Albuquerque's Environmental Story
Albuquerque's Environmental Story
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A TOTAL ENVIRONMENTAL TRIANGLE
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Abiotic, focusing on limiting factors: land forms,
air supply, soil types, wind, temperature, light, water and precipitation
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Biotic, focusing on biological concepts: community,
interdependence, adaptations, populations, niches, diversity, competition,
succession, change, continuity, predator/prey relations, energy transfer
(food chains, webs, pyramids)
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Cultural, focusing on how people utilize their
envirionment: land use, resource consumption, transportation, waste management,
pollution, environmental planning and design
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When you tell someone where you live, you often preface specific address with the information that your home is "in the valley," "on the Mesa," "in the Heights," or "out in the mountains." By saying this, you are furnishing an important clue to the unique characteristics of your mini-environment. climate, soil, vegetation and animal life, and even to man's use of the part of the town you call home. All these factors form what is sometimes called the "ABC's of the environment." "A" refers to the abiotic (physical) features, "B" to the bionic (plant and animal) component, and "C" to the cultural (human) influence. Some ecologists think of the ABC's as forming a triangle with interrelating sides. In a civilization as complex as ours, no one side can exist uninfluenced by the others.
Physical aspects of the environment such as land forms, soil, temperature, amount and kind of precipitation, wind, air supply, and amount of sunlight influence the kind and number of living things found in a particular area. Many of these are called limiting factors because their quantity and quality determine the survival of living things in an ecosystem.
In the 163 square miles (in 1995) which comprise Albuquerque, widely differing physical conditions occur.
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Cattails and muskrats; sage brush and Kangaroo rats--residents of very different habitats, yet separated by less than the distance between Rio Grande Boulevard and Coors Boulevard. The explanation is simple. Cattails are found in the riparian communities along the river bank. Sage brush and kangaroo rats are adapted to the hot, dry conditions of the Mesa, elevated 400 feet above the river and the high water table of the floodplain.
The variety of physical factors in Albuquerque's 107 square miles has led to a wide range of habitats and plant-animal relationships. The one in which you live might be in, or close to, a
While Section I dealt with the natural environment of the entire area surrounding and including Albuquerque, the profiles in this part of Section IV offer a closer look at the physical characteristics of four specific locations in the area which support school communities.
(Up to Section IV, Back to Introduction - A City in Miniature, On to A West Mesa School)