Environmental sciences, sustainability, and quality

Abstract

This chapter examines the contribution of environmental sciences and scientists to the fi nding to solutions to environmental problems. It defi nes and describes important concepts, highlights methods used to analyse human impacts on the environment, and it discusses the ways in which sustainability can be measured. The chapter is subdivided into three sections: The term environment in environmental sciences is derived from the science of ecology. The term ecology or oekologie was coined by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel in 1866, when he defi ned it as 'the comprehensive science of the relationship of the organism to the environment'. In the environmental sciences these organisms are humans. This explains why the term human ecology is used sometimes as a synonym for environmental sciences. By using the latter term we want to avoid that humans are only seen as biological beings and to emphasise that we consider them primarily as social beings and as members of a society. A further restriction is placed on the use of environment: the social environment is excluded as an object for study. The focus is on the physical (living and not living) environment: air, water, land, and all the biota that grows and live therein. Environmental scientists are not concerned with angry neighbours, although they may well be interested in noisy traffi c, the fate of cod and smokestacks (at least nowadays). © 2009 Springer Netherlands.