1) Ecological cycles recycle essential elements like carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and water. This allows life to be sustained on Earth. 2) The document then discusses the carbon, oxygen, water, and nitrogen cycles in more detail, explaining the key processes involved in each one like photosynthesis, respiration, evaporation, fixation, and denitrification. 3) It also provides background on topics like the Chipko movement, which was a campaign to protect trees launched in India in 1973, as well as the Bhopal gas tragedy, one of the world's worst industrial disasters when a pesticide plant leaked toxic gases.

1. Ruchi Pal
Assistant Professor
Maa Bhagwati College of Pharmacy
Ecology Of Environment

2. Ecological cycles
Ecological cycles recycle the earth’s limited
resources like water, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen,
and other elements which are essential to
sustain life.
1) Carbon cycle
2) Oxygen cycle
3) Water cycle
4) Nitrogen cycle

3. Carbon cycle
• Carbon is mother of elements.
• Backbone of bio elements.
Source-
Their source is fossil fuels.
It is in dissolve form.
By respiration.
In the form of gases.
% of carbon-
21 % occur in dissolve form.
79% occur in gaseous form.

4. Carbon cycle
CO2
Release
(4%)
Plants
(Photosynt
hesis)
Decay
Burn
CO2 release
Animals
Respiration
(0.04%)
inhale

5. Oxygen Cycle
 Oxygen is very essential for every living being because we takes it in by
the process of respiration and release carbon dioxide.
 Oxygen cycle refers to the movement of oxygen through the
atmosphere (air), Biosphere (plants and animals) and the Lithosphere
(the earth's crust).
 The oxygen cycle demonstrates how free oxygen is made available in
each of these regions, as well as how it is used.
 The entire cycle can be summarized as, the oxygen cycle begins with the
process of photosynthesis in the presence of sunlight, releases oxygen
back into the atmosphere, which humans and animals breathe in
oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, and again linking back to the
plants.

7. Water Cycle
• Water is life.
• Water is made up of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen.
• These two elements are very important for organisms and plants.
• 72% of the earth is water.
This water is evaporated by the heat of sun and
collected as clouds in the atmosphere thereafter
on condensation in the form of rain
it is again gathered in various sources of water such as rivers, ponds, sewage lines
and land.
This is continuous cycle which is called water cycle.

9. Nitrogen Cycle
• Nitrogen (N) is an essential component of DNA, RNA, and amino acids.
• All organisms require nitrogen to live and grow. Majority of the air we
breath is N2. (78%)
• Most of the nitrogen in the atmosphere is unavailable for use by organisms.
• In order for plants and animals to be able to use nitrogen, N2 gas must first
be converted to more a chemically available form.
• Natural cyclic process in the course of which atmospheric nitrogen enters
the soil and becomes part of living organisms.

10.  Steps of Nitrogen Cycle
1) Nitrogen Fixation
2) Nitrogen Assimilation
3) Ammonification
4) Nitrification
5) Denitrification

11. Nitrogen Fixation
• The process of converting N₂ into biologically available nitrogen is called nitrogen
fixation
• nitrogen-fixing organisms are two type.
1. Free-living
2. Symbiosis: Rhizobium is most importance bacteria in nitrogen cycle.
• Rhizobium can infect the roots of a leguminous plant (such as peas, clover,
soybeans etc.)

12. Nitrogen Fixation by Lightening
• The high energies provided by lightening and cosmic radiation serve to combine
atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen into nitrates, which are carried to the Earth's
surface in precipitation.

13. Nitrogen Assimilation
• Assimilation of nitrates and ammonia resulting from nitrogen fixation into the
specific tissue compounds of algae and higher plants. Animals then ingest these
algae and plants, converting them into their own body compounds.
Ammonification
 When an organism excretes waste or dies, the nitrogen in its tissues is in the form of organic
nitrogen (e.g. amino acids, DNA).
 Various fungi and prokaryotes then decompose the tissue and release inorganic nitrogen
back into the ecosystem as ammonia in the process known as ammonification.
 The ammonia then becomes available for uptake by plants and other microorganisms for
growth.

14. Nitrification
• Nitrification is the process that converts ammonia to nitrite and then
to nitrate.
• There are two distinct steps of nitrification.
• The first step is the oxidation of ammonia to nitrite,
• ammonia oxidation carried out by only a few types of bacteria in the
genera Nitrosomonas, Nitrosospira, and Nitrococcus.
• The second step is the oxidation of nitrite (NO₂) to nitrate (NO3)
carried out by bacteria such as a Nitrobacter.

15. Denitrification
• Denitrification is the process that converts nitrate to nitrogen gas.
• Some denitrifying bacteria include species in the genera Bacillus,
Paracoccus, and Pseudomonas.
• Denitrification is important in that it removes fixed nitrogen from the
ecosystem.
• NO3 NO2 NO + N₂O- N₂
• Nitrate
• Nitrogen dioxide
• Nitric oxide
• Nitrous oxide

17. Chipko movement
 The Chipko movement can mainly be called the women’s movement.
 Women, fully responsible for agriculture, livestock, and children, have
moved out due to increasing deforestation in the context of
urbanization due to floods and landslides.
 The Chipko movement was a nonviolent movement of 1973 aimed at
protecting and preserving trees, but perhaps firstly to mobilize
women to protect forests, change attitudes, and recall their own
positions in society.
 The movement against deforestation and maintaining ecological
balance originated in the Chamoli district of Uttar Pradesh (now
Uttarakhand) in 1973 and never spread to other states in northern
India.
 The name ‘Chipko’ is derived from the word ‘hug’ as the villagers hug
and surround the trees.

18. WHAT IS THE MAIN OBJECTIVE OF THIS MOVEMENT?
• The Chipko movement started in the village of Reni in Garhwal, Uttarakhand.
• The main goal was to embrace and protect the trees, not to allow these trees to be cut down. The
movement was also known as the Chipko Andolan.
• The Chipko movement spread rapidly to communities and the media, forcing the forest-based
government to reconsider its priorities in the name of forest production.
• This has resulted in the efficient management of the forests due to the intervention of the locals.

19. Bhopal Gas Tragedy
Introduction:
 The Bhopal Gas tragedy is the worst air pollution episode
ever witnessed in India.
 It happened in Bhopal on December 3, 1984.
 It was a catastrophe that had no parallel in the world's
industrial history.
 The Union Carbide factory is located in Bhopal, a town in
Madhya Pradesh.
 The fateful incident happened due to the leakage of lethal
gas called methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas from three storage
tanks of Union Carbide factory, a Multinational
Corporation.
 MIC is an intermediate used in the manufacture of
pesticides.

20. About Company
• UCIL, built in 1969, Which was the Indian subsidiary of
Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), with Indian government
controlled banks and the Indian public holding a 49.1%
stake.
• In 1975,UCIL was licensed to manufacture its own carbaryl
with the trade name sevin.
• Phosgene, Monomethyamine, Methyl Isocyanate and the
pesticides carbaryl, also know as Sevin were manufactured
here.

21. Health Effects
• It is estimated 1,00,000 to 2,00,000 people have
permeant injuries.
Reported symptoms are:
• Eye problems
• Respiratory difficulties
• Immune and neurological disorders
• Birth defects among children born to infected women.

22. Factors leading to this huge gas leak include:
• The use of hazardous chemicals (MIC) instead of less dangerous ones.
• Possible corroding material in pipelines.
• Failure of several safety systems (due to poor maintenance and
regulations).
• Plant design modifications by Indian engineers to abide by
government regulations and economic pressures to reduce expenses.

23. Long-term health effects
• A total of 36 wards were marked by the
authorities as being "gas affected," affecting
a population of 520,000.Of these, 200,000
were below 15 years of age, and 3,000 were
pregnant women.
• Later, the affected area was expanded to
include700,000 citizens.

24. The leakage and its subsequent effects
• The gases were blown in a southeasterly direction
over Bhopal.
• The initial effects of exposure were coughing, severe
eye irritation and a feeling of suffocation, burning in
the respiratory tract, blepharospasm, breathlessness,
stomach pains and vomiting.

25. Those relevant facts are furnished below:
1. The plant has two main safety devices: Scrubber, which neutralize the gas with
caustic soda and Flare tower, where the gas can be burnt off. Both the safety devices
failed to operate on that particular day.
2. The refrigeration units for the storage tanks containing MIC
gas were out of order for several months.
3. The water jet had failed to reach at the top of the 120 ft stack from which MIC gas
was gushing out.
4. The poisonous gas was stored in the tanks for more than two months, violating
the safety rules.
5. The factory turned on the public siren about an hour after the gas started
releasing into the atmosphere.
6. The plant was located in densely populated area of old Bhopal.

26. Biodiversity
• Biodiversity is the shortened form of two words "biological" and "diversity".
• It refers to all the variety of life that can be found on Earth (plants, animals,
fungi and micro-organisms) as well as to the communities that they form and
the habitats in which they live.
• Biodiversity boosts ecosystem productivity.

27. Affects on human of biodiversity
• Humans affect biodiversity by their population numbers, use of land, and their lifestyles, causing
damage to habitats for species. It is important for humans to realize how their actions affect
biodiversity and the importance of maintaining what biodiversity is left on the earth.
• Humans may destroy natural landscapes as they mine resources and urbanize areas.. Some examples
include the mining of natural resources like coal, the hunting and fishing of animals for food, and the
clearing of forests for urbanization and wood use. .
 Deforestation
 Overexploitation
 Invasive species
 Pollution
• Humans can effect the ecosystem in a negative way, by pollution, waste dumping, over hunting of
animals, over fishing, industrial gases, energy use and not using biodegradable products
overpopulation, pollution, burning fossil fuels, and deforestation. Changes like these have triggered
climate change, soil erosion, poor air quality, and undrinkable

28. Irrigation
 Irrigation is the application of controlled
amounts of water to plants at needed
intervals.
 Irrigation helps to grow agricultural crops,
maintain landscapes, and revegetate
disturbed soils in dry areas and during
periods of less than average rainfall.
 Type of Irrigation
• Urbanization
• Localized irrigation.
• Drip irrigation.
• Sprinkler irrigation.
• Center pivot irrigation.
• Lateral move irrigation.
• Sub-irrigation.
Manual irrigation
• Urbanization is a word for becoming more like a city. When
populations of people grow, the population of a place may spill over
from city to nearby areas. This is called urbanization. Maybe tall
apartment buildings spring up on what had been the outskirts of town,
bringing more people there to live and work.
• The level of urbanization and economic development are positively
related. An increase in concentration of population at one place yield
many positive externalities increasing productivity and efficiency.
• Urbanization is a symbol of development because people get more
labour or job in urban areas and earn money and increase national
income, which will lead to development of a country. ... for a proper
development in a country, there should be given equal importance to
urban and rural.

29. Mining
• Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth,
usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef or placer deposit. These deposits form a
mineralized package that is of economic interest to the miner.
• Mining is the process of digging things out of the ground. Any material that cannot be grown
must be mined. Mining things from the ground is called extraction. Mining can include
extraction of metals and minerals, like coal, diamond, gold, silver, platinum, copper, tin and
iron.
• Mining is the extraction (removal) of minerals and metals from earth. Manganese,
tantalum, cassiterite, copper, tin, nickel, bauxite (aluminum ore), iron ore, gold, silver, and
diamonds are just some examples of what is mined.
• Mined materials are needed to construct roads and hospitals, to build automobiles and
houses, to make computers and satellites, to generate electricity, and to provide the many
other goods and services that consumers enjoy. In addition, mining is economically
important to producing regions and countries.
• Mining is the extraction of minerals and other geological materials of economic value from
deposits on the Earth

30. • Mining adversely affects the environment by inducing loss of biodiversity,
soil erosion, and contamination of surface water, groundwater, and soil.
Mining can also trigger the formation of sinkholes
• Mining has adverse effects both on miner and environment. The effect of
mining includes erosion,, formation of sinkholes, loss of biodiversity, and
contamination of soil, groundwater and surface water by chemicals from
mining processes. ... Humans are also affected by mining.
• Positive and negative effects of mining
• While positive impacts such as employment and community development
projects are important, they do not off-set the potential negatives.
• We have found mining can negatively affect people by: forcing them from
their homes and land. preventing them from accessing clean land and
water.

31. Deforestation
• Deforestation is when forests are destroyed by cutting trees (logging) and not replanting them. Sometimes deforestation happens when
people change lands into farms, ranches and cities. The most common cause for deforestation is obtaining wood and fuel.
• The loss of trees and other vegetation can cause climate change, desertification, soil erosion, fewer crops, flooding, increased
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and a host of problems for indigenous people.
• Deforestation causes can either be direct or indirect. Among direct causes are: Natural causes as hurricanes, fires, parasites and floods.
Human activities as agricultural expansion, cattle breeding, timber extraction, mining, oil extraction, dam construction and
infrastructure development.
• Deforestation Impacts on the Earth's Water Cycle. Forests transport large quantities of water into the atmosphere via plant
transpiration. When deforestation occurs, precious rain is lost from the area, flowing away as river water and causing permanent drying.
• Deforestation Effects,
• Agriculture....
• Population Growth And Expansion. ...
• Desertification. ..
• Easter Island...
• Extinction And Biodiversity Loss. ....
• Soil Erosion....
• Atmospheric Change
• Green house Gas

32. Ecological succession
• Ecological succession is the process by which the mix of species and
habitat in an area changes over time.
• Gradually, these communities replace one another until a "climax
community"-like a mature forest-is reached, or until a disturbance,
like a fire, occurs. Ecological succession is a fundamental concept in
ecology.

33. RENEWABLE & NON-RENEWABLE RESOURCE
• Fossil fuel, CNG, coal, oil, natural gas are the examples of the conventional
sources of energy.
• Solar Energy, Wind Energy, Bio Energy, Hydro Energy, Tidal Energy, Ocean
Energy are the examples of non-conventional energy resources.

34. Conventional(Non-renewable) sources of energy
• Conventional sources of energy are the natural energy resources which are
present in a limited quantity and are being used for a long time.
• They are called non-renewable sources as once they are depleted, they cannot be
generated at the speed which can sustain its consumption rate.
• They are formed from decaying matter over hundreds of millions of years.
• These resources have been depleted to a great extent due to their continuous
exploitation.
• It is believed that the deposits of petroleum in our country will be exhausted
within few decades and the coal reserves can last for a hundred more years.
• Some common examples of conventional sources of energy include coal,
petroleum, natural gas and electricity.

35. Non-conventional(Renewable) energy
• Non-conventional sources of energy are the energy sources which are
continuously replenished by natural processes.
• These cannot be exhausted easily, can be generated constantly so can be used
again and again, e.g. solar energy, wind energy, tidal energy, biomass energy and
geothermal energy etc.
• The energy obtained from non-conventional sources is known as non-
conventional energy.
• These sources do not pollute the environment and do not require heavy
expenditure. They are called renewable resources as they can be replaced
through natural processes at a rate equal to or greater than the rate at which
they are consumed.

36. Green House Effect
 The greenhouse effect is a natural process that warms the Earth's surface.
When the Sun's energy reaches the Earth's atmosphere, some of it is
reflected back to space and the rest is absorbed and re-radiated by
greenhouse gases. The absorbed energy warms atmosphere and the surface
of the Earth.
 The greenhouse effect is defined as when the Earth's atmosphere becomes
thick with gases and substances which trap the sun's radiation, making the
Earth warmer.
 An example of the greenhouse effect is global warming.
 Greenhouse effect, a warming of Earth's surface and troposphere (the lowest
layer of the atmosphere) caused by the presence of water vapour, carbon
dioxide, methane, and certain other gases in the air. Of those gases, known as
greenhouse gases, water vapour has the largest effect.

38. Global Warming
• Global warming is the ongoing rise of the average temperature of the Earth's
climate system and has been demonstrated by direct temperature measurements
and by measurements of various effects of the warming.
• Global warming is the process that causes the Earth's temperature to rise and
makes the Earth warmer.
• Humans play a large role in the increase in the Earth's temperature.
• Global warming occurs when carbon dioxide (CO2) and other air pollutants and
greenhouse gases collect in the atmosphere and absorb sunlight and solar
radiation that have bounced off the earth's surface.
• Global warming is a phenomenon of climate change characterized by a general
increase in average temperatures of the Earth, which modifies the weather
balances and ecosystems for a long time.

39.  It is directly linked to the increase of
greenhouse gases in our atmosphere,
worsening the greenhouse effect.
 An increase in the average
temperature of the Earth's
atmosphere, especially a sustained
increase great enough to cause
changes in the global climate.

40. Ozone Layer Depletion
• Ozone layer depletion is simply the wearing out (reduction) of the amount of
ozone in the stratosphere. Unlike pollution, which has many types and causes,
Ozone depletion has been pinned down to one major human activity.
Depletion begins when CFC's get into the stratosphere.
• Ozone layer depletion causes increased UV radiation levels at the Earth's
surface, which is damaging to human health. Negative effects include increases
in certain types of skin cancers, eye cataracts and immune deficiency disorders.
UV rays also affect plant growth, reducing agricultural productivity.
• Ozone depletion is primarily caused by human activities. The main effect of
ozone depletion is an increase in UV-B rays reaching the earth's surface.
Causes: chlorofluorocarbon (CFCs), halons, and other compounds deplete the
ozone layer.

42. Acid Rain
• Acid rain is a rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic,
meaning that it has elevated levels of hydrogen ions (low pH).
• Acid rain is caused by emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, which react
with the water molecules in the atmosphere to produce acids.
• Acid rain is a result of air pollution. Some of these gases (especially nitrogen
oxides and sulphur dioxide) react with the tiny droplets of water in clouds to form
sulphuric and nitric acids.
• The rain from these clouds then falls as very weak acid which is why it is known as
"acid rain".
• Acid rain is caused by a chemical reaction that begins when compounds like sulfur
dioxide and nitrogen oxides are released into the air.
• These substances can rise very high into the atmosphere, where they mix and
react with water, oxygen, and other chemicals to form more acidic pollutants,
known as acid rain.