Human impacts on the physical environment

Human activities influence the functions of physical environmental processes and bring reactions to the human world. Human factors are important considerations for assessing changes in climate, topography and ecosystems. The physical environment provides resources and platforms to use these resources, but it can also be harmful for people. Human influence as a subject is therefore of particular concern to physical geographers. This concern arises from understanding the influence of the research environment on human activities, the human impact on the environment, and trying to reduce them. The role of human factors is now openly accepted, which is reflected in the increase in the application of natural geographers. The influence of changes in human activities and the physical environment ranges from completely local to those on the global scale and may occur immediately or slowly with time and worry at some future time There are times when that happens. The duration of the effect can be short-lived or permanent. There are many examples in the landscape around us. Although this chapter deals with and discusses only some of the human impacts in New Zealand, the conceptual background of humans as a factor of environmental change is incorporated into the examples given.

The expected climate change will exacerbate the human impact on the natural environment in many places. The magnitude and timing of these future impacts are still uncertain, but over the past few decades the climate experienced a measurable change (Elsner et al., 2008), hydrological change, early glacial period, spring outflow Reduction of the time change of low flow and peak flow in the summer (Hodgkins et al., 2002, 2003; Huntington et al., 2003, 2004). Future climate change may result in greater hydrological and ecological changes throughout the nation and worldwide, with potentially widespread impact on water availability (Arnell, 2004; Milly et al. al., 2005; IPCC, 2007).

Human activities influence the functions of physical environmental processes and bring reactions to the human world. Human factors are important considerations for assessing changes in climate, topography and ecosystems. The physical environment provides resources and platforms to use these resources, but it can also be harmful for people. Human influence as a subject is therefore of particular concern to physical geographers. This concern arises from understanding the influence of the research environment on human activities, the human impact on the environment, and trying to reduce them. The role of human factors is now openly accepted, which is reflected in the increase in the application of natural geographers. The effects of changes in human activities and the physical environment range from fully local to global ones and may occur immediately.