Decidious Forest Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Decidious Forest - Research Paper Example They are also found in southwest eastern China, Japan, and Russia. Middle East coast of Paraguay and Chile have the largest areas of deciduous forests in South America (Archibold, 1995). (Picture showing location of deciduous forest around the globe) The most significant and common characteristic of these regions is that they all have seasonal changes in temperature and rainfall. The outcome of this is that the tree acquires a special shape so that they can adapt to endure these changes in the environment during the year. The mean temperature in this forest goes up to 50 degree Fahrenheit. The rainfall is also average and ranges between thirty and sixty inches in a year. With the transformation in season, the color of leaves of the deciduous forest also changes (Nagle, 2009). For example, during the month of winter, there is scarcity of water and therefore the leaves can not stay alive. Hence, the leaves start falling off from the plants. But with the advent of spring, the leaves sta rt growing back again. Some plants like evergreens retain their leaves during winter season also. They adapt to the winter and stay alive. There are several species of trees in a deciduous forest their variety depending upon the region they are located in. They generally include species like walnut, hickory, linden, sweet gum, oak, maple, beech, chestnut, and elm. The deciduous forests are further divided into five distinct zones. The Tree Stratum zone is the first zone. In this zone, one would find trees for example oak, beech, maple, chestnut hickory, and elm, basswood, linden, walnut, and sweet gum trees. The zone has a variable height that is from 60 to 100 feet. The second zone consists of sapling and small trees. As the name suggests, the trees here are young and smaller in size. The third zone is known as the shrub zone. Some of the popular shrubs found in this zone are rhododendrons, azaleas, mountain laurel, and huckleberries. The fourth zone is called the Herb zone. As the name indicates, it has very short plants like herbal plants. The fifth and final zone is called Ground zone. It consists of lichen, club mosses, and true mosses (MacMillan, 2003). The number of unlike seasons in the deciduous forests are four in all starting from spring, summer, autumn, and winter. While autumn seasons sees leaves changing their color, in the winter, the tress shed their leaves altogether. Dog Wood Leaves Fringe Leaf Ginkgo Leaves Deciduous forests can survive the extreme seasons of climatic change. They grow in those regions where you get plenty of rainfall, which is necessary for the growth of trees. The rainfall in the moderate deciduous forest is spread out around the whole year. But winter is the season of cold and therefore, everything freezes around and nothing is available to animals for feeding. Therefore, animals living in this region adapt themselves to the extreme cold winter and also hot season of summer (MacMillan, 2003). As leaves start falling in wi nter, there is not much of a cover available to the animals to save themselves from the vagaries of nature. The deciduous forests have animals whose pictures are shown below:- Black bear Fox Brown bear Animals use a special technique of adaptation by hibernating in the winter season and living off what ever is available in the other three seasons. The animals try out the plants and see if

Assessment of the Environmental Impact of Electric Vehicles Coursework

Assessment of the Environmental Impact of Electric Vehicles - Coursework Example Conclusion 18 References 1. Introduction Electric vehicles have become a strong trend in the global market. The benefits of electric vehicles, as analyzed above, compared to the conventional vehicles are often used as a justification for promoting the use of these vehicles worldwide. In this context, the following problem appears: which would be the impact of replacing a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle with an electric vehicle capable of similar duty? The above issue is explored in this paper. The following condition is set† the platform of the vehicle remain the same. For the needs of this paper, an electric car has been chosen as the mode of the vehicle, the use of which will be modified. While exploring this issue it has been necessary to cover a series of other topics, such as the characteristics and the differences of electric vehicles compared to the conventional vehicles. ... In any case, conventional vehicles are more likely to cause severe environmental damages, even if the last years their environmental impact has been effectively controlled (Larminie and Lowry 2003, p.258), a fact that can be used for confronting the negative criticism against the conventional vehicles. It should be noted that the replacement of a conventional vehicle with an electric vehicle is not always unavoidable, since conventional vehicles can also promote sustainability, even at lower levels than the electric vehicles. However, if other benefits are targeted, then such replacement should be based on the rules and the processes presented below. 2. The Impact of Replacing a Conventional Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle with an Electric Vehicle Capable of Similar Duty 2.1 Electric vehicles – Description and Characteristics Electric vehicles are those vehicles that are ‘propelled by one or more electric motors rather by an internal – combustion engine’ (Faiz, Weaver and Walsh 1996, p.227). This is the key difference between the electric vehicles and the conventional vehicles, which are based on an internal combustion engine (Faiz, Weaver and Walsh 1996). The range of electric vehicles can be high; there are electric autos, motorcycles, trains and so on (Faiz, Weaver and Walsh 1996). In fact, any conventional vehicle can become electric under the terms that it is appropriately transformed following a particular process (Faiz, Weaver and Walsh 1996). In practice, there are three different types of electric vehicles: a) the electric vehicles that rely on an external generation system, i.e. a generation system which is not incorporated