ENV100Y5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Systems Theory, Session 9, Biomagnification

• School: UTM
• Department: Environment
• Course: ENV100Y5
• Professor: Barbara Murch

Document Summary

Env session 9: earth"s environmental systems and cycles (28-9-15) Read chp 3 case the plight of st. lawrence belugas. A system is a portion of the universe that can be separate from the rest, for the purpose of studying changes that occur within it, under changing conditions. Environmental systems tend to be complex (ex far, city, watershed) Categorizing systems makes earth"s complexity more understandable: major earth spheres, geosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, boundaries overlap, systems and subsystems interact. Earth itself approximates a closed system: living in a closed system has some consequences, resources are finite and limited, there is no away to throw things to, what goes around, comes around , principle of environmental unit. Systems show several basic properties: dynamic equilibrium systems are constantly changing. The content of a reservoir is a function of both concentration and overall size: content (or burden) of a reservoir, =total mass of a substance in the reservoir, =concentration x mass of a physical unit.