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| Drought |
DroughtA drought is an extended period where water availability falls below the statistical requirements for a region. Drought is not a purely physical phenomenon, but instead is an interplay between natural water availability and human demands for water supply.
Meanings
The precise definition of drought is made complex due to political considerations, but there are generally three types of conditions that are referred to as drought.
- Meteorological drought is brought about when there is a prolonged period with below average precipitation.
- Agricultural drought is brought about when there is insufficient moisture for average crop or range production. This condition can arise, even in times of average precipitation, due to soil conditions or agricultural techniques.
- Hydrologic drought is brought about when the water reserves available in sources such as aquifers, lakes, and reservoirs falls below the statistical average. This condition can arise, even in times of average (or above average) precipitation, when increased usage of water diminishes the reserves.
When the word "drought" is used commonly, the most often intended definition is meteorological drought. However, when the word is used by urban planners, it is more frequently in the sense of hydrologic drought.
Consequences
Periods of drought can have significant environmental, economic and social consequences. The most common consequences are:
- Wildfires
- Migration or relocation of those impacted
- Social unrest
- War
- Famine due to lack of water for irrigation
- Disease
- Thirst
The causes of these problems are complex and relate to increased dependence on external resources (inability to grow crops locally) and lowered quality (and thus contamination) of remaining water sources among other factors. The quality of national infrastructure can increase or decrease the impact of drought, especially with respect to famine, dramatically.
Famous droughts
Three droughts were responsible for over 100,000 starvation deaths. These droughts spurred the migration of much of the population to locations such as New England, to participate in the whaling industry.
250,000 to 3.25 million die due to drought, starvation and disease.
In the Ukraine and Volga regions, 250,000 to 5 million perish from drought.
Famine results in over 3 million deaths.
This was the worst drought in the modern history of the area. 34 million farmers were displaced and 5 million people starved to death.
Three waves of drought during this time are collectively refered to as "the dustbowl". Because of several factors including the coincidence of the dustbowl and the Great Depression, this drought had a severe impact on the U.S., resulting in entire districts of the American Great Plains being depopulated.
This was less severe than the 1936 drought, and resulted in the deaths of only 2.5 million. However, because of the war with Japan at the time, the indirect damage caused was far more dramatic and more devastating.
Drought results in over 1.5 million deaths.
The Sahelian drought that began in 1968 was responsible for the deaths of between 100,000 and 250,000 people, the disruption of millions of lives, and the collapse of the agricultural bases of five countries.
A blizzard ended a four-year drought, but the week long cold and snow caused the deaths of approximately 4,000 people.
This drought (part of the overall Sahelian drought) resulted in a military coup, which overthrew the government of Haile Selassie.
Severe and prolonged drought during 1983 that affected large areas of seven of Bolivia's nine departments, an estimated 80 percent of the normal fall harvest of staple crops was lost. Total agricultural losses were estimated at U.S. $417.2 million: $277.7 million in crop losses and $139.5 million in livestock losses. These losses included over 200,000 cattle, 3,000,000 sheep, and 660,000 llamas and alpacas.
The 1984 - 1985 famine in Ethiopia was a direct result of this drought, and lead to another regime change–this time to a Marxist government.
See also
- Epidemiology: chlorine, yellow fever, typhoid
- Flood
- Goyder's Line
- List of environment topics
- Meteorological phenomenon
- Trasvasement
- Palmer Drought Index
External links
- [http://www.worldwaterforum.org/ Worldwaterforum]
- [http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html U.S. drought monitor].
- [http://www.usatoday.com/weather/whydro00.htm USAtoday´s resources: floods and droughts].
- [http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/drought/livedrought.shtml Managing drought].
- [http://www.drought.noaa.gov/ NOAA drought information center].
- [http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_home.html Drought, a paleo perspective].
- [http://www.drought.unl.edu/index.htm US National Drought Mitigation Center].
- [http://www.droughtoutlook.com/ Droughtoutlook].
- [http://www.agric.nsw.gov.au/drought Drought and agriculture].
- [http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/feature/highlights/drought.html US DA].
- [http://www.disastercenter.com/drought.htm Drought disaster center].
- [http://www.floridadisaster.org/bpr/EMTOOLS/florida_drought_center.htm Florida Drought Center].
- [http://watersupplyconditions.water.ca.gov/ Drought preparedness].
- [http://www.state.nj.us/drbc/drought/kids_droughtinfo.htm Drought for kids].
- [http://www.westgov.org/wga/initiatives/drought2.htm Drought Act Initiative].
- [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dustbowl/peopleevents/pandeAMEX06.html PBS The drought].
- [http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5262324 Cuba suffers through worst drought in history].
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3107893.stm Drought leaves Europe's farmers helpless].
- [http://www.cbc.ca/news/features/drought2002_timeline.html The CA drought of 2002].
- [http://dmc.engr.wisc.edu/courses/hazards/BB02-07.html Natural Hazards Causes and Effects Drought].
Category:Hydrology
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Category:Weather hazards
Water:This article focuses on water as it is experienced in everyday life. See water (molecule) for information on the chemical and physical properties of pure water (H2O, hydrogen oxide).
Water (from the Old English word wæter; c.f German "Wasser", from PIE
- wod-or, "water") is a tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless (it has a slight hint of blue) substance in its pure form that is essential to all known forms of life and is known also as the most universal solvent. Water is an abundant substance on Earth. It exists in many places and forms. It appears mostly in the oceans and polar ice caps, but also as clouds, rain water, rivers, freshwater aquifers, and sea ice. On the planet, water is continuously moving through the cycle involving evaporation, precipitation, and runoff to the sea.
Water fit for human consumption is called potable water. This natural resource is becoming more scarce in certain places as human population in those places increases, and its availability is a major social and economic concern.
Molecular properties
Forms of water
potable water]
Water takes many different shapes on earth: water vapor and clouds in the sky, waves and icebergs in the sea, glaciers in the mountain, aquifers in the ground, to name but a few. Through evaporation, precipitation, and runoff, water is continuously flowing from one form to another, in what is called the water cycle.
Because of the importance of precipitation to agriculture, and to mankind in general, different names are given to its various forms: while rain is common in most countries, other phenomena are quite surprising when seen for the first time. Hail, snow, fog or dew are examples. When appropriately lit, water drops in the air can refract sunlight to produce rainbows.
Similarly, water runoffs have played major roles in human history as rivers and irrigation brought the water needed for agriculture. Rivers and seas offered opportunity for travel and commerce. Through erosion, runoffs played a major part in shaping the environment providing river valleys and deltas which provide rich soil and level ground for the establishment of population centers.
Water also infiltrates the ground and goes into aquifers. This groundwater later flows back to the surface in springs, or more spectacularly in hot springs and geysers. Groundwater is also extracted artificially in wells.
Because water can contain many different substances, it can taste or smell very differently. In fact, humans and other animals have developed their senses to be able to evaluate the drinkability of water: animals generally dislike the taste of salty sea water and the putrid swamps and favor the purer water of a mountain spring or aquifer.
Water in biology
From a biological standpoint, water has many distinct properties that are critical for the proliferation of life that set it apart from other substances. Water carries out this role by allowing organic compounds to react in ways that ultimately allows replication. It is a good solvent and has a high surface tension, and thus allows organic compounds and living things to be transported in it. Fresh water has its greatest density at 4°C, then becoming less dense as it freezes or heats up from this point. As a stable, polar molecule prevalent in the atmosphere, it plays an important atmospheric role as an absorber of infrared radiation, crucial in the atmospheric greenhouse effect without of which, the average surface temperature would be −18° Celsius. Water also has an unusually high specific heat, which plays many roles in regulating global and regional climate, such as the Gulf Stream climate, allowing life to survive.
Water is a very good solvent, chemically not unlike ammonia, and dissolves many types of substances, such as various salts and sugar, and facilitates their chemical interaction, which aids complex metabolisms.
Some substances, however, do not mix well with water, including oils and other hydrophobic substances. Cell membranes, composed of lipids and proteins, take advantage of this property to carefully control interactions between their contents and external chemicals. This is facilitated somewhat by the surface tension of water.
Water drops are stable due to the high surface tension of water caused by the strong intermolecular forces called cohesive forces. This can be seen when small quantities of water are put onto a nonsoluble surface such as polythene: the water stays together as drops. On extremely clean glass the water may form a thin film because the molecular forces between glass and water molecules (adhesive forces) are stronger than the cohesive forces. This property plays a key role in plant transpiration.
A simple but environmentally important and unique property of water is that its common solid form, ice, floats on the liquid. This solid phase is less dense than liquid water, due to the geometry of the strong hydrogen bonds which are formed only at lower temperatures. For almost all other substances and for all other 11 uncommon phases of water ice except ice-XI, the solid form is more dense than the liquid form. Fresh water is most dense at 4°C, and will sink by convection as it cools to that temperature, and if it becomes colder it will rise instead. This reversal will cause deep water to remain warmer than shallower freezing water, so that ice in a body of water will form first at the surface and progress downward, while the majority of the water underneath will hold a constant 4°C. This effectively insulates a lake floor from the cold.
While this behavior may seem obvious, even intuitive, it should be noted that almost all other chemicals are denser as solids than they are as liquids, and freeze from the bottom up.
Life on earth has evolved with and adapted itself to the important features of water. The existence of abundant liquid, vapor and solid forms of water on Earth has been an important factor in the abundant colonization of Earth's various environments by life-forms adapted to those varying and often extreme conditions.
Civilizations have historically flourished around rivers and major waterways; Mesopotamia, the so-called cradle of civilization, is situated between two major rivers. Large metropolises like London, Paris, New York, and Tokyo owe their success in part to their easy accessibility via water and the resultant expansion of trade. Islands with safe water ports, like Singapore and Hong Kong, have flourished for precisely this reason. In places such as North Africa and the Middle East, where water is scarcer, access to clean drinking water was and is a major factor in human development.
Astronomical position of Earth and impact on its water
Mesopotamia
The coexistence of the solid, liquid, and gaseous phases of water on Earth is vital to the origin, evolution, and continued existence of life on Earth. However, if the Earth's location in the solar system were even marginally closer or further from the Sun (ie, a million miles or so), the conditions which allow the three forms to be present simultaneously would be far less likely to exist.
Earth's mass allows gravity to hold an atmosphere. Water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere provides a greenhouse effect which helps maintain a relatively steady surface temperature. If Earth were less massive, a thinner atmosphere would cause temperature extremes preventing the accumulation of water except in polar ice caps (as on Mars). According to the solar nebula model of the solar system's formation, Earth's mass may be largely due to its distance from the Sun.
The distance between Earth and the Sun and the combination of solar radiation received and the greenhouse effect of the atmosphere ensures that its surface is neither too cold nor too hot for liquid water. If Earth were more distant, most water would be frozen. If Earth were nearer to the Sun, its higher surface temperature would limit the formation of ice caps, or cause water to exist only as vapor. In the former case, the low albedo of oceans would cause Earth to absorb more solar energy. In the second case, a runaway greenhouse effect and inhospitable conditions similar to Venus would result.
It has been proposed that life itself may maintain the conditions that have allowed its continued existence. The surface temperature of Earth has been relatively constant through geologic time despite varying solar flux, indicating that a dynamic process governs Earth's temperature via a combination of greenhouse gases and surface or atmospheric albedo. This proposal is known as the Gaia hypothesis.
Human uses of water
Gaia hypothesis
All known forms of life depend on water. Water is a vital part of many metabolic processes within the body. Significant quantities of water are used during the digestion of food. (Note however that some bacteria and plant seeds can enter a cryptobiotic state for an indefinite period when dehydrated, and come back to life when returned to a wet environment)
About 72% of the fat free mass of the human body is made of water. To function properly the body requires between one and seven litres of water per day to avoid dehydration, the precise amount depending on the level of activity, temperature, humidity, and other factors. It is not clear how much water intake is needed by healthy people. However, for those who do not have kidney problems, it is rather difficult to drink too much water, but (especially in warm humid weather and while exercising) dangerous to drink too little. People do often drink far more water than necessary while exercising, however, putting them at risk of water intoxication, which is frequently fatal. The "fact" that a person should consume eight glasses of water per day cannot be traced back to a scientific source. However, leading dieticians and nutritionists will tell you that this is the RDI (Recommended Daily Intake) of water. [http://ajpregu.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/283/5/R993]. The latest dietary reference intake report by the National Research Council recommended 2.7 liters of water total (including food sources) for women and 3.7 liters for men[http://www.iom.edu/report.asp?id=18495]. Water is lost from the body in urine and feces, through sweating, and by exhalation of water vapor in the breath.
Humans require water that does not contain too much salt or other impurities. Common impurities include chemicals and/or harmful bacteria, such as crypto sporidium. Some solutes are acceptable and even desirable for perceived taste enhancement and to provide needed electrolytes.
Water as a precious resource
:See water resources for information about fresh water supplies.
fresh water
Because of the growth of world population and other factors, the availability of drinking water per capita is shrinking. The issue of water shortage can be solved through more production, better distribution and less waste of it. For this reason, water is a strategic resource for many countries. Many battles and wars, such as the Six-Day War in the Middle East, have been fought to gain access to it. Experts predict more trouble ahead because of the world's growing population, increasing contamination through pollution, and global warming.
UNESCO's World Water Development Report (WWDR, 2003) from its World Water Assessment Program indicates that, in the next 20 years, the quantity of water available to everyone is predicted to decrease by 30%. 40% of the world's inhabitants currently have insufficient fresh water for minimal hygiene. More than 2.2 million people died in 2000 from diseases related to the consumption of contaminated water or drought. In 2004, the UK charity WaterAid reported that a child dies every 15 seconds due to easily preventable water-related diseases.
Some have predicted that clean water will become the "next oil", making Canada, with this resource in abundance, possibly the richest country in the world.
Regulating water distribution
Drinking water is often collected at springs or extracted from artificial borings in the ground, or wells. Building more wells in adequate places is thus a possible way to produce more water assuming the aquifers can supply an adequate flow. Other water sources are the rainwater and river or lake water. This surface water, however, must be purified for human consumption. This may involve removal of undissolved substances, dissolved substances and harmful microbes. Popular methods are filtering with sand which only removes undissolved material while chlorination and boiling kill harmful microbes. Distillation does all three functions. More advanced techniques exist, such as reverse osmosis. Desalination of abundant ocean or seawater is a more expensive solution used in coastal arid climates.
The distribution of drinking water is done through municipal water systems or as bottled water. Governments in many countries have programs to distribute water to the needy at no charge. Others argue that the market mechanism and free enterprise are best to manage this rare resource, and to finance the boring of wells or the construction of dams and reservoirs.
Reducing waste, that is using drinking water only for human consumption, is another option. In some cities, such as Hong Kong, sea water is extensively used for flushing toilets citywide in order to conserve fresh water resources. Polluting water may be the biggest single misuse of water; to the extent that a pollutant limits other uses of the water, it becomes a waste of the resource, regardless of benefits to the pollutor. Pharmaceuticals consumed by humans often end up in the waterways and can have detrimental effects on aquatic life if they bioaccumulate and if they are not biodegradable.
The impact of water on human culture
Water is considered a purifier in most religions, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Shinto. For instance, baptism in Christian churches is done with water. In addition, a ritual bath in pure water is performed for the dead in many religions including Judaism and Islam. In Islam, the daily Salah can only be done after ablution (Wodoo), that is, washing parts of the body in clean water. In Shinto, water is used in almost all rituals to cleanse a person or an area.
Water is often believed to have spiritual powers. In Celtic mythology, Sulis is the local goddess of thermal springs; in Hinduism, the Ganga is also personified as a goddess. Alternatively, gods can be patrons of particular springs, river or lakes: for example in Greek and Roman mythology, Peneus was a river god, one of the three thousand Oceanids.
The Greek philosopher Empedocles held that water is one of the four classical elements along with fire, earth and air, and was regarded as the ylem, or basic stuff of the universe. Water was considered cold and moist. In the theory of the four bodily humours, water was associated with phlegm. Water was also one of the Five Elements in traditional Chinese philosophy, along with earth, fire, wood, and metal.
A common misconception about water is that it is a powerful conductor of electricity. Any electrical properties observable in water are due to the ions of mineral salts and carbon dioxide dissolved in it. Water does self-ionize (two water molecules become one hydroxide anion and one hydronium cation), but only at a very slight, almost immeasurable level. Pure water can also be electrolized into oxygen and hydrogen gases but without any dissolved ions, this is a very slow process and thus very little current is conducted. Many bottled water companies exploit another common misconception, advertising both purity and taste, even though pure water is tasteless.
See also
- Dehydration
- Desalination
- Dihydrogen monoxide hoax
- Double distilled water
- Drought
- Ecohydrology
- Evapotranspiration
- Flood
- Flume
- Fountain
- Fresh water
- Heavy water
- Holy water
- Hydrography
- Hydrology
- Irrigation
- Mineral water
- Precipitation (meteorology)
- Rain
- Sea water
- Spring water
- Transvasement
- Wastewater
- WaterAid
- Water (molecule)
- Water industry
- Water ionizer
- Water quality
- Water quality modelling
- Water resources
- World Ocean Day
- World Water Day
External links
- [http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/phase.html Phase diagrams of water]
- [http://www.publicforuminstitute.org/issues/oceans/index.htm Oceans and Water Issues Page]
- [http://www.greenfacts.org/water-disinfectants/index.htm Scientific Facts on Water disinfectants] A faithful summary by GreenFacts of a leading scientific consensus report on Drinking Water Disinfectants published by the International Programme on Chemical Safety of the WHO.
- [http://www.hkc22.com/residentialwater.html Residential water problems and markets] Study paper from Helmut Kaiser Consultancy
- [http://www.hkc22.com/watermarketsworldwide.html Water markets worldwide] Study paper from Helmut Kaiser Consultancy
- [http://www.worldwaterforum.org/ World Water Forum]
- [http://www.unesco.org/water/wwap/ World Water Assessment Program]
- [http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001295/129556e.pdf United Nations' World Water Development Report]
- [http://www.gemswater.org/ United Nations GEMS/Water Programme]
- [http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/ Water Structure and Behaviour]
- [http://www.wateraid.org/ WaterAid]
- [http://www.sahra.arizona.edu/newswatch/ SAHRA—Global Water Newswatch]
- [http://www.siwi.org/ Stockholm International Water Institute] (SIWI)
- [http://www.c-win.org/ California Water Impact Network (C-WIN)]
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3752590.stm BBC: The water debate]
- [http://www.geocities.com/tapvsbottled/ Tap Water Vs Bottled Water] - Interesting site providing facts about tap and bottled water.
- [http://www.emagazine.com/september-october_2003/0903feat1.html E the Environmental Magazine piece on bottled water] (Oct 2003).
- [http://www.iapws.org/ International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam]
- [http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycle.html US Geological Survey: Comprehensive discussion of the water cycle, in many languages]
- [http://www.dartmouth.edu/~etrnsfer/water.htm Why is water blue?]
- [http://www.water.org.uk/home/resources-and-links/water-for-health/ask-about/adults Water requirements in adults]
- [http://www.hkc22.com/environmentaltechnology.html/ Climate change raises markets for environmental technology, drinking water and clean energies]
References
- OA Jones, JN Lester and N Voulvoulis, Pharmaceuticals: a threat to drinking water? TRENDS in Biotechnology 23(4): 163, 2005
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Category:Beverages
Category:Hydrology
Category:Materials
Category:Natural resources
Category:Nutrition
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Wildfire
(image taken from the International Space Station)]]
A wildfire, also known as a forest fire, vegetation fire, grass fire, brush fire, or bushfire (in Australasia), is an uncontrolled fire often occurring in wildland areas, but which can also consume houses or agricultural resources. Common causes include lightning, human carelessness and arson.
Drought and the prevention of small forest fires are major contributors to extreme forest fires.
The word "wildfire" originated as a synonym for Greek Fire, a napalm-like substance used in medieval Europe as a naval weapon; the word attained its present meaning by a common misunderstanding of the expression "spread like wildfire". Europe
----
Background
Europe]
Wildfires are common in many places around the world, including much of the vegetated areas of Australia, forest areas of the United States and Canada, where the climates are sufficiently moist to allow the growth of trees, but feature extended dry, hot periods when fallen branches, leaves, and other material can dry out and becomes highly flammable. Wildfires are also common in grasslands and scrublands. Wildfires tend to be most common and severe during years of drought and occur on days of strong winds. With extensive urbanization of wildlands, these fires often involve destruction of suburban homes located in the wildland urban interface, a zone of transition between developed areas and undeveloped wildland.
Today it is accepted that wildfires are a natural part of the ecosystem of wildlands, where, at the least, plants have evolved to survive fires by a variety of strategies (from possessing reserve shoots that sprout after a fire, to fire-resistant seeds), or even encourage fire (for example eucalypts contain flammable oils in the leaves) as a way to eliminate competition from less fire-tolerant species. In 2004, researchers discovered that exposure to smoke from burning plants actually promotes germination in other types of plants by inducing the production of the chemical butenolide. Most native animals, too, are adept at surviving wildfires.
On occasions, wildfires have caused large-scale damage to private or public property, destroying many homes and causing deaths, particularly when they have reached urban-fringe communities.
Slash (small, rotten, misshapen, or otherwise undesirable wood discarded during logging) has historically provided the fuel for devastating fires such as the fires in Michigan in the 19th century.
The aftermath of a wildfire can be as disastrous if not more so than the actual fire itself. A particularly destructive fire burns away plants and trees that prevent erosion. If heavy rains occur after such a fire, landslides, ash flows, and flash floods can occur. This can result in property damage in the immediate fire area, and can affect the water quality of streams, rivers and lakes.
Wildfires burned long before humans evolved. One main component of Carboniferous north hemisphere coal is charcoal left over by forest fires.
Behavior
charcoal
When the water reserves in the soil are between 100% and 30%, the evaporation of water in plants is balanced by water absorbed from the soil. Below this threshold, the plants dry out, releasing flammable essences to keep some moisture. A consequence of a long hot and dry period is that the air contains flammable essences and plants are drier and highly flammable.
The propagation of the fire has three mechanisms:
- "crawling" fire: the fire spreads via low level vegetation (e.g., bushes)
- "crown" fire: a fire that "crowns" (spreads to the top branches of trees) can spread at an incredible pace through the top of a forest
- "jumping" fire: burning branches and leaves are carried by the wind and start distant fires; the fire can thus "jump" over a road, river, or even a firebreak
The Nevada Bureau of Land Management identifies several different wildfire behaviors. For example, extreme fire behavior includes wide rates of spread, prolific crowning and/or spotting, the presence of fire whirls, or a strong convection column. Extreme wildfires behave erratically and unpredictably.
In southern California, under the influence of Santa Ana winds, wildfires can move at tremendous speeds, up to 40 miles (60 km) in a single day, consuming up to 1,000 acres (4 km²) per hour. Dense clouds of burning embers push relentlessly ahead of the flames crossing firebreaks without pause.
firebreak
The powerful updraft caused by a large wildfire will draw in air from surrounding areas. These self-generated winds can lead to a phenomenon known as a firestorm.
French models of wildfires dictate that a fire's front line will take on the characteristic shape of a pear; the major axis being aligned with the wind. In the case of the fires in southeastern France, the speed of the fire is estimated to be 3% to 8% of the speed of the wind, depending on the conditions (density and type of vegetation, slope). Other models predict an elliptical shape when the ground is flat and the vegetation is homogeneous.
Prevention
For many decades the policy of the United States Forest Service was to suppress all fires, and this policy was epitomized by the mascot Smokey Bear and was also the basis of parts of the movie Bambi. The policy began to be questioned in the 1960s, when it was realized that no new sequoias had been grown in the redwood forests of California, because fire is an essential part of their life cycle. This produced the policy of controlled burns to reduce underbrush. This clears much of the undergrowth through forest and woodland areas, making travel and hunting much easier while reducing the risk of dangerous high-intensity fires caused by many years of fuel buildup.
The previous policy of absolute fire suppression in the United States has resulted in the buildup of fuel in some ecosystems such as dry ponderosa pine forests. However, this concept has been misapplied in a "one-size-fits-all" application to other ecosystems such as California chaparral. Fire suppression in southern California has had very little impact over the past century. The amount of land burned in 6 southern California counties has been relatively unchanged. In fact, fire frequency has been increasing dramatically over the past century in lock step with population growth. Urbanization can also result in fuel buildup and devastating fires, such as those in Los Alamos, New Mexico, East Bay Hills, within the California cities of Oakland and Berkeley between October 19 and 22, 1991, all over Colorado in 2002, and throughout southern California in October 2003. Homes designed without considering the fire prone environment in which they are built have been the primary reason for the catastrophic losses experienced in wildfires.
On average, wildfires burn 4.3 million acres (17,000 km²) in the United States annually. In recent years the federal government has spent $1 billion a year on fire suppression. 2002 was a record year for fires with major fires in Arizona, California, Colorado, and Oregon.
The risk of major wildfires can be achieved partly by a reduction of the amount of fuel present. In wildland, this can be accomplished by either conducting controlled burns, deliberately setting areas ablaze under less dangerous weather when conditions are less volatile or physical fuel removal by removing some trees as is conducted in many American forests. Such techniques are best used within the wildland/urban interface where communities connect with wild open space. Prescribed burns in the backcountry, away from human habitations, are not particularly effective in preventing large fires. All the large catastrophic fires in the United States have been wind driven events where the amount of fuel (trees, shrubs, etc.) has not been the most important factor in fire spread.
People living in fire-prone areas typically take a variety of precautions, including building their homes out of flame-resistant materials, reducing the amount of fuel near the home or property (including firebreaks, their own miniature control lines, in effect), and investing in their own firefighting equipment.
Rural farming communities are rarely threatened directly by wildfire. These types of communities are usually located in large areas of cleared, usually grazed, land, and in the drought conditions present in wildfire years there is often very little grass left on such grazed areas. Hence the risk is minimized. However, urban fringes have spread into forested areas, for example in Sydney and Melbourne, and communities have literally built themselves in the middle of highly flammable forests. These communities are at high risk of destruction in bushfires, and should take extra precautions.
Fire suppression
Melbourne drops fire retardant on wildfires in Southern California]]Most fire-prone areas have large firefighter services to help control bushfires. As well as the water-spraying firetrucks most commonly used in urban firefighting, bushfire services use a variety of alternative techniques. Typically, forest fire fighting organizations will use large crews of 20 or more people who travel in trucks to the fire. These crews use heavier equipment to construct firebreaks, and are the mainstay of most firefighting efforts. Other personnel are organized into fast attack teams typically consisting of 5–8 people. These fast attack teams are helicoptered into smaller fires or hard to reach areas as a preemptive strike force. They use portable pumps to douse small fires and chainsaws to construct firebreaks or helicopter landing pads if more resources are required. Hand tools are commonly used to construct firebreaks and remove fuels around the perimeter of the fire to halt its spread, including shovels, rakes, and the pulaski, a tool unique to wildland firefighting. In the eastern United States, portable leaf blowers are sometimes used. In the western United States, large fires often become extended campaigns, and temporary fire camps are constructed to provide food, showers, and rest to fire crews. These large fires are often handled by 20 person hand crews, sometimes known as "hotshot" crews, specially organized to travel to large fires.
Fast attack teams are often considered the elite of firefighting forces, as they sometimes deploy in unusual ways. If the fire is on a particularly steep hill or in a densely wooded area, they may rappel or fast-rope down from helicopters. If the fire is extremely remote, firefighters known as smokejumpers may parachute into site from fixed-wing aircraft. In addition to the aircraft used for deploying ground personnel, firefighting outfits often possess helicopters and water bombers specially equipped for use in aerial firefighting. These aircraft can douse areas that are inaccessible to ground crews and deliver greater quantities of water and/or flame retardant chemicals. Managing all of these various resources over such a large area in often very rugged terrain is extremely challenging, and often the Incident Command System is used. As such, each fire will have a designated fireboss who oversees and coordinates all the operations on the fire. This fireboss is ultimately responsible for the safety of the firefighters and for the success of firefighting efforts.
fireboss
Large fires are of such a size that no conceivable firefighting service could attempt to douse the whole fire directly, and so alternative techniques are used. In alternative approaches, firefighters attempt to control the fire by controlling the area that it can spread to, by creating "control lines", which are areas that contain no combustible material. These control lines can be produced by physically removing fuel (for instance, with a bulldozer), or by "backburning", in which small, low-intensity fires are started, using a device such as the driptorch, or pyrotechnic flares known as "fusees", to burn the flammable material in a (hopefully) controlled way. These may then be extinguished by firefighters or, ideally, directed in such a way that they meet the main fire front, at which point both fires run out of flammable material and are thus extinguished.
flare]
Unfortunately, such methods can fail in the face of wind shifts causing fires to miss control lines or to jump straight over them (for instance, because a burning tree falls across a line, burning embers are carried by the wind over the line, or burning tumbleweeds cross the line).
The actual goals of firefighters vary. Protection of life (those of both the firefighters and "civilians") is given top priority, then private property according to economic and social value and also to its "savability" (for example, more effort will be expended on saving a house with a tile roof than one with a wooden-shake roof). In very severe, large fires, this is sometimes the only possible action. Protecting houses is regarded as more important than, say, farming machinery sheds, although firefighters, if possible, try to keep fires off farmland to protect stock and fences (steel fences are destroyed by the passage of fire, as the wire is irreversibly stretched and weakened by it). Preventing the burning of publicly owned forested areas is generally of least priority, and, indeed, it is quite common (in Australia, at least) for firefighters to simply observe a fire burn towards control lines through forest rather than attempt to put it out more quickly; it is, after all, a natural process. Ensuring the safety of firefighters takes priority over fire suppression when a situation becomes dangerous. When arriving on a scene a fire crew will establish a safe zone, known as an "anchor point", which they can retreat to if necessary, and are trained to keep aware of escape routes and designate lookouts (known by the acronym LCES, for lookouts, communications, escape routes, safety zones). They carry portable fire shelters that can be deployed if all else fails. This emphasis on safety is reinforced with a list of 18 "watch out situations" for firefighters to be aware of, which warn of potentially dangerous conditions.
French strategy
Forest covers about 28% of France (189,000 km², 46.7 million acres); the biggest forest is the forêt des Landes de Gascogne, a pine forest which covers over 10,000 km² (2.5 million acres), mostly part being in the Landes (6,193 km², 1.53 million acres).
This relatively small area allows for excellent forest management. Preventive logging (used for the wood and paper industries) and mandatory clearing of undergrowth for private landowners are enforced. The law forbids the construction of isolated homes in fire-prone areas. These measures usually eliminate the need to send teams to remote zones that are not accessible from the ground; airborne teams are seldom used (there are no smokejumpers), but teams are occasionally deployed via helicopter (e.g., on the top of a hill). However, the regulations are not strictly applied, partly due to conflicting interest: undergrowth are interesting for hunters (an important lobby in rural area) because they hide boars, mayors allow the construction of isolated homes to attract rich citizens, pines are preferred to other species because they are more cost-effective (but burn much easier than, for example, cork oak)… It is symptomatic to note that there are fewer fires in the biggest forêt des Landes de Gascogne than in the massif des Maures, which is much smaller (334.85 km², 82,741 acres).
The firefighting system is called DFCI (défense des forêts contre l'incendie, literally "Forest defense against fire"). The system used for the localization is called "DFCI coordinates" (coordonnées DFCI) and the access tracks are called "DFCI tracks" (chemins DFCI).
Three different forces are involved in fire prevention and firefighting:
- the police forces (Police nationale, Gendarmerie and foresters), for the prevention (patrols, information of wanderers, possibly sanction of dangerous acts);
- département employees (sapeurs forestiers, forest sappers) and volunteers construct preventive firebreaks and keep a firewatch;
- sapeurs-pompiers (french firefighters); local firefighters are reinforced in summer by columns from lower risk départements and by military troops assigned to the civile defense (UIISC, Unité d'instruction et d'intervention de la sécurité civile).
Météo France, the French national meteorology institute, computes an index for 40 locations in France (3 are in the Landes), the "forest meteo index" (indice forêt météo, IFM). This index ranges from 0 to 20, the higher the index, the higher the risk. This index helps in prepositioning men and vehicles.
A strategy pioneered in France dictates that firefighters attack the sides of the fire to make the head as small as possible and limit its propagation until it dies. This attack can be performed by land teams or by air units. Excellent coordination is required between air and land teams: dropping tons of water on ground-based firefighters can cause severe injuries and death. Usually, land teams attack one side and air teams attack the other. To prevent accidents, land-based firefighters will raise their fire hose and shoot water into the air if they hear an aircraft. The water jet is easy to see from the air and allows air crews to avoid those firefighters' positions.
French firefighters do not use backburning. The firebreaks are made preventively and are not aimed at stopping the fire. Rather, they are used as access lines and withdrawal routes.
Land teams use four-wheel drive fire engines called "tank engines for wildfire" (CCF, camion-citerne pour feu de forêt), with three (sometimes four) firefighters and 2,000 to 4,500 L of water. These engines have a protection system that sprays water around the truck in case it is surrounded by the fire; in such a case, the firefighters lock themselves in the truck. For this reason, a minimum water level is always kept (300 to 500 L). Individual equipment also includes a filtering hood (similar to a gas mask) and a protective poncho in case the firefighter could not reach the truck. Unfortunately, this is sometimes not sufficient and several deaths occur each year in southern France and Corsica.
Maintaining an adequate water supply to the front lines is very difficult. Inflatable tanks are often prepositioned in strategic places downwind of a fire. They also use 30-ton tank trucks, called "large capacity tank trucks" (CCGC, camion citerne de grande capacité).
As in other jurisdictions, the main concern is the protection of people and houses. The population is always evacuated beforehand. The protection of a house consists of:
- parking the car inside the garage;
- closing the shutters;
- spraying water on the house to prevent the temperature rising via radiation;
- making a line of wet ground to direct the fire around the building.
Protecting a house usually involves four fire engines; isolated houses are the greatest problem.
Atmospheric effects
Most of the Earth's weather and air pollution reside in the troposphere, the part of the atmosphere that extends from the surface of the planet to a height of between 8 and 13 kilometers. A severe thunderstorm in the area of a large wildfire can have its vertical lift enhanced to boost smoke, soot and other particles as high as the lower stratosphere (Wang, 2003).
Previously, it was thought that most particles in the stratosphere came from volcanoes or were generated by high-flying aircraft. Collection of air samples from the stratosphere in 2003 led to detection of carbon monoxide and other gasses related to combustion at a level 30 times higher than can be accounted for by commercial aircraft.
Satellite observation of smoke plumes from wildfires revealed that the plumes could be traced intact for distances exceeding 5,000 kilometers. This observation suggests that the plumes were in the stratosphere above weather conditions that would have brought the plume back to earth.
Atmospheric models suggest that these concentrations of sooty particles could increase absorption of incoming solar radiation during winter months by as much as 15% (Baumgardner, et al., 2003).
Statistics
Every year, the burnt surface represents about:
- France: 300 km², 12,140 acres, 0.04% of the territory
- Portugal:
- 1991 : 1,820 km², 449,732 acres, i.e. 2% of the territory
- 2003 : 4,249 km², 1.05 million acres, i.e. 4.6% of the territory; 20 deaths ;
- 2004 : 1,205 km², 297,836 acres, i.e. 1.3% of the territory
- 2005 : 2,864 km², 707,668 acres, i.e. 3.1% of the territory; 17 deaths;
- United States: 17,400 km², 4.3 million acres i.e. 0.18% of the territory
See also
- List of forest fires
- Aerial firefighting
- Defensible space
- Glossary of wildland fire terms
References
- Baumgardner, D., et al. 2003. Warming of the Arctic lower stratosphere by light absorbing particle. American Geophysical Union fall meeting. Dec. 8-12. San Francisco.
- Fromm, M., et al. 2003. Stratospheric smoke down under: Injection from Australian fires/convection in January 2003. American Geophysical Union fall meeting. Dec. 8-12. San Francisco.
- Johnson, E.A. and Miyanishi K. (Eds.) 2001. Forest Fires - Behavior and Ecological Effects. Academic Press, San Diego.
- Pyne, S.J. et al. 1996. Introduction to Wildland Fire. Wiley, New York.
- Wang, P.K. 2003. The physical mechanism of injecting biomass burning materials into the stratosphere during fire-induced thunderstorms. American Geophysical Union fall meeting. Dec. 8-12. San Francisco.
External links
- [http://www.nifc.gov/information.html Current Wildland Fire Information]
- [http://www.usfa.fema.gov/applications/publications/tr060.cfm FEMA report on the East Bay Hills Fire]
- [http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/ Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC)]
- [http://www.infoaboutnetwork.com/view/news/531/ Interesting Forest Fire Policy]
- [http://www.nifc.gov/safety_study/10-18-lces.html The 10 standard fire orders and 18 watch out situations]
- [http://siadex.ugr.es/ SIADEX: A decision support system for fighting forest fires in Andalusia]
- [http://www.geomac.gov/ GeoMAC: Wildfire information and internet map viewer of current wildfires in the United States]
- [http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/ Locations of large fires in the US and Canada based upon MODIS satellite imagery]
Category:Natural hazards
Category:Climate forcing agents
Contamination
Environmental Pollution is the release of harmful environmental contaminants, or the substances so released. Generally the process needs to result from human activity to be regarded as pollution. Even relatively benign products o
POOP
f human activity are liable to be regarded as pollution, if they precipitate negative effects later on. The nitrogen oxides produced by industry are often referred to as pollution, for example, although the substances themselves are not harmful. In fact, it is solar energy (sunlight) that converts these compounds to smog.
Pollution can take two major forms: local pollution and global pollution. In the past, only local pollution was thought to be a problem. For example, coal burning produces smoke, which in sufficient concentrations can be a health hazard. One slogan, taught in schools, was "The solution to pollution is dilution." The theory was that sufficiently diluted pollution could cause no damage. In recent decades, awareness has been rising that some forms of pollution pose a global problem. For example, human activity (primarily nuclear testing) has significantly raised the levels of background radiation, which may lead to human health problems, all over the world. Awareness of both kinds of pollution, among other things, has led to the environmentalism movement, which seeks to limit the human impact on the environment.
Whether something is pollution depends almost entirely on context. Blooms of algae and the resultant eutrophication of lakes and coastal ocean is considered pollution when it is fueled by nutrients from industrial, agricultural, or residential runoff in either point source or nonpoint source form (see the article on eutrophication for more information). Heavy metals such as lead and mercury have a role in geochemical cycles (i.e. they occur as within 'nature'). These metals may also be mined and, depending on their processing, may thus be released in large concentrations into an environment previously not playing host to them. Just as the influences of anthropogenic release of these metals to the environment may be considered as 'polluting', such pollution could also occur in some areas due to either autochtonous or historic 'natural' geochemical activity.
Carbon dioxide is sometimes referred to as a pollution, on the basis that these emissions have led, or are leading, to raised levels of the gas in the atmosphere and, furthermore, to harmful changes in the Earth's climate. Such claims are strongly disputed, particularly by political conservatives in Western countries and most strongly in the United States. Due to this controversy, in many contexts carbon dioxide from such sources are labelled neutrally as "emissions." See global warming for a very extensive discussion of this topic.
Traditional forms of pollution include air pollution, water pollution, and radioactive contamination while a broader interpretation of the word has led to the ideas of ship pollution, light pollution, and noise pollution.
Serious pollution sources include chemical plants, oil refineries, nuclear waste dumps, regular garbage dumps (many toxic substances are illegally dumped there), incinerators, PVC factories, car factories, plastics factories, and corporate animal farms creating huge amounts of animal waste. Some sources of pollution, such as nuclear power plants or oil tankers, can release very severe pollution when accidents occur. Some of the more common contaminants are chlorinated hydrocarbons (CFH), heavy metals like lead (in lead paint and until recently in gasoline), cadmium (in rechargeable batteries), chromium, zinc, arsenic and benzene.
Pollution is often a serious side effect in natural disasters. For example hurricanes almost always involve sewage pollution, and petrochemical pollution from overturned boats or automobiles, or even damage from coastal refineries is common.
Pollutants are thought to play a part in a variety of maladies, including cancer, lupus, immune diseases, allergies, and asthma. Some illnesses are named in relation with certain pollutants: for example, Minamata disease, which is caused by mercury compounds.
Regulation and Monitoring
International
The Kyoto Protocol is an amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international treaty on global warming. It also reaffirms sections of the UNFCCC. Countries which ratify this protocol commit to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases, or engage in emissions trading if they maintain or increase emissions of these gases. A total of 141 countries have ratified the agreement. Notable exceptions include the United States and Australia.
United States
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was supposed to establish "acceptable" levels of exposure to contaminants. One of the ratings chemicals are given are carcinogenicity, or how likely they are to cause cancer. Levels range from, not carcinogenic, likely carcinogen, known carcinogen, and unknown. But some scientists have said that most of these levels are far too high and people should be exposed less to them. The CalEPA Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has a different list of levels. ([http://www.oehha.ca.gov/prop65/prop65_list/Newlist.html OEHHA]). The U.S. has a maximum fine of US$25,000 for dumping toxic waste. However, many large manufacturers plead guilty, as they can easily afford this relatively small fine.
See also
- Dutch standards
- Earth Day
- Future energy development
- Global warming
- Greenhouse gas
- Kyoto Protocol
- List of songs about environmental pollution
- Marine pollution
- oxygen depletion
- particle_(ecology)
- Pollutant
- Petroleum
- Radioactive contamination
- Remediation
- Renewable energy
- Ton Petroleum Equivalent
- Toxicology
- Volatile Organic Compounds
- Whole Earth Catalog
- World Ocean Day
External links
- [http://www.scorecard.org/chemical-groups/one-list.tcl?short_list_name=tri00ry Toxic Release Inventory] - tracks how much waste companies release into the water and air. Gives permits for releasing specific quantities of these pollutants each year. [http://toxmap.nlm.nih.gov/toxmap/main/index.jsp Map]
- [http://www.scorecard.org/chemical-groups/one-list.tcl?short_list_name=hs Superfund] - manages Superfund sites and the pollutants in them (CERCLA).
- [http://www.osha-slc.gov/SLTC/pel/index.html OSHA limits for air contaminants]
- [http://atsdr1.atsdr.cdc.gov:8080/atsdrhome.html Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry] - found out top 20 pollutants, alias for chemicals, how they affect people, what industries use them and what products they are found in.
- [http://ntp-server.niehs.nih.gov/ National Toxicology Program] - from National Institutes of Health. Reports and studies on how pollutants affect people.
- [http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/ Toxnet] - more databases and reports on toxicology. From NIH
- [http://www.scorecard.org Scorecard.org] - lots of information about pollution in the US. Just enter your zip code. Colored maps also show how bad certain types of pollution are in your area.
- [http://www.epa.gov Environmental Protection Agency]
- [http://www.oehha.ca.gov/prop65/prop65_list/Newlist.html OEHHA]
- [http://ntmc0.tripod.com National Toxic Mold Coalition and Foundation]
- [http://www.edf.org Environmental Defense Fund]
- [http://www.rachel.org Rachel's Environment and Health News] - Weekly news about how the polluted environment affects people, and what corporations and governments are doing (or not doing) about it. Also in Spanish.
- [http://www.essential.org Essential.org] - Some organizations related to consumers and consumer protection, including pollution.
- [http://www.cleanupge.org CleanUp GE.org] - Info about GE's shady dumping practices on the Hudson river.
- [http://www.Pollution.net Pollution.net] - Good starting point for environmental jobs, environmental news, articles and books. Plus blogs on environmental issues
- [http://ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/newsletters/ghindex.html Extoxnet newsletters] - environmental pollution news. Last update 1998.
- [http://www.enn.com/ Environmental News Network] - more news
- [http://www.ewg.org/ Environmental Working Group]
- [http://www.ejnet.org/sludge/ Sewage Sludge] - in the U.S. it is perfectly legal to fertilize food crops with solids from the sewer, which include lots of heavy metals and toxins.
- [http://dir.yahoo.com/Health/medicine/toxicology/ Yahoo - Toxicology] - another great starting point.
- [http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/Tox/ToxTutor.html The ToxTutor from the National Library of Medicine] - An excellent resource to review human toxicology.
- [http://the-raw-prawn.blogspot.com/2004/10/pollution-and-development-as-seen-from.html Pollution and development, as seen from space]
- [http://www.choosevegetarian.com/earth_overview.asp Overview of the possible environmental benefits of a plant-based diet]
- [http://airspace.bc.ca/Airspace Action on Smoking and Health]
- [http://www.cigarettelitter.org/ CigaretteLitter.Org - The Facts About Cigarette Butts and Litter - Cigarette Litter]
ja:公害
th:มลพิษ
19th century
:Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical)
The 19th century lasted from 1801 to 1900 in the Gregorian calendar (using the Common Era system of year numbering).
Historians sometimes define a "Nineteenth Century" historical era stretching from 1815 (The Congress of Vienna) to 1914 (The outbreak of the First World War).
Europe
For Europe, the period is marked with revolution, social upheaval, and the emergence of a united conservatism from the monarchs of Europe in response to the emerging republican firestorm spreading from revolutionary France. There were many revolutions in Europe in 1848. Furthermore, the later end of the century was dominated by what many call the New Imperialism, which was the rapid aquisition of colonies worldwide by European powers, most noteworthy is the Scramble for Africa.
Many countries in Europe underwent an Industrial Revolution, especially Britain and Germany, that spread elsewhere by the end of the century, with factories and railway lines built all over the continent.
The start of the 19th century there was a struggle between France and Britain and their allies for control of Europe and the world during the Napoleonic Wars, with Napoleon being finally defeated at Waterloo in 1815. During the rest of the century, the British empire became the largest and most powerful empire in history, during the period known as the Pax Britannica.
Americas
In the Americas, the United States slowly grew economically, militarily, and politically, but nevertheless faced dramatic changes domestically, best seen in the Civil War, the end of slavery, and the expansion across the American continent known as Manifest Destiny. Industrially, America will explode following the Civil War, and would eventually begin expansion outward across the Pacific Ocean and in Latin America.
Other countries
For the rest of the world, there were few places not influenced by the West in some fashion, whether through colonialism, imperialism, or war. European powers gained increasing influence in China, where Qing control had weakened, and wars were fought by the western powers against China, such as the first and the second Opium wars and Sino-French War. Japan, which was forcibly opened to Western trade, began a rapid industrialisation.
Africa which was largely free from European control at the start of the century, was almost completely dominated by Europe at the end of it, with the Scramble for Africa in the 1880s and 1890s.
Large European settlement, especially British, of colonies such as Australia, New Zealand and the Cape Colony continued during the nineteenth century.
Events
- 1801: The Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merge to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
- 1803: The United States buys out France's territorial claims in North America via the Louisiana Purchase.
- 1804-06: Americans Meriwether Lewis and William Clark lead an expedition to the Pacific Coast and back.
- 1805-48: Muhammad Ali modernizes Egypt.
- 1806: Holy Roman Empire dissolved as a consequence of the Treaty of Lunéville.
- 1809: Napoleon strips the Teutonic Knights of their last holdings in Bad Mergentheim.
- 1813-1917: The contest between the British Empire and Imperial Russia for control of Central Asia is referred to as the Great Game.
- 1815: Congress of Vienna redraws the European map.
- 1815: Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo brings a conclusion to the Napoleonic Wars and marks the beginning of a Pax Britannica which lasts until 1870.
- 1816: Year Without a Summer
- 1816-28: Shaka's Zulu kingdom becomes the largest in Southern Africa.
- 1819: The modern city of Singapore is established by the British East India Company.
- 1820: Liberia founded by the American Colonization Society for freed American slaves.
- 1830: France invades and occupies Algeria.
- 1830: The Belgian Revolution in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands led to the creation of Belgium.
- 1833: Slavery Abolition Act bans slavery throughout the British Empire.
- 1834: Spanish Inquisition officially ends.
- 1835-36: The Texas Revolution in Mexico resulted in the short-lived Republic of Texas.
- 1837-1901: Queen Victoria's reign is considered the apex of the British Empire and is referred to as the Victorian era.
- 1845-49: Irish Potato Famine
- 1848: The Communist Manifesto published.
- 1848: Revolutions of 1848 in Europe
- 1848-58: California Gold Rush
- 1850: The Little Ice Age ends around this time.
- 1851-60s: Victorian gold rush in Australia
- 1851-64: The Taiping Rebellion in China
- 1854: The Convention of Kanagawa formally ends Japan's policy of Sakoku.
- 1855: Bessemer process enables steel to be mass produced.
- 1856: World's first oil refinery in Romania
- 1857-58: Indian rebellion of 1857
- 1859: The Origin of Species published.
- 1864-67: French intervention in Mexico
- 1865-77: Reconstruction in the United States
- 1866: Successful transatlantic telegraph cable follows an earlier attempt in 1858.
- 1866: Creation of the North German Confederation and the Austrian-Hungarian Dual Monarchy.
- 1866-69: Meiji Restoration in Japan
- 1867: The United States purchased Alaska from Russia.
- 1867: Canadian Confederation formed.
- 1869: First Transcontinental Railroad completed in United States.
- 1869: The Suez Canal opens linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.
- 1870-71: Unifications of Germany and Italy.
- 1871-1914: Second Industrial Revolution
- 1870s-90s: Long Depression in Western Europe and North America
- 1872: Yellowstone National Park created.
- 1874: The British East India Company is dissolved.
- 1877: Great Railroad Strike in the United States may have been the world's first nationwide labor strike.
- 1877-78: The Balkans are freed from the Ottoman Empire after another Russo-Turkish War.
- 1878: First commercial telephone exchange in New Haven, Connecticut.
- 1880-1902: Great Britain conquers Dutch settlers in South Africa in two Boer Wars.
- 1882: First electrical power plant and grid in Manhattan.
- 1884-85: The Berlin Conference signals the start of the European Scramble for Africa. Attending nations also agree to ban trade in slaves.
- 1885: Unification of Bulgaria
- 1890: The Wounded Knee Massacre is the last battle in the American Indian Wars.
- 1894-95: After the First Sino-Japanese War, China cedes Taiwan to Japan and grants Japan a free hand in Korea.
- 1895-1896: Ethiopia defeated Italy in the First Italo-Abyssinian War.
- 1896: Olympic games revived in Athens.
- 1896: Klondike Gold Rush in Canada
- 1898: The United States gains control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines after the Spanish-American War.
- 1898-1900: The Boxer Rebellion in China is suppressed by an Eight-Nation Alliance.
Wars
List of wars 1800–1899
- 1799-1815: Napoleonic Wars.
- 1801-15: Barbary Wars between the United States and the Barbary States of North Africa.
- 1806-12: Russo-Turkish War
- 1810-21: Mexican War of Independence.
- 1810s-20s: South American Wars of Independence.
- 1812-15: War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain.
- 1821-32: Greek War of Independence.
- 1828-29: Russo-Turkish War, 1828-1829
- 1833-76: Carlist Wars in Spain.
- 1839-60: After two Opium Wars, Great Britain, France, the United States and Russia gain many concessions from China.
- 1854-56: Crimean War between Great Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire and Russia.
- 1861-65: American Civil War between the Union and seceding Confederacy.
- 1866: Austro-Prussian War.
- 1877-78: Russo-Turkish War.
- 1879: Anglo-Zulu War in South Africa.
- 1879-84: War of the Pacific between Peru, Bolivia and Chile.
- 1880-81: First Boer War.
- 1894-95: First Sino-Japanese War.
- 1895-96: First Italo-Abyssinian War.
- 1899-13: The Philippine-American War.
Significant people
- Gilbert and Sullivan, playwright, composer
- William Gilbert Grace, English cricketer
- Baron Haussmann, civic planner
- Sándor Körösi Csoma, explorer of the Tibetan culture
- Fitz Hugh Ludlow, writer and explorer
- Florence Nightingale, nursing pioneer
- Ignaz Semmelweis, founder of hygiene
- Dr. John Snow, the founder of epidemiology
- F R Spofforth, Australian cricketer
- Franz Boas
- Edward Burnett Tylor
- Karl Verner
- Brothers Grimm
- Paul Cezanne
- Eugène Delacroix
- Caspar David Friedrich
- Antonio de La Gandara
- Théodore Géricault
- Vincent van Gogh
- Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
- Édouard Manet
- Ludwig van Beethoven
- Hector Berlioz
- Johannes Brahms
- Anton Bruckner
- Frédéric Chopin
- Antonin Dvorak
- Franz Liszt
- Felix Mendelssohn
- Modest Mussorgsky
- Franz Schubert
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
- Giuseppe Verdi
- Richard Wagner
- Charles Baudelaire
- Charlotte Brontë
- Emily Brontë
- François-René de Chateaubriand
- Anton Chekhov
- Kate Chopin
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Charles Dickens
- Emily Dickinson
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Gustave Flaubert
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Nikolai Gogol
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Friedrich Hölderlin
- Heinrich Heine
- Victor Hugo
- Henry James
- Stéphane Mallarmé
- Aleksandr Pushkin
- Arthur Rimbaud
- Stendhal
- Leo Tolstoy
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
- Jules Verne
- Walt Whitman
- Oscar Wilde
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Herman Melville
- Henri Becquerel, physicist
- Charles Darwin, biologist
- Thomas Alva Edison, inventor
- Michael Faraday, scientist
- Gottlob Frege, mathematician, logician and philosopher
- Carl Friedrich Gauss, mathematician, physicist, astronomer
- James Clerk Maxwell, Scottish physicist
- Gregor Mendel, biologist
- Louis Pasteur, biologist
- Nikola Tesla, inventor
- Amedeo Avogadro, physicist
- Johann Jakob Balmer, mathematician, physicist
- Pierre Curie, physicist
- Christian Doppler, physicist, mathematician
- Bahá'u'lláh, Persian religious leader and founder of Bahá'í Faith
- Báb, Persian prophet and founder of Bábísm
- Nikolai of Japan, religious leader who introduced Eastern Orthodoxy into Japan.
- Mikhail Bakunin, anarchist
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, philosopher
- Søren Kierkegaard, philosopher
- Karl Marx, political philosopher and economist
- John Stuart Mill, philosopher
- Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher
- Joseph Smith, Jr., religious leader, founder of Mormonism
- Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Hindu mystic
- Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher
- Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon, founder of French socialism
- Brigham Young, Mormon religious leader
- William Morris, social reformer
- Otto von Bismarck, German chancellor
- Napoleon Bonaparte, French general, first consul and emperor
- Guiseppe Garibaldi, unifier of Italy and Piedmontese soldier
- Ulysses S. Grant, U.S. general and president
- Theodor Herzl, founder of modern political Zionism
- Andrew Jackson, U.S. general and president
- Thomas Jefferson, American statesman, philosopher, and president
- Lajos Kossuth, Hungarian governor; leader of the war of independence
- Hong Xiuquan, revolutionary, self-proclaimed Son of God
- Benjamin Disraeli, novelist and politician
- Libertadores, Latin American liberators
- Robert E. Lee, Confederate general
- Abraham Lincoln, U.S. president; led the nation during the Civil War
- Mutsuhito, Japanese emperor
- István Széchenyi, aristocrat, leader of the Hungarian reform movement
- Queen Victoria, British monarch
- Klemens von Metternich, Austrian Chancellor
Inventions, discoveries, introductions
List of 19th century inventions
- Department stores
- Electromagnetism
- Epidemiology
- Mail order businesses
- Philology
- Postage stamps
- Public busses
- Subway
- The invention of the telegraph connected the world like never before, leading to quicker communication and interaction.
- One of the more devestating technologies emerging from this period is the machine gun, first used during the Civil War (considered the first modern war)
Decades and years
Category:19th century
Category:Centuries
Category:Romanticism
als:19. Jahrhundert
zh-min-nan:19 sè-kí
ko:19세기
ja:19世紀
simple:19th century
th:คริสต์ศตวรรษที่ 19
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