CAS GE 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Biogeochemical Cycle, World War I, Herbivore

• School: Boston University
• Department: Geography & Environment
• Course: CAS GE 100
• Professor: Aaron Garrett

Document Summary

Affected 1 million acres of land: farmers moved away to ca or stayed and became poorer, durst bowls continued until president initiated soil conservation projects. Incentives for tree planting, terracing, rotations, fallowing (conservation reserve program) How could we have let it get so bad: failure to think in systems and understand complex system dynamic. A collection of parts, which are known as storages and flows, that interact with each other to generate regular or predictable patterns or behaviors. Storage is a system part where energy or materials stay for an extended period. Spontaneous flow: occurs without energy input, from high concentration to low. Non-spontaneous flow: requires energy input, from low concentration to high, at least one of these is required in biogeochemical cycle. Materials flow spontaneously from low entropy to high entropy resulting in gradients. Positive relationship- increase one thing and it increases another (or vice versa) Negative relationship- increase one thing decreases another (or vice versa)