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Ecosystem
Effects of Human Behavior on Ecosystem
Humans often have the ability to remake an ecosystem entirely, disturbing every aspect of it to the extent that the ecosystem can be changed so much that it is destroyed. This paper examines one ecosystem that has been significantly damaged by human behavior and then projects what future human behavior might bring to this environment.
The ecosystem that I will examine is that of the Owens Valley in central California. This area has been the subject of a number of studies about environmental change (and harm) as well as decades of political rancor. This last is an essential part of the discussion about the fate of many ecosystems, and one that is too often ignored when assessing environmental change. In the case of the Owens Valley, the political climate of California must be considered a key element of the environment.
The abiotic feature of Owens Valley include its geographic elements. Even before most of its water was diverted to Southern California via a series of aqueducts it was an arid region (Reisner, 1993, p. 24). The Sierra Nevada mountain range creates a rain shadow over the valley, which results in the mountains' preventing the valley from receiving the ocean-driven humidity from the Pacific....
The valley actually lies between a pair of mountain ranges: The Sierra Nevada on the west and the White and Inyo mountains to the east.
Some of the Sierra peaks reach over 14,000 feet, which accounts for the size of the rain shadow, and the Owens River bed testifies to a once-deep lake that no longer exists (Reisner, 1993, p. 19). The rivers in the area were also once deep. What is left is an endorheic basin, which is a water body that has no outflow to the sea, rivers, or other bodies of water (Reisner, 1993, p. 20).
Among the other important abiotic features of the ecosystem is its temperature: The ground temperature can surpass 150 degrees and the valley and there are frequent dust storms that poison the air with up to four million tons of alkali dust each year (Reisner, 1993, p. 26). In its current, human-altered state, it has been barely able to support life. While the valley is still a very long way from its original state (that is, before the early 20th century when water was first diverted to Los Angeles) it is beginning to rebloom (Erie, 2006, p. 43).
Even a decade ago, the Owens Valley was the home to the most minimal amount of wildlife: The political fights in California that allow Southern California to drain water from the rest of the state…
References
Erie, S.P. (2006). Beyond Chinatown: The Metropolitan Water District, Growth, and the Environment in Southern California. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
Prather, M. (Winter 2008). Owens Lake is coming back to wildlife. Rainshadow Newsletter (Owens Valley Committee) 4(2).
Reisner, M. (1993). Cadillac Desert. New York: Penguin USA.
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