Causes and Effects of Watershed Degradation - 7239 Words

USING SUITABLE EXAMPLES FROM KENYA, EXAMINE THE CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF WATERSHED DEGRADATION AND SUGGEST POSSIBLE INTERVENTION MEASURES TABLE OF CONTENTS CAUSES, EFFECTS AND SOLUTIONS TO WATERSHED DEGRADATION PREAMBLE Page 4 1. INTRODUCTION Page 4 - 6 2. Causes of Watershed Degradation Page 7 2.1 Land degradation 7 - 8 2.2 Deforestation 8 2.3 Removal of vegetation 8 2.4 Shifting cultivation without adequate fallow periods 9 2.5 Overgrazing 9 2.6 Poor farming methods 9 - 10 2.7 Cultivation of marginal lands 10 - 11 2.8 Improper crop rotations 11 2.9 Unbalanced fertilizer use 11 2.10 Pests and diseases 11 3. Underlying causes†¦show more content†¦But a watershed is more than a collection of streams and adjacent land areas--it is a natural resource system in which humans and other organisms interact with the land and its associated resources for sustenance, shelter, and security. The physical condition of a watershed, therefore, directly affects the health and well being of natural and social systems within its divides and indirectly affects those systems beyond its divides. Degradation of a watershed can have various forms: depletion of water resources, soil erosion and land degradation, impoverishment of the vegetative cover, and damage to the infrastructure. Land degradation is responsible for reduction of the vegetation cover. It can be caused by inadequate land management, overexploitation, and reduced soil fertility, but also by climatic factors. A poor vegetation cover leads to a reduced infiltration rate of the water into the soil and to a loss of water through surface runoff. Surface runoff is one of the reasons for the depletion of water resources on the one hand and for soil erosion on the other hand. Most of the surface runoff is not controlled or effectively used and so lost for the community. In order to profit from the rainwater it has either to infiltrate into the soil and be available for crop production or be intercepted and actively used forShow MoreRelatedProblem Statement Versus Needs Assesment1384 Words   |  6 Pagesof what is cu rrently a problem or an enhancement of a need to be added to a current situation. For example, let’s look at a fictitious rural community facing a particular environmental situation. The federal public land manager in charge of a watershed surrounding the small, rural community of Cottonwood Creek brings a partnership of local stakeholders together worried about the namesake stream that flowed through their town of 4,000 people. The meeting includes representatives from the power generationRead MoreEffects Of Turbiridity Due On Land Use1498 Words   |  6 Pages1)Effects of turbiridity due to land use changes- †¢ Turbidity measures the amount of light scattered from a sample and more suspended particles causes more scattering results in high turbidity. †¢ Turbidity measurements are often used as indicator of water quality based on clarity and total suspended solid particles. Turbidity doesn’t include the dissolved solids which reduces the scattering. †¢ In agricultural lands the receiving water is contaminated by nonpoint pollution due to different agriculturalRead MoreWatershed Issues And Policies Of The Himalayan Region1434 Words   |  6 Pages Sharon Fighter Final Paper Watershed Issues and Policies in the Himalayan Region The Himalayan region provides water to more than 150 million people in the uplands and lowlands, and the water basins support 1.5 billion people who inhabit the area, and up to 3 billion people rely on the food and energy produced using the Himalayan watershed (1). The glaciers in the Himalayas deliver large quantities of runoff to the major tributaries of the Ganges and the rivers in the adjacent basins (2). TheseRead MoreThe Chesapeake Bay Is The Most Massive Estuary Of The United States Of America1746 Words   |  7 PagesINTRODUCTION The Chesapeake Bay is the most massive estuary in the United States of America. Spanning lengths over 300,000 meters, this it is a watershed that extends over six states, the District of Columbia, and meets the needs of over 15 million individuals. With its high rate of productivity, its economic and social importance to the surrounding areas, and its close proximity to the U.S. capital, the Chesapeake has the recipient of significant attention for quite some time(Boesch, Donald). OneRead MoreThe Effect Of Temperature And Dissolved Oxygen Concentration Associated With Wildfires1386 Words   |  6 Pagesladder fuels within forests across this region. Both of these factors are now contributing to more frequent and more extreme fires in recent years. These catastrophic fires cause significant changes to ground cover along stream corridors. The loss of ground cover significantly increases the amount of sediment entering watersheds, which can alter both temperature and dissolved oxygen levels throughout the system. The purpose of this paper is to examine the cha nges in water temperature and dissolvedRead MoreThe Effect Of Temperature And Dissolved Oxygen Concentration Associated With Wildfires1374 Words   |  6 Pagesladder fuels within forests across this region. Both of these factors are now contributing to more frequent and more extreme fires in recent years. These catastrophic fires cause significant changes to ground cover along stream corridors. The loss of ground cover significantly increases the amount of sediment entering watersheds, which can alter both temperature and dissolved oxygen levels throughout the system. The purpose of this paper is to examine the changes in water temperature and dissolvedRead MoreHow Do Minerals Affect Society? Minerals1679 Words   |  7 Pagesground to reach the mineral ore and then constructing horizontal shafts or tunnels to the mineral ore. The ore is the pumped onto the surface. Strip Mining: It involves stripping the surface layers of the earth so as to reveal the mineral ore 3. What effect does extracting minerals have on the environment? During underground mining processes the land may collapse causing the land above to sink. Again, during mining, the release of gases and dust seriously affect soil, water and air. Acid drainage fromRead MoreThe Effects Of Water Pollution On The Environment1269 Words   |  6 Pagesintroduction of harmful toxins in an aquatic food chain can result in high levels of contamination in fish, which can be harmful to humans who eat them. State and national agencies monitoring our waters is essential to understanding the effects of water degradation. Every state in the United States has developed standards for fish consumption advisories and restrictions to protect the population from potential health hazards, particularly recreational fishing (Lepak et al.,2009). By continually definingRead MoreEssay on The Genesee River Watershed1994 Words   |  8 PagesIntroduction: The Genesee River Watershed. The Genesee River and its watershed is a major tributary to Lake Ontario. The river originates in the Allegheny Plateau in the town of Ulysses, Potter County, Pennsylvania, about fifteen miles south of the New York State border (GFLRPC, 2004). The river flows north through Allegheny, Livingston, and Monroe Counties and forming a portion of two borders between Livingston County and Wyoming or Monroe Counties. Letchworth State Park runs along the GeneseeRead MoreNigeri An Essential Requirement For Sustainable Agricultural Production Essay1393 Words   |  6 Pagesseason known as â€Å"August break†, which is usually experienced in the last two weeks of August. Degradation Nigeria is a developing country and the most populous country in Africa. There has been always the quest to feed the needy. There is freedom to almost everything in the country. Most of the laws governing the environment are nearly inactive. Thus, making the country to suffer soil degradation. Almost every Nigerian is a farmer and children are being taught agriculture both in primary and

Contemporary World Culture “Why Women Go Into Porn” Free Essays

There are quite a few reasons why men and woman enter into the porn industry, but by far it’s all about the money and many porn stars have said it’s because of the money. Porn is a billion dollar industry as money is made through the selling of pornographic magazines and movies. With the advent of the internet, porn has catapulted into an even bigger money maker for the porn industry and not only in the U. We will write a custom essay sample on Contemporary World Culture â€Å"Why Women Go Into Porn† or any similar topic only for you Order Now S. but world wide. Porn is literally everywhere and there are thousands of websites that offer pornographic videos, pictures and even stream live web-cams. Depending on what you wish to see you can watch live footage of people having sex or engaging in other sexual acts. But what about the actors or actresses that are in porn, how and why do they really get involved in such an industry? For the women more so than the men society asks why women get themselves involved doing sexual acts on film or live. The porn industry makes it seem like the porn actresses love sex and that they want you to think that they enjoy being degraded by all kinds of repulsive acts. The truth about porn actresses is that they showed up on the set not knowing about certain requirements and were told by porn producers to do it or leave without being paid. Work or never work again. Some of these women don’t have a choice because they need the money bad, so some were manipulated and coerced and even threatened. Throughout their career some of these women have caught HIV, Herpes, or some other kind of sexually transmitted disease from that coercion. Other porn actresses have gone home after a long night of numbing her pain, puts a pistol to her head and pulls the trigger. Now she’s dead. It’s safe to say most women who turn to porn acting as a money making enterprise, probably didn’t grow up in healthy childhoods either. In fact, many actresses admit they’ve experienced sexual abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse and neglect by parents. Some were raped by relatives and molested by neighbors. When they were little girls they wanted to play with dollies and be mommies, not have big scary men get on top of them. The same horrible violations they experienced then, they relive it through as they perform in front of the camera and quite a few of them hate every minute of it. Despite the fact that some people look down on and frown at women working in the porn industry we as a society must realize that it is their choice and their choice alone to work in this industry. Some women who are struggling to become models or actresses will do porn films so they are not forced to live on the streets. The biggest reason for women and even men in porn is the money, and several female porn stars have made millions of dollars in the porn industry. The porn industry can be a stepping stone to other things in life, whatever the case may be. But we all start somewhere and the porn industry is where some women and men choose and want to be. I tried to find some official statistics online from sites like The Department of Justice, but all they had was child pornography statistics. Here are a few from a Christian site that is involved in a program to help those women get out of the porn industry. How to cite Contemporary World Culture â€Å"Why Women Go Into Porn†, Papers

Elies Wiesel and Night Essay Example For Students

Elies Wiesel and Night Essay Elies Wiesel and NightDo you see that chimney over there? See it? Do you see those flames? Over there-thats where youre going to be taken. Thats your grave, over there. Haventyou realize it yet? You dumb bastards, dont you understand anything? Youregoing to be burned. Frizzed away. Turned into ashes. Night is one of the masterpieces of Holocaust literature. It is theautobiographical account of an adolescent boy and his father in Auschwitz. ElieWiesel writes of their battle for survival, and with his battle with God for away to understand the wanton cruelty he witnessed each day. Elie Wiesel was born in a little, quiet town called Sighet, in transylvaniawhere he had lived all of his young life. Quiet until the 1940s, when the city,and eke himself charged for ever, just as Europe, and for that matter the world. One day they expelled all the foreigners of the city, and Wiesels master in thestudy of cabbala (Jewish mysticism) of a foreigner so he was expelled too. The deportees were soon forgotten, he writes. However a few lines later heexplains why this is relevant, and gives the reader an idea of what was going onin the minds of the jews living where he did. He told his story (referring to the expelled Rabbi) and that of his companions. The train full of deportees had crossed the Hungarian frontier and on Polishterritory had been taken in charge by the Gestapo. The jews had to get out andclimb into lorries. The lorries dove towards a forest. The jews were made to getout. They were made to dig huge graves. And when they had finished their work,the Gestapo began theirs. Without passion, without taste, they slaughtered theirprisoners. Each one had to go up to the hole and present its neck. Babies werethrown into the air and the machine gunners used them as targets. . . Throughlong days and nights, he went from one Jewish house to another, telling thestory Malke, the young girl who had taken three days to die, and of tabias, thetailor, who had begged to be killed