Ans. The Human-Environment interaction relates
to a phenomenon, which explains how humans interact with the adjacent
environment to fulfil their needs and how the environment responds to these
interactions. Moreover, it also describes how humans have adopted to their
environment for their survival. Since geography shares a close relationship
with humans and environment, it is essential to discuss it for a better
understanding of this interaction between human beings and the environment. There
are five themes of geography, which include place, location, movement,
human-environment interaction and region.
If we talk about the Location, as the
name suggests, it is related to the geographical position of a specific place
on the Earth. Latitude and Longitude are the essential parameters to locate a
place. Place, on the contrary, the term place discloses the physical
specifications of a region such as wet, dry, hot or cold. Movement, concept of
it relates to the transportation and immigration patterns in a particular region.
Region, on the other hand, is specific an area showing identical
characteristics. Lastly, Human-environment interactions are of different types.
People use these interactions as a way to adapt to the environment as well as
modify it. Following are the three basic types of Human-Environment
interactions:
1. Humans try to modify the environment
(positively or negatively), such as cutting forests, building dams and
extending urban areas.
2. The way humans adapt to the
environment to meet their needs.
3. The way humans depend on the
environment for food, timber, water and other resources.
There are a few environment conditions,
which humans can`t modify. Hence, they adapt to such conditions for their
survival. Some of these adaptations include:
1. Taking benefit of the natural slope
of the land for irrigation.
2. Building houses on higher ground to
avoid flood.
3. Wearing warm clothes to survive in
cold climate.
The experience of households in the dry
lands of Kenya can provide useful lessons for sustainable adaptation. The case
of Endau exemplifies that flexible interaction among groups through trade;
mobility and natural resource access are essential components of sustainable
adaptation. In particular, interventions and decisions by the government and
district administration that obstruct interaction and trade have serious
implications for equity because sources of trade are lost and because decisions
favour some individuals and ethnic groups over others. The current governance has
to some extent also initiated and contributed to tension and conflicts between
and within agro-pastoral and pastoral groups, hindering access to natural
resources critical for managing droughts, creating vulnerable groups as well as
leading to loss of social, political and human rights. Hence, such governance
has undermined sustainable adaption and human security.
Wallace believed that the evolution of
organisms was connected in some way with adaptation of organisms to changing
environmental conditions. In developing the theory of evolution by natural
selection, Wallace and Darwin both went beyond simple adaptation by explaining
how organisms adapt and evolve. The idea of natural selection is that traits
can be passed down allow organisms to adapt to the environment better than
other organisms of the same species. This enable better survival and
reproduction compared with other member of the species, leading to evolution.
Another French thinker, Jean Bapuste Lamarck, proposed that offspring, and therefore
evolve. The example he gave stated the ancestors of giraffes might have adapted
to a shortage of food from short trees by stretching their necks to reach
higher branches. Natural selection, then, provides a more compelling mechanism
for adaptation and evolution than Lamarck`s theories.
CONCLUSION
So, we can say that interaction between human and environment is a closer relationship. Human adapted environment for their survival. For example, humans modify the environment such as cutting forests, building dams and extending urban areas. There are a few environmental conditions, which humans can`t modify, so they adapt to such conditions for their survival.
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