The Impacts of Deforestation in our Environment

The Impacts of Deforestation in our Environment
The evolution of the world has caused wide-scale urbanization that led to mass deforestation in order to make way for human activity despite the possible risks (Ortiz et al., 2021). Deforestation is the removal of forests, including trees and all vegetation from land so that it may be used for other purposes, usually for housing and urban developments. However, this has negative effects on the ecosystem, including the disruption of the carbon and water cycles, as well as the disruption of species diversity within that area. Environmental impacts of deforestation go beyond the common impression and assumption that the environment only considers greenery and plants and such. The reality is that the environment and the ecosystem is an intricate tapestries made with interconnected elements of ecology. This means that one disruption from one aspect of the environment can have an impact on some or all other related aspects due to the interconnected nature of the ecosystem.
The carbon cycle is one of the most important biological processes on the earth. It is the process where carbon atoms are recycled into different reservoirs for use and reuse (Igini, 2022). Trees and other plants use carbon dioxide in their respiration cycles and are one of the main contributing factors to the successful process of the carbon cycle. Because of this, trees, and by extension, forests, are important to the carbon cycle. This is why deforestation is a problematic phenomenon that endangers the carbon cycle. Trees also release oxygen back into the atmosphere after absorbing carbon dioxide, so trees assist in minimizing the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions. The increase in gas emissions with nothing to balance it out can cause an accumulation, which will lead to a faster emergence of climate change and global warming. With deforestation, trees would decrease dramatically in number, which affects the oxygen and carbon dioxide availability in the planet. Hence, the ability to maintain the equilibrium or balance between atmospheric gases such as oxygen and carbon dioxide decreases as the number of trees decreases.
In relation, the water cycle is also disrupted when deforestation occurs. Trees produce oxygen in the form of water vapor, or gaseous water, which, of course, has oxygen. These water vapors get released during transpiration in the trees' respiration process. Then, it gets condensed into clouds, which of course, provide rain. Other fates of oxygen released by trees get recycled in their respective manners. However, in the case of transpiration, condensation, and precipitation, the oxygen that gets transpired is decreased whenever trees decrease in number during deforestation. With fewer trees, there will be fewer clouds and, therefore, fewer rains. The major effect is that vegetation will not be naturally maintained without other factors for the hydration of soil and plants, like a human intervention. Rain provides hydration and life support to almost all plants, and this is where farms depend on. Even with indirect contact of plants or vegetation with rain, the water cycle still relies on transpired and condensed oxygen to replenish water from sources such as natural bodies of water (oceans, rivers, la...