Environmental Impacts of Deforestation

Deforestation disrupts the water, carbon, and energy cycles, affecting the vegetation and the amount of carbon dioxide. It leads to the greenhouse effect, global warming, and climatic hazards. Deforestation is responsible for the extinction of certain species of animals and causes an imbalance in the hydrological and carbon dioxide cycle, which is a threat to the ability of the earth to support life.

Environmental impacts of deforestation
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF DEFORESTATION
DISRUPTION OF THE CARBON CYCLE, WATER CYCLE
AND SPECIES DIVERSITY.
STUDENT NAME
INSTRUCTOR NAME
COURSE TITLE
1
[DATE]

Environmental impacts of deforestation
People can affect the climate in a place, this is done by disrupting the water, carbon and
energy cycles. Activities such as cutting down trees have a direct impact on the vegetation
around us. The vegetation influences the changes in climate and the amount of carbon dioxide
which affects the aquatic and terrestrial eco system. For instance, high amount of carbon
dioxide may have a permanent or long-term effect on the vegetation and the carbon and water
cycles.
Human beings depend on the vegetation, mainly forests, for the cycle of carbon dioxide
and oxygen to change. Since humans take oxygen and produce carbon dioxide and plants do the
opposite where they use the CO2 to make their own food via photosynthesis (Roy & Ladefoged,
2018). Even if people were to cut trees and replant them, it will take years for the trees to grow
back to full height, and be able to process adequate amounts of CO2 since they are responsible
for balancing the gases. This leads to greenhouse effect and global warming where too much
carbon dioxide is in the environment. The excess carbon dioxide causes a blanket effect where
heat is trapped and cannot leave the earth’s atmosphere thereby heating the earth.
Trees gets water from the soil through their roots, stores the water before releasing it
back to the environment via a process known as Transpiration (Bachorz & Redman, 2018). In the
cases of deforestation, water that is released back into the atmosphere is limited. Lack of trees
mean water flows faster to the streams and rivers with little soil absorption. Since respiration
will also be lacking, the impact of deforestation will be greater. The normal hydrological cycle
where it rains, get absorbed into the soil, then later released into the atmosphere by the trees is
thereby disrupted leading to climatic hazards (Strough, 2017). This eventually leads to
formation of deserts and the environmental cycle balance will not be supported.
2

Environmental impacts of deforestation
Forests cover 31 percent of earth and hosts approximately 80% of the terrestrial life.
Rain forests covers 2% of the earth surface. It houses nearly 50% of all the plants and animals’
species (Slavikova, Popescu, Nichols, & Folk, 2018). Forests cover is quite vital to both humans and
other numerous animals. Deforestation is responsible for extinction of certain species of
animals. Destruction of the animal’s habitat usually leaves them vulnerable to climatic and
other hazards such as preys which eventually ends up clearing them from the earth’s surface.
The activities that causes imbalance in the hydrological and carbon dioxide cycle are
not only a threat to animals but also to the human species. Plans and animals do have an
interdependency that assists each one of them survive on the earth’s surface. Eliminating plants
from the equation will cause a great imbalance which is a big threat to the ability of the earth to
support life. Up to now several species of animals and plants have gone extinct, and more will
continue to, unless deforestation is addressed as a global threat and measures to stop it are
taken seriously.
3

Environmental impacts of deforestation
REFERENCES
Bachorz, B., & Redman, L. (2018). Deforestation Impacts on the Earth"s Water Cycle. Cosmos
Magazine, 1.
Roy, G., & Ladefoged, Z. (2018, August 7). The impact deforestation is having on the Carbon Cycle.
Retrieved from Weebly: https://thecarboncycledio.weebly.weebly.com/deforestation.html
Slavikova, S., Popescu, O., Nichols, M. R., & Folk, E. (2018, July 18). How Does Deforestation Affect
Animals. Retrieved from Greentumble: https://greentumble.com/how-does-deforestation-
affects-animals/
Strough, S. (2017, February 8). How does deforestation affect the water cycle? Retrieved from Quora:
https://www.quora.com/how-does-deforestation-affect-the-water-cycle
4