Living with the Physical Environment

Calling all physical geographers! Glad to have you here. What's your favourite natural hazard? Maybe it's the super fiery exploding volcanoes, or perhaps it's the spinning, whirling cyclones! Are you interested in our changing climate? Or possibly, what it's like to live on plate boundaries? If these questions excite you, this section is the one for you. Let's outline the meaning of the physical environment, and take a brief look at the topics that you will be exploring in this section. Let's also explore some of the challenges of living with the physical environment.

Physical environment meaning

If you're a keen geographer, when you think of the physical environment you'll think of things like our climate, rivers, coasts, natural disasters, and the list goes on. You would be entirely correct. But what is the textbook meaning of the physical environment?

In our physical geography topics, we have already discussed glacial environments, river environments, coastal environments, cold, hot and tropical environments, as well as natural ecosystems and biomes. Be sure to check out the introduction explanations to each of those topics; Glacial Landscapes, River Landscapes, Coasts, and Living World.

Fig. 1 - the beauty of our physical environment

This explanation is going to focus on living with the physical environment, where things like climate change, natural hazards, and plate margins all have an impact on how we, as humans, live within our world's physical environment. Let's outline these topics briefly, but, don't forget, this is just an introduction; be sure to read all the explanations within each of these topics!

Living with the physical environment topics

Living in the physical environment of the world means that we, as humans, are completely exposed to mother nature's elements. What kind of threats does the physical environment pose to our daily lives? Can these threats be mitigated? Let's discuss some of the topics you'll be learning about.

Climate Change

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges that our world is facing. Although climate change has occurred naturally over millions of years, with periods of warming and cooling, we are now the problem. As a result of the intensification of farming, burning fossil fuels, increased use of transportation, and changing our environments through practices such as deforestation, our climate has changed dramatically, and, it's our fault. This change is causing glaciers to melt and retreat, crop yields to reduce, sea levels to increase, and ecosystems to go extinct! Because of this, it is going to become increasingly more important to respond to such issues; this can be achieved through Adapting to a Changing Climate or Managing Climate Change.

Natural hazards

Fig. 2 - how would this natural event impact human life?

Climate Hazards

Climate hazards are basically related to the weather and are caused by our weather systems. Make sure you read the Global Atmospheric Circulation explanation to understand how weather systems work! Examples of climate hazards include:

• Flooding
• Tropical storms (typhoons, cyclones, and hurricanes)
• Droughts
• Tornadoes

Tectonic Hazards

Tectonic hazards are caused by the movement of the earth's surface or the movement of tectonic plates. The earth is split up into many layers, a bit like a cake. The outer layer is divided into big chunks of rock, or plates, which move in different directions! This movement can result in earthquakes and volcanoes.

You can read about why earthquakes happen, types, and examples in the Earthquakes explanation, whilst volcano formation, types, and examples can all be found in the explanation on Volcanoes!

Plate margins

No, we aren't talking about dinner plates! We're actually talking about those tectonic plates we mentioned earlier.

There are different types of plate margins that exist; constructive, destructive, conservative, and collision. They are all associated with different landforms or hazards. Many people are Living on Plate Margins, for many different reasons, but sadly, there are risks associated with living on these margins, such as damaged infrastructure and even deaths. This means that it is vital to have methods to reduce these risks and impacts, such as resistant infrastructures and monitoring methods.

Challenges of living with the physical environments

It's pretty clear that climate change, natural hazards, and living on plate margins all pose a risk to humans. Let's take a closer look at some of the challenges that exist when living in the physical environment.

Climate change and climate hazards

As we have already discussed, climate change is one of the major challenges in the physical environment. Climate change will likely impact everyone at some point. As climate change worsens, so too, will climate hazards. With melting glaciers, and rising sea levels, flooding will become much more common, which can cause massive infrastructural damage among other casualties, including death.

Fig. 3 - flooding will become much more common

A warmer climate will produce more heatwaves, droughts, and soaring temperatures. Dangerous weather events will essentially become much more intense, and occur much more often. Reduced rainfall means water availability goes down, which can increase the risks of water insecurity. The warmer climate and reduced water supply can cause crop production and agriculture to fail, which can reduce people's access to food, causing food insecurity.

Plate margins and tectonic hazards

As you can see on the map above, there are many plate margins across the world. This means that people are bound to be living there. But, of course, this isn't without its challenges. Living on a plate margin means it is much more likely for those people to be impacted by tectonic hazards. Earthquakes and volcanoes are more apparent at plate boundaries, which, if these hazards occur, can cause mass destruction. This can have a huge economic impact on the area. Natural disasters can also result in a loss of human life, and impact the local environment and ecosystems.

It is clear that living with the physical environment comes with many challenges- but we don't have much choice! Take a look at our explanations on climate hazards and earthquake hazard management to see how people cope!