HUMAN ENVIRONMENT SYSTEM

• Identify what is in the picture?


  Simple Human Environment Systems

  
• Humans have the capacity to interact with their environment through "mutual interaction.
• Humans can change or influence the balance of society and can always adapt to the environment.
• The environment is a complex of many variables that surrounds man and living organisms
• Environment includes water, air, and land and their interrelationships, and human beings and other living creatures such as plants, animals, and micro-organisms
• The system may be described as a complex of interacting components together with the relationships among them that permit the identification of a boundary-maintaining entity or process and form some aggregated whole.
• For example, the subject as a system will have many components, such as courseware, task performance, instructor, and students. These components interact with each other to form the subject.
• The components can also have their own systems. For instance, the subject's courseware has handouts, supplemental readings, and learning activities. Each of these topic components can be thought of as a system, too.
• To help visualize and understand systems, use a system diagram.
• A system diagram displays the system's components and the interactions between them.
• Identify what is being asked in the picture

  A) Environment

  B) Humanity

  C) affects

  D) affects

  
• Human-environment system is an interdisciplinary approach to social science that bridges the gap between and integrates knowledge from social science and the natural sciences into one framework in the study of the environment and social issues.
• Also known as Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHANS), human-environment system is an integrated scientific framework for studying the interface and reciprocal interactions that link humans (economic, social, etc.) to natural (hydrological, atmospheric, biological, etc.) subsystems of the planet.
• Human Environment System follows the idea that social and natural systems are inseparable. They are always together and affect each other.
• Research in the human-environment systems are increasing in frequency in scientific literature, and most of them deal with topics about the issue of sustainability and conservation ecosystems and society.
• Researches on Human Environment System tackle broader investigations into the complex nature of reciprocating interactions and feedback between humans in the environment and the effect of the environment on humans.
• Human-environment interaction is a phenomenon that describes how human beings interact with the environment to obtain their needs from it, and how the environment, in turn, responds to this interaction.
• Human Environment Interaction indicates how humans themselves have to adapt to the environment to ensure theirsurvival.
• Human Environment Interaction is complex because ecosystems and human social systems have many parts and many connections between these parts. It is adaptive because they have feedback structures that promote survival in a constantly changing environment.
• The landscape is an important concept in the study of CHANS.
• Landscape refers not only to the beautiful spot that can be viewed from a specific perspective, but it is also the mixture of environmental and human phenomena that coexist in a specific place on Earth.
• Landscapes include physical features such as rivers, hills, forests, and soils, and human-made buildings, roads, bridges, and mines.
• The concept of landscapes refers to both human and non-human phenomena, stressing the idea that, in reality, it is impossible to absolutely separate humans from non-humans.
• A good example of landscapes is Banaue Rice Terraces, a scenery with a closely joined human- environment system: the Ifugaos built terraces because the environment was hilly (impact of the environment to humans). The terrace structure itself makes crops easier to harvest by hand (impact of human to the environment).
• Using the human-environment systems approach in studying geography, anthropology, and sociology may involve employing the thematic and mental maps, which help to understand the landscape and an individual's sense of place, among other things.
• A thematic map is a type of map especially intended to show a particular theme that is connected with a certain geographic area.
• Thematic map can depict physical, social, political, cultural, economic, sociological, agricultural, or any other aspects of a city, state, region, nation, or continent.
• Thematic Map is also formulated to serve a special purpose, which is to illustrate a particular subject, unlike a general map that comprises a variety of phenomena appearing together, such as landforms, lines of transportation, settlements, and political boundaries.
• Thematic Map emphasizes spatial variation of one or more geographic distributions.
• Knowing the locations and characteristics of people, places, and environments is a necessary precursor to and outcome of geographic learning and thinking. An effective way of doing this is to develop and use what is called a mental map
• Mental Map is an individual's internalized representation of aspects of Earth's surface.
• These maps in the mind ( mental map ) are what a person knows about the locations and characteristics of places at a variety of scales, from the local (the layout of a person's bedroom) to the global (the distribution of oceans and continents across Earth).
• Mental maps are a combination of objective knowledge and subjective perceptions: knowledge about the location of geographic features, impressions of places, rough estimates of size and location, and a general sense of the connections between places.
• Geography includes spatial distributions, or the study of why things vary from place to place on Earth, and anything that can be mapped (e.g., language of a country, temperatures in an ocean, the spread of forest fires in a region, and the ethnic demographics of a city).
• Spatial distribution is the arrangement of a phenomenon across the Earth's surface. The graphical display of such an arrangement is a significant tool in geographical and environmental statistics.
• Environmental issues may present themselves as temporary or permanent changes to the atmosphere, water, and land due to human activities, which can result in impacts that may either be reversible or irreversible.
• Pollution of air, water, and soil require millions of years to recoup. Industry and motor vehicle exhaust are the number one pollutant. Heavy metals, nitrates, and plastic are toxins responsible for pollution.
• Water pollution is caused by an oil spill, acid rain, or urban runoff

  Air pollution is caused by various gases and toxins released by industries and factories and combustion of fossil fuels

  Soil pollution is majorly caused by industrial waste that deprives soil from essential nutrients.
• Climate changes like global warming are the result of human practices like emission of Greenhouse gases.
• Global warming leads to rising temperatures of the oceans and the Earth's surface, causing the melting of polar ice caps, a rise in sea levels, and unnatural patterns of precipitation such as flash floods, excessive snow, or desertification.