing things to quickly – we don't give nature a chance to adapt

AGENDA EXPANDS

60s-70s- human population growth, atomic weapons testing, fossil fuel issues, recycling, etc.

80s- backlash - global warming increases

Paris Agreement- Make Planet Green Again

Global Interconnections

Increased technology has greatly expanded international communications

• Daily events are now reported worldwide instead of locally or regionally

🛟CURRENT LIFE

-human populations - 8mil

- Water quantity and quality issues are critical issues

- food is inequitably distributed across the globe and ⅔ of agricultural lands shows signs of degradation

-fossil fuel dependency is causing pollution and global warming

- air quality has worsened in many areas

-Loss of biodiversity at a rapid rate

🌸 SIGNS OF HOPE

• The population has stabilized in most industrialized countries
• The incidence of life-threatening diseases has been reduced in most countries
• Deforestation has slowed and habitat protection has increased in some areas
• Progress is being made in the transition to renewable energy sources
• Democracy is spreading, which allows decision-making by local people who know the land rather than by a centralized bureaucracy

More than economic growth is needed. Political stability, democracy, and equitable economic distribution are needed to ensure that all benefit

🌎INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

We might have to rely on Indigenous people (although they had no effect on the land just their ideals.

WK 6 D2– 2/22: Environment in an Agrarian System

Homestead Act of 1862

Applicants could not have ever borne arms against the US Gov.

Requirements:

live on land for 5 years,

build a 12x14 dwelling,

and grow crops only after they apply for a patent–by submitting proof of residency and required improvements of the local land office.

Problems in the Prairies

Physical conditions on the frontier presented even greater challenges. Wind, blizzards, and plagues of insects threatened crops. Open plains meant dew trees for building, forcing many to build homes out of sod. They had limited fuel and water supplies.

Many did not stay because they didn't sustain agriculture on the dry plains.

Theodore Roosevelt signed on Feb 1909, that gave the dwellers 320 acres of dry land.

Advice to Farmers- keep pounding the seedbed until it is pulverized.

• Seedbeds allow you to see the seed growing (use of the plow)

Prairie grass has roots settled deep into the ground that survive for a while, versus wheat roots which never grew as long- so they plowed.

Annual species

-corn, wheat, sorghum

Plants that complete their life cycle in one year or growing season. Winter and Spring annuals are two types

Plants living one year or less - during this time the plant grows flowers produces seed and dies.

Prairie cycle: high plains have a semi-arid climate that relies primarily on the warm season– some years great warm weather other times there is drought. (30-40 deficit)

Prairie ground keeps the vegetation, changing ground cover would have boosted the temperature of the region but the warmer temperature would have dried out the land making it even less suitable for raising crops and making it more susceptible to wind.

The Dust Bowl began- sand storms covered the lands.

The government did not care about these problems until it covered the Lincoln Memorial

The positive outcome of Dustbowl: Soil Erosion Service was funded to help these people.

30s-60s Era of “better living through chemistry”

1939: DDT was created it is closely related to typhus during the last war.

Typhus- “mass killer which slaughtered 200 million people in Europe, and Asia–diverted the stream of history and done more than war itself”

First assessment of synthetic insecticides

-effective, not toxic to plants, and not as toxic to humans as many older poisons.

It wasn’t an issue so they put it in plants that cows ate, in apples, and in babies' milk, which is how they detected a problem in women’s breastmilk.

Rachel Carson knew nature needed time to adjust but because humans overused it it created an imbalance.

Gordan Edwards - ate spoonfuls of DDT and died of a heart attack

DDT▶❌ Malaria

DDT banned eagles/hawks> and affected aquatic eggs making them fragile

Neonicotinoids act on the nervous system of insects with very low toxicity to mammals and menial environmental impact and therefore, considered a reduced-risk pesticide. Babies ate it and died, as well as honeycomb bees.

Integrated Pest Management

The use of a range of practices that limit losses to pests while minimizing the environmental damage, human health risks, and dollar costs associated with pest suppression.

Biological Control

Manipulation of predators, parasites, and pathogens

Conservation: avoidance of insecticides that kill the predators of European red mites in apples; tillage and cover cropping practices

Augmentation: “encarsia” is a parasite of greenhouse whiteflies

Cultural control

• Crop rotations (corn rootworms, many plant diseases)
• Optimum planting dates
• Tillage

Progress in IPM

• Establishment of economic thresholds and “scouting” programs

Impediments to nonchemical IPM in the US

-chemical and mechanical infrastructure

‘Expensive’ labor

Vast acreages of crips

Uncertainties about whether or not ALL pesticides are so bad

Pesticides are easier

Wk7 d1- Soils 2/27

What is soil?

The layers of generally loose mineral and or organic material that are affected by physical, chemical, and or biological processes at or near the planetary surface and usually hold liquids, gasses, and biota and support plants.

Made of??

25% water, 5% organic materials, 25% air, 45% minerals- sand salt and clay ~50%pore space, and soil solids.

How???

minerals>weathering (condensed) ; from rock to dirt (breaks down into dirt)

Particle Size classes

Sand-individual rocks, mineral fragments around .05-2.0 diameters

Silt, and clay

12 total textural classes– all solid have different characteristics: water holding capacities, nutrient holding capacity, infiltration rates

35% clay 50% silt 15% sand = they meet in a silty clay load

Solid structure

Arrangement of soil particles and pore space between them

Organi matter humus is the glue that gilds different-sized particles together

TYPES: granular, Blocky, Lenticular, Paty, Wedge, Prismatic, Columnar

Agriculture system type can impact soil structure !!

Soil Organic Matter

• Integrator variable of soil functions
• Sensitive to management and cropping system context (soil type, climate)
• Organic matter is the glue that make soil shape and provides food for the soil trophic chain, starting with microbes (bacteria, fungi)
• Implicated in soil structure
• Source of crop nutrients (N, P,S)
• Water holding capacity - limited benefits

FORMED??? CLORPT

Climate - temperature, precipitation

Organisms - plants, animals, and microbes

“Plants are the primary contributors of organic matter to the soil and the microscopic bacteria and other organisms help to breakdown complex organic compounds and thus also play a role in adding organic matter to soil”

Relief-topography and landscape position

“The aspect describes the direction it faces which affects how much sunlight and solar heating the solid gets every day and how dry/moist the soil might be”

Parent Material- rocks, plants, and sediments

Undecomposed plants – some are transported and deposited elsewhere

Time-duration of soil-forming processes

Older soils have more strongly expressed horizons than younger soils and have different chemical compounds

• bedrock disengrates> organic material > horizons form> developed soil supports thick vegetation.

Pedons: single body of soil typically measured by 1x1x1 m

Mollisols: fertile dark surface horizons, in prairie lands; results from the long-term addition of organic materials derived from plant roots; they're among the most important and productive agriculture soils in the world because they have good organic matter.

Drummer: Illinois State Soil (quiz)

Soil Function

1. **Habitat for soil organisms on the surface
2. Recycler of Raw Materials - plant residues and animal wastes get recycled
   1. Raw materials/plant/animal waster > decomposition>humus: nutrient-rich
3. Medium for plant growth
   1. Holds water to support soil fauna and flora, insulates to protect roots from heat damage, helps to retain nutrients for plant growth
   2. Physical support: anchoring the root system
4. Systems for water supply and purification
   1. Water moves differently through different soul textures and structures
5. Engineering Medium
   1. Tech: cars,house,trucks, etc.
   2. Building on the wrong soil or without footing on unstable clay or sand leads to foundations that sink/crack
6. Modifier of the atmosphere - exchange of soil and atmospheric gases
   1. Amount of carbon existing in different features of the earth (gigatons)
   2. 25% air content in soils is the optimum condition for plants; exchange of air through the network of soil pores (CO2, O2)
   3. Carbon inputs are returned to the atmosphere as CO2 (carbon stored in the soil)

ACID SOILS

• Has been estimated to cover 40-50% of the Earth's arable land (a major limitation of plant production worldwide)
• pH - defined as the negative logarithm of the hydrogen ion (H+) concentration.
• Devised for conveniently expressing these small concentrations by expressing pH=Log 1/[H+]
• **When pH is 4 hydrogen is greater when it is smaller the pH is 8.
• Optimal pH 6.0-6.5 for row crops
• Aluminum is the 3rd most abundant metal in soil (after O2 and silicon)
• When mixed with acid the root growth inhibition leads to poor water and nutrient uptake
• Agricultural limestone is how you fix the pH

Wk 8 d1 3/5/24

• A critical step in land preparation before crop planting
• Tillage is the manipulation of the soil into a desired condition by mechanical means
• Tilling incorporates residues and fertilizers, manures and lime
• Controls crop pest
• Provides seedbed for seeding equipment; alters the physical conditions and temperature of the soil

James Watt- improved the Industrial Revolution by perfecting the steam engine

Conventional tillage

• Helps control weeds and pest reduces compaction
• Moldboard plow w full soil
  • A large frame that is equipped with a series of “bottoms” (cuts and flips the soil over- leaves mountain heap of soil)
• Chisel plow- equipped with narrow double ended shovels or chisel points- the points rip through the soil and stur ir but do not incert and pulverzie as well as the moldboard plow
• Till can be adjusted to till depp or shallow and is often used to loosen hard dry soils.
• Disk plows work similarly to moldboard plows and laterally displace and invert soil through the use of concave steel disk blades (used in spring or fall to size and mix soil with reside and level the field; shallow working depth)
• Field cultivator- equipped with narrow double ended shovels or chisel points- the points rip through the soil and invert it

Soil Erosion increases with tillage!!!!

• Breakdown, detachment, transport, and redistribution of soil particles by forces of water, wind, or gravity.
• Water erosion- ground not covered by vegetation raindrops move it (sheet erosion)
• Crop residue decreases soil erosion by protecting the soil surface from being destroyed

SOIL CONSERVATION(provide ground cover for most of the year)

• Annual row crops cause the highest rates of erosion because they leave soil bare for much of the year
  • Leave crop residue after harvest
  • Plant cover crops after harvest

Conservation tillage

• **Any tillage that leaves 30% or more of residue on the soil surface
• No-till- the soil is undisturbed by tillage during the entire year
• Crop residue left on the soil surface may by disturbed bt the planter
• Soils under no-till usually host a more abundant and diverse biota and are less prone to erosion, water loss, and structural breakdown than tilled soils. (organic matter increased; carbon dioxide)
• STRIP-TILL retains a number of benefits of no-till but disturbs the row using tillage practices only where the next crop will be planted (Best of both worlds; makes strips but also covers with residue 6-8in deep)

Conventional tillage: plowing, disking, cultivating, planting, cultivating,

Reduced: cultivating, planting, cultivating

NO-till: planting and spraying only

Earl butz-pushed corn production in the US

With the grain reserve hollowed out and the drought impeding they wanted to take advantage of every piece of land to produce corn

Fence row (land strip in the middle of plowed fields for vegetation and animals)

US FSA- voluntary conservation-related programs: drinking water protection, reducing soil erosion, wildlife habitat preservation, preservation and restoration od forests and wetlands, etc.

Contour buffer strips- narrower than cultivation strips

Grass waterways: shaping a natural drainage way and establishing grass to prevent gullies from forming in fields by carrying away runoff water from the field

Riparian vegetative buffers are strips of grass trees or shrubs established along streams ditches wetlands or other water bodies.

Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)- conserves covers on eligible farmland,

The GreenHouse effect: gases are the substances that trap heat

Gases: water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, ozone, etc

These gases in the atmosphere affect the strength of the greenhouse effect. (it is good for vegetation)

Plants reduce the greenhouse effect by absorbing carbon dioxide from the air

Fossilized plant material is preserved by burial in sediments and compacted and condensed by geological forces into coal.

PHOTOSYNTHESIS routine****

Humans have modified the global atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels 🤝 carbon (stored in carbon cycle)

Burning fossil fuels releases the stored carbon as carbon dioxide

CO2 levels increased by 27% ****

Humanities target for CO2: 350 ppm

Carbon sequestration is the process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide. (conservation tillage, conservation or riparian buffers, and grazing land )

Wk 10 d1- Water and Agriculture

Overview of Global freshwater

Water, liquid, and solid cover more than 70% of the world’s surface (more than 370 million gallons)

96.5% ocean, 2.5% freshwater

Hydrologic Cycle (water cycle)

Water storage > evaporation>condensation>water storage in clouds > precipattion> transpiration (plants) > infiltration (ground) > back to water storage

TRANSPIRATION

Creates a beg pressure gradient that helps draw water and minerals up through the plant from its roots (keeps plant cool during hot weather) – supports photosynthesis and encourages

Humans usually use 80-100 gallons of water (indoor home uses)

American households: 300 gallons of water per day at home (can be higher in drier parts of the country and in more water-intensive landscapes)

Water “stress”- 40% of the world pop does not have adequate water to meet basic needs

Water “scarcity” <1000 cubic meters per person py

“Acute water scarcity”- <500 cubic meters per person py

36 countries face “extremely high levels of water stress” they’re using more than 80% of their water availability

• Main reasons are population growth increased food production to meet growing demand and climate change.

Water scarcity:

• In the availability of freshwater of acceptable quality with respect to aggregated demand
• Access to water services because of the failure of institutions in place to ensure a reliable supply of water to users
• Lack of adequate infrastructure, irrespective of the level of

> Physical scarcity occurs when and where there is not enough water to meet both human demands and those ecosystems to function effectively.

> Economic water scarcity exists when a population does not have the necessary monetary means to utilize an adequate source of water

Availability is important BUT usability depends on regional factors geography, demographics, re-use, and affordability

• ⅔ of the world's households have to retrieve water from outside the home

TYPES OF WATER USE

Renewable water supplies

• Made up of surface runoff and infiltration into accessible freshwater aquifers
• ⅔ of water carried in rivers and streams as an inexhaustible resource
  • Natural cleansing and renewing functions of the hydrologic cycle do not work properly if systems are overloaded or damage
  • History has shown that ancient societies have collapsed under severe water scarcity.

- 100 years worldwide, freshwater, withdrawals have increased by 700%

- Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century.

• Irrigation accounted for 42$ of the total freshwater withdrawals in 2015; it has enhanced both the productivity and profitability of the agricultural sector
• Most irrigated land is concentrated

-Most major agricultural produce comes from the western side of the US; our precipitation pattern

Widespread water stress in much of the southwest, western, great plains, and parts of the northwest.

Major reasons of water stress in IL

~ climate variability

~ lack of water supply

Champaign water is from the Ogallala Aquifer

Consequences of depleting groundwater

• Depletion is forcing communities across the region to dig deeper wells
• The largest city in the OK Panhandle Guymon relies on 18 wells to drawwater from the Ogallala.
• California grows our nuts

Wk 10 d2-

India uses the most freshwater

California largest number of acres under irrigations of any of the seven basin raises

Today the desert areas in southeast California are the winter salad bowl for the nation

>All American canal west > Imperial Dam on the river to irrigate its 630,000 acres

• The availability of this water and a considerate climate make the valley one of the most productive (82 miles long-23 of the miles are concrete)(Cali is too hot so most of it evaporates before it even gets to the dam)
• Water rights: dumb 👍 legal rights of property owners to access and use bodies of water adjacent to lands they hold.
• Navajo wanted to claim the bottom of the colorado riveer for their people because 26% of their people don't have reliable water sources to them it is the “lifeblood of our community, and our future”

TYPES OF IRRIGATION SYSTEMS

= Flood irrigation

• Water is pumped or bought to the fields and is allowed to flow along the ground among the crops (simple low tech, although it is too much water than what the plant needs so 40-50% is lost)

=center pivot irrigation

• Designed to water crops on a circular pattern using metal frames they irrigate about 130 acre circular area (adv: they deliver water over a large area in a limited period of time, reduce the need for human labor, and are programmable to irrigate on a specific schedule)

=sprikler irrigation

• Low-pressure system: water is gently sprayed downward onto plants instead of being shot thigh in the air (adv: more efficient, less water is used

= subsurface irrigation

• High-return value crops such as fruit and vegetable crops- water runs through piped places on the ground next to the plants

=drip irrigation

• High water efficiency because of less water loss through evaporation less labor intensive than other methods

Flood (furrow) irrigation

NITROGEN: PROS & CONS

Essential plant nutrients

• Plants require 14 essential mineral elements for healthy growth
  • Must be required by the plant to complete its lifecycle
  • Cannot be replaced by another element
  • Element must be required by specific biological function
  • The element must be required by a substantial number of different plants species
• Energy is drawn from nature: air, ancient sea beds in geological deposits which fertilzer companies convert into the ground for plants to use.
  • Low amounts: macronutrients, secondary macronutrients (sulfur, calcium, Mg)
  • High amounts: primary macronutrients(, obtained from air and water(C,H,O)
  • MAIN NUTRIENTS in FERTILIZER
    • photosphere: essential for cell infrastructure and energy systems
    • Potassium: protects plants from extreme temperatures and helps them to fight stress, disease pests
    • NITROGEN: protein information and cell division key component of Chlorophyll: a constituent of amino acids proteins and nucleic acids
    • Farming without the use of petroleum-based chemical fertilizers was the sole option for farmers until WW2

Anhydrous ammonia

-energy efficient in the manufacture of nitrogen-based fertilizers has significantly improved since the early 20th century

• • • Synthetic N Fertilizer is responsible for saving 2.7 bil people
    • Heat + pressure + catalyst

Nitrogen fertilizer in agriculture:

• • • Anhydrous = lack of water
    • Anhydrous ammonia = 82% N
    • Anhydrous ammonia is a gas and thus needs to be pressurized in tanks for shipping (high-pressure tanks) expands into a gas as it is injected into the soil where it rapidly combines with soil moisture

Nitrogen over time

Increased 10-fold from 50-80s.

• • • Since the 80s nitrogen has leveled off and has since remained relatively stable
    • Although yield increases as corn production does

we need nitrogen to sustain food production but it contaminates water sources

Nitrogen was 2015 was being used the most by rice and corn

Tile Drainage and Nitrogen- in agricultural streams

Eutrophocation: of large rivers,lake,reservoirs, estuaries and shallow marine environments is the most immediate environmental consequence of nitrogen pollution in surface waters.

LAKE TYPES trophic states **

• They change from oligotrophic > mesotrophic > to eutrophic
• Oligotrophic lakes are generally clear, deep, and free of aquatic plants or large algae blooms )develop a food chain capable of sustaining a very desirable fishery of large game )
• Mesotrophic lakes have medium-level(lies between the 2) nutrients and are usually clear water with submerged aquatic plants (hypolimnion limits cold water fish and causes phosphorus cycling from sediments)
• Eutrophic lakes are the most nutrient-rich lakes and support a large and diverse volume of plants and animals (supports large fish although oxygen depletion is likely susceptible to oxygen depletion.
  • Small, shallow, eutrophic lakes are especially vulnerable to winterkill which can reduce the number and variety of fish. Rough fish are commonly found in eutrophic lake

Hypereutrophic lakes

• Suffer from problems arising due to excessive plant algal growth due to high supply of nutrients; little transparency, overgrowth of algae which suffocates the fauna below the water depths and this might create dead zones beneath the water surface.
• Natural eutrophication: basin gradually fills in from nutrient and sediment inputs, occurs over long time periods–
• Hypoxia: low/depleted oxygen (dead zone); human-induced/cultural eutrophication shorter time scale (decades)
• People can accelerate the eutrophication process by allowing nutrients from agriculture, lawn fertilizers, streets, septic systems and urban storm drains to enter lakes
• Gulf Mexico Dead Zone July 2017
• Freshwater + saltwater + overgrowth of algae = dead zone

Nitrates and Health

• Nitrates in water can produce a serious condition in fish called “brown blood disease”
• Low oxygen in the blood

Methemoglobin

• Nitrate is converted in the gut to nitrite
  • Combines with hemoglobin to form methemoglobin -decreasing the ability of the blood to carry oxygen
  • Infants are more susceptible to nitrate toxicity than older children or adults.
  • **max amount of nitrate in water is 10 ppm
  • Fertilizer use is regulated by law in Marylands (farmers were not a part of the conversation)
  • Farmers are using fertilizer nutrients nutrients with the greatest efficiency in history.
  • Meanwhile farmers use of nitrogen on corn over this period increased only 3%.