geography help please .im stuck with this question ,it's not hard try to answer.PLEASE?

Question

can u think of some effects the growing of cities has on the environment

Answer 1

How can you be stuck on this was my first thought but let me try to list some things for you?
But I cannot ask that of you if I don't know you - let me give it a try?
These are the top four ideas that I have:

1. Pollution is the release of chemical, physical, biological or radioactive contaminants to the environment. Principal forms of pollution include:

air pollution, the release of chemicals and particulates into the atmosphere. Common examples include carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and nitrogen oxides produced by industry and motor vehicles. Ozone and smog are created as nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons react to sunlight.
water pollution via surface runoff and leaching to groundwater.
radioactive contamination, added in the wake of 20th-century discoveries in atomic physics. (See alpha emitters and actinides in the environment.)
noise pollution, which encompasses roadway noise, aircraft noise, industrial noise as well as high-intensity sonar.
light pollution, includes light trespass, over-illumination and astronomical interference.
visual pollution, which can refer to the presence of overhead power lines, motorway billboards, scarred landforms (as from strip mining), open storage of junk or municipal solid waste.

2. Urban sprawl (also: suburban sprawl), a term with pejorative implication, refers to the rapid and expansive growth of a greater metropolitan area, traditionally suburbs (or exurbs) over a large area. "Urban sprawl" may be a loaded term and it can have negative connotations. The phrase has been used by some critics to describe almost any urban growth, but this usage is misleading.

3. Habitat fragmentation is a process of environmental change important in evolution and conservation biology. As the name implies, it describes the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment (habitat). Habitat fragmentation can be caused by geological processes that slowly alter the layout of the physical environment or by human activity such as land conversion, which can alter the environment on a much faster time scale. The former is suspected of being one of the major causes of speciation. The latter has been implicated in the extinction of many species.


Fragmentation and destruction of Great Ape habitat in Central Africa, from the GLOBIO and GRASP projects.Habitat fragmentation is frequently caused by humans when native vegetation is cleared for agriculture, rural development or Urban planning. Habitats which were once continuous become divided into separate fragments. After intensive clearing, the separate fragments tend to be very small islands isolated from each other by crop land, pasture, pavement, or even barren land. The latter is often the result of slash and burn farming in tropical forests. In the wheatbelt of central western New South Wales, Australia 90% of the native vegetation has been cleared and over 99% of the Tallgrass prairie of North America has been cleared, resulting in extreme habitat fragmentation.

The term habitat fragmentation can be considered to include six discrete processes:

Reduction in the total area of the habitat
Increase in the amount of edge
Decrease in the amount of interior habitat
Isolation of one habitat fragment from other areas of habitat
Breaking up of one patch of habitat into several smaller patches
Decrease in the average size of each patch of habitat

4. The greenhouse effect, first discovered by Joseph Fourier in 1824, and first investigated quantitatively by Svante Arrhenius in 1896, is the process in which the absorption of infrared radiation by an atmosphere warms a planet. Without these greenhouse gases, the Earth's surface would be up to 30 °C cooler. The name comes from an incorrect analogy with the way in which greenhouses are heated by the sun in order to facilitate plant growth. In addition to the Earth, Mars, Venus and other celestial bodies with atmospheres (such as Titan) have greenhouse effects.

In common parlance, the term greenhouse effect may be used to refer either to the natural greenhouse effect, due to naturally occuring greenhouse gases, or to the enhanced (anthropogenic) greenhouse effect, which results from gases emitted as a result of human activities (see also global warming, scientific opinion on climate change and attribution of recent climate change).

Answer 2

Pollution from cars and industry

more wastewater, surface water runnoff, garbage/recycling services

increased demand on resources: water, electricity, fuel, food, merchandise

more demand for services: fire, police, EMS, trash removal, roads, schools, social services

loss of rural/agricultural lands, increase in population density

Answer 3

it depends on how big the city is..if it is going to have a lot of factories then smog is an issue. you also have to consider pollution..the more people there are the more pollution because some people don't throw their things away in a garbage can.

Answer 4

roads interrupt animal migration patterns. suburbs chop down trees and wetlands are filled in. lights disrupt time behavior of things that operate by available light. cities take water from places and divert it to irrigation and public consumption. pollution kills things in the water . dams make it impossible for fish to swim upstream. cities store heat heating up an area more then normal. chop down trees / less trees, less oxygen.

Answer 5

more polution from cars, businesses, factories. Less trees because of the building of homes and businesses...etc

Answer 6

It causes the extinction of some wild animals.

Answer 7

Pollution and the increased use of fossil fuels.

Answer 8

it is causing global warming, b/c the harmful emissions (vehicle, etc) are eating a hole in the ozone layer, which is causing ice to melt and ocean level to rise and so on and so on

Answer 9

Pollution!! Waste disposal, garbage, all the concrete,..... :P

Answer 10

More polution! they use up more natural resources, take up more space more infrastructure needed and for that you need money!