industries, rivers and land management
Ref: L02

The term ‘industry’ covers a wide range of businesses, some process raw materials like wood, stone or metals. There are two case studies, one for quarrying (W02a) and one for an abbattoir (W02c) which show how these industries have an impact on the environment.

Some industries do not make anything but offer services to other companies such as advertising, marketing or selling. Even these industries change the way they manage their land in order to have a more positive impact on the environment, rather than a negative one.

Industries that employ quite a lot of people normally have a car park where staff can safely park their cars during the working day. The surface of a car park is usually concrete or tarmac to make it as hard wearing as possible. A surface like this does not let water soak into it, so the water runs off into drains or over land into rivers and streams. This means that at times of heavy rainfall the amount of water in streams and rivers increases quickly making them flow faster and their water levels rise. There is another problem too, water that comes off car park surfaces is often dirty, it may contain engine oil dropped by the cars as they sit there all day waiting for their owners to return.

So what can be done? Water from a car park can be directed so that it is does not enter a stream or river so quickly. If car park water is directed into a reed bed area on its way to the river, the reeds will help to breakdown the pollution before it is a danger to plant and animal life in the river (L06h).