Human Impact on Ecosystems (Edexcel IGCSE Geography)

Impact of Farming Systems

• To obtain food humans use and modify the ecosystems through farming

• There are four groupings commonly used to categorise farming:

  • Arable and pastoral

  • Commercial and subsistence

  • Extensive and intensive

  • Nomadic and sedentary

• A farm that has both livestock and grows crops is a mixed farm

Farming Systems

• All farms are systems, they have inputs, processes and output

Impacts of Farming Systems

• All farming systems impact the ecosystem in which they are located

• Some have more impact than others

• Commercial farming tends to:

  • Increase monocultures which reduces diversity because the animals have no access to a wide range of foods

  • Mean that nutrient cycling is dependent on fertilisers added to the soil, which may be natural (manure) or artificial fertilisers

  • Modify the ecosystem with inputs of seed, fertiliser, pesticides, herbicides and the use of machines

  • Reduce the links within food webs

  • Reduce the amount of biomass