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

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