Question

What are the consequences of depletion of a forest?

Answer 1

There are several.

Explanation:

1. You'll be destroying a natural habitat. That could potentially cause the death of the organisms that previously inhabited the area. Or it may be a case where animals will have to find new homes, one of which may just be a neighbouring city. We wouldn't want to have predators roaming our streets now, would we?

2. There will be an increased chance of drought. Trees contribute to the water cycle via transpiration, so the less trees there are, the less water vapour enters into the atmosphere, therefore, you'll have less rain. It won't be noticable on a small scale, but if deforestation is widespread, then drought would certainly become more frequent.

3. It's going to be much hotter. This is due to the greenhouse effect which ultimately leads to global warming. The greenhouse effect is completely natural. Humans don't cause it. There are greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which retain heat. They prevent (or trap) all the heat rays that the sun provides from being reflected back into space so we don't freeze to death.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, so the more of it we have in the atmosphere, the more heat it traps, causing climate change, global warming, etc.

Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, so our forests really are doing us a great favor. When we cut them down, all of that stored carbon dioxide is released, increasing the proportion of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, in turn increasing the amount of heat that can be trapped in it. In addition, the less trees we have, the less carbon dioxide is able to be taken out of the atmosphere (or absorbed) and stored away, so the hotter we will be.