The natural environment or natural world encompasses all biotic and abiotic things occurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. The term is most often applied to Earth or some parts of Earth. This environment encompasses the interaction of all living species, climate, weather and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity. The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished as components:
Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, plateaus, mountains, the atmosphere and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their nature.
In contrast to the natural environment is the built environment. Built environments are those in which humans have fundamentally transformed landscapes such as in urban settings and agricultural land conversion. Even in acts that seem less extreme, such as building a mud hut or a photovoltaic system in the desert, the modified environment is considered artificial. Though many animals build things to provide a better environment for themselves, they are not human; hence beaver dams and the works of mound-building termites are considered natural.
There are no absolutely natural environments on Earth. Naturalness usually varies in a continuum, from 100% natural in one extreme to 0% natural in the other. The massive environmental changes of humanity in the Anthropocene have fundamentally affected all natural environments including: climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution from plastic and other chemicals in the air and water. More precisely, considering the different aspects or components of an environment, it becomes apparent that their degree of naturalness is not uniform. For instance, in an agricultural field, the mineralogic composition is quite similar to that of undisturbed forest soil while the structure is quite different. (Full article...)
Population density and economic disparities shape mental health.
Environmental psychology is a branch of psychology that explores the relationship between humans and the external world. It examines the way in which the natural- and our built environments shape us as individuals. Environmental psychology investigates how humans change the environment and how the environment influences humans' experiences and behaviors. The field defines the term environment broadly, encompassing natural environments, social settings, built environments, learning environments, and informational environments. Another important research area within environmental psychology is the study of humans’ influences on the environment, that is, psychological factors influencing pro-environmental behavior and different ways it can be possible to encourage environmentally friendly behaviors, in order to mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss.
According to an article on APA Psychnet, environmental psychology is when a person thinks to a plan, travels to a certain place, and follows through with the plan throughout their behavior. (Full article...)
... that German social media personality Maya Leinenbach became vegan after completing a school project on the influence of nutrition and consumption on the environment?
... that otters in Singapore have adapted to the urban environment, with groups such as the Zouk otter family known for their tolerance of humans?
... that environmental journalist Gloria Dickie wrote her thesis on how cities in Colorado changed garbage laws to prevent bear incursions?
Trained in political science at UCLA, Ostrom was a faculty member at Indiana University Bloomington for 47 years. Beginning in the 1960s, Ostrom was involved in resource management policy and created a research center, the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, which attracted scientists from different disciplines from around the world. Working and teaching at her center was created on the principle of a workshop, rather than a university with lectures and a strict hierarchy. Late in her career, she held an affiliation with Arizona State University. (Full article...)
Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) is an international network of grassroots environmental organizations in 73 countries. About half of the member groups call themselves "Friends of the Earth" in their own languages; the others use other names. The organization was founded in 1969 in San Francisco by David Brower, Donald Aitken, and Gary Soucie after Brower's split with the Sierra Club because of the latter's positive approach to nuclear energy. It became an international network of organizations in 1971 with a meeting of representatives from four countries: United States, Sweden, the UK and France.
FoEI currently has a secretariat, based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, which provides support for the network and its agreed major campaigns. The executive committee of elected representatives from national groups sets policy and oversees the work of the secretariat. In 2016, Uruguayan activist Karin Nansen was elected to serve as chair of the organization. Sri Lankan activist Hemantha Withanage has served as chair of FoEI since 2021. (Full article...)
Image 2Funding for climate change research in the natural and technical sciences compared to that in the social sciences and humanities according to the study "The misallocation of climate research funding" (from Environmental science)
Image 5Few creatures make the ice shelves of Antarctica their habitat, but water beneath the ice can provide habitat for multiple species. Animals such as penguins have adapted to live in very cold conditions. (from Habitat)
Image 6Blue Marble composite images generated by NASA in 2001 (left) and 2002 (right) (from Environmental science)
Image 8Environmental science is the academic discipline with the largest change in the number of works per year in OpenAlex after one decade compared to the output in 2015. A 2025 study found that for 1365 identified papers about environmental degradation, the annual number of papers increased tenfold between 2016 to 2022 A similar study found articles related to the carbon footprint of economic growth surged after 2017 (from Environmental science)
Image 9View of Earth, taken in 1972 by the Apollo 17 crew. Approximately 71% of Earth's surface (an area of some 361 million square kilometers) consists of ocean (from Ecoregion)
Image 11A team of British researchers found a hole in the ozone layer forming over Antarctica, the discovery of which would later influence the Montreal Protocol in 1987. (from Environmental science)
Image 16Biodiversity of a coral reef. Corals adapt and modify their environment by forming calcium carbonate skeletons. This provides growing conditions for future generations and forms a habitat for many other species. (from Environmental science)
Image 19Sequence of a decomposing pig carcass over time (from Ecosystem)
Image 20Proportion of forest area by forest area density class and global ecological zone, 2015, from Food and Agriculture Organization publication The State of the World's Forests 2020. Forests, biodiversity and people – In brief (from Ecoregion)
Image 21Environmental science examines the effects of humans on nature, such as the Glen Canyon Dam in the United States. (from Environmental science)
Image 27Cattails indicate the presence of phosphorus in the water. Cattails are an invasive species; they crowd out sawgrass and grow too thick to allow nesting for birds and alligators. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 29Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World (Olson et al. 2001, BioScience) (from Ecoregion)
Image 30The Paris Agreement (formerly the Kyoto Protocol) is adopted in 2016. Nearly every country in the United Nations has signed the treaty, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (from Environmental science)
Image 40Loch Lomond in Scotland forms a relatively isolated ecosystem. The fish community of this lake has remained stable over a long period until a number of introductions in the 1970s restructured its food web. (from Ecosystem)
Image 42Climbing ferns overtake cypress trees in the Everglades. The ferns act as "fire ladders" that can destroy trees that would otherwise survive fires. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 44An Antarctic rock split apart to show endolithic lifeforms showing as a green layer a few millimeters thick (from Habitat)
Image 45Aerial view of stormwater treatment areas in the northern Everglades bordered by sugarcane fields on the right (from Restoration of the Everglades)
... that the average United States citizen consumes 119pg (10−12 g) of dioxin per day?
... that Liberian lawyer Alfred Brownell won the "Green Nobel" prize for his efforts to protect more than 500,000 acres (2,000km2) of tropical forest land?
