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Biophysical Environment - Wikipedia

A biophysical environment refers to the biotic and abiotic factors surrounding an organism that influence its survival, development, and evolution. Biophysical environments can vary in scale from microscopic to global. They include the marine, atmospheric, and terrestrial environments. Environmental science studies the interactions within biophysical environments and the effects of human activity, while related fields like environmental studies and environmentalism examine human interactions with the environment and seek to minimize negative impacts.

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3K views9 pages

Biophysical Environment - Wikipedia

A biophysical environment refers to the biotic and abiotic factors surrounding an organism that influence its survival, development, and evolution. Biophysical environments can vary in scale from microscopic to global. They include the marine, atmospheric, and terrestrial environments. Environmental science studies the interactions within biophysical environments and the effects of human activity, while related fields like environmental studies and environmentalism examine human interactions with the environment and seek to minimize negative impacts.

Uploaded by

Ritika Prasad
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Biophysical

environment

A biophysical environment is a biotic and


abiotic surrounding of an organism or
population, and consequently includes the
factors that have an influence in their
survival, development, and evolution.[1] A
biophysical environment can vary in scale
from microscopic to global in extent. It can
also be subdivided according to its
attributes. Examples include the marine
environment, the atmospheric
environment and the terrestrial
environment.[2] The number of biophysical
environments is countless, given that each
living organism has its own environment.

The term environment can refer to a


singular global environment in relation to
humanity, or a local biophysical
environment, e.g. the UK's Environment
Agency.

Life-environment interaction
All life that has survived must have
adapted to conditions of its environment.
Temperature, light, humidity, soil nutrients,
etc., all influence any species, within any
environment. However life in turn modifies,
in various forms, its conditions. Some long
term modifications along the history of the
planet have been significant, such as the
incorporation of oxygen to the
atmosphere. This process consisted in the
breakdown of carbon dioxide by anaerobic
microorganisms that used the carbon in
their metabolism and released the oxygen
to the atmosphere. This led to the
existence of oxygen-based plant and
animal life, the great oxygenation event.

Related studies
The ecosystem of public parks often includes humans
feeding the wildlife.

Environmental science is the study of the


interactions within the biophysical
environment. Part of this scientific
discipline is the investigation of the effect
of human activity on the environment.
Ecology, a sub-discipline of biology and a
part of environmental sciences, is often
mistaken as a study of human induced
effects on the environment. Environmental
studies is a broader academic discipline
that is the systematic study of interaction
of humans with their environment. It is a
broad field of study that includes the
natural environment, built environments
and social environments.

Environmentalism is a broad social and


philosophical movement that, in a large
part, seeks to minimise and compensate
the negative effect of human activity on
the biophysical environment. The issues of
concern for environmentalists usually
relate to the natural environment with the
more important ones being climate
change, species extinction, pollution, and
old growth forest loss.

One of the studies related include


employing Geographic Information
Science to study the biophysical
environment.[3]

See also
Biophysics subject to the context
List of conservation topics
List of environmental issues
List

References
1. Biology online. "Environment.
Definition" . Retrieved 2012-03-15.
2. Kemp, David Walker (1998).
Environment Dictionary . London, UK:
Routledge.
3. Deng, Y. X., and J. P. Wilson. 2006.
“The Role of Attribute Selection in GIS
Representations of the Biophysical
Environment”. Annals of the
Association of American Geographers
96 (1). [Association of American
Geographers, Taylor & Francis, Ltd.]:
47–63. JSTOR 3694144 .
Miller, G. Tyler (1995). Environmental
science. California: Wadsworth. ISBN 0-
534-21588-2.
McCallum, Malcolm L.; Gwendolynn W.
Bury. "Google search patterns suggest
declining interest in the environment".
Biodiversity and Conservation.
doi:10.1007/s10531-013-0476-6 .

External links
Media related to Environment at
Wikimedia Commons

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