What is environment | Define environment | How man affects his environment

Energy & Environmental Engineering | Environmental Science | HOTS Questions | Important Questions

Q.  Define environment. How man affects his environment? (R.GP.V. Dec. 2011, 2012, 2016, 2018)

Ans. The term environment, which literally means surroundings, is a composite term used for the conditions in which organism live and thus consist of air, water, food and sunlight which are the basic needs of all living beings and plants, to carry on their life functions. The environment also includes other living organisms, temperature, wind, rainfall, etc.

Environment may be defined as the, "surroundings or controlled conditions which affects the development and growth of people, plants, animals and micro organisms".


Man has always inhabited two worlds. One is the natural world of plants, animals, air, water and soil of which man himself is a part; and the other is the man-made world of social institutions and artifacts which he has created for himself by using science and technology. Thus, environment includes everything around the organism, i.e. abiotic (non-living) and biotic (living). Abiotic environment consists of air, water and land, while the biotic environment is built-up of other organisms. Any external force, condition or substance which affects the organisms in any way is known as a factor and the sum of all such factors constitutes the environment.

Every living species of animals or plants influences its environment and in turn gets affected by from it. The magnitude of influence done by plants and animals is limited to a certain extent due to natural barriers, further they cannot modify their environment. But man is an exception, he can modify his environment to satisfy his needs.
From the start of human civilization, man started interfering with the environment. He devasted forests for wood, bringing land for cultivation, and to have soil which has eroded by natural processes. He killed animals - the gentle ones, for food and the fierce ones, for safety. He polluted air, water and soil by chemical garbages from their houses and factories. However, all these activities did not affect the environment in a serious way for a long time, because population was not so high and nature's self cleansing and purifying ability keep the environment undeteriorated.

After the scientific and industrial revolution in the past, man starts to affect his environment in a more serious way. Man's effort to control the nature, leads imbalance in ecosystem. Large crowded cities, huge industrial installations every year, more and more comfort requirements all these leads to what is called environmental pollution.

Primitive man used natural resources to satisfy his basic needs of air, water, food and shelter. These natural and unprocessed resources were readily available in the biosphere, and the residues produced by their use were generally compatible with, or easily assimilated by the environment. But as the acquired needs of man increases, it increases the complexity of resource production chain, and mass and complexity of the pollutants generated.

All the above mentioned activities of man raised problems like ecological imbalance, environmental degradation, disruption of earth's natural ecosystems, depletion of protective ozone layer, global warming (green house effect) and sick environment.