Environment may be divided into the following major components
I) Natural and physical component
it can be further divided into two types namely abiotic or non-living and biotic or living component. The abiotic component is made up of the following –
1) Location – it can be understood in terms of the exact location of a place on the earth. Related to the location other factors can be understood such as climate, temperature, rainfall, forest, availability of water and other natural resources.
2) Terrain – altitude or degree of slope forms another significant aspect of physical environment.
3) Geological structure – it is the presence and composition of underline rocks and determines land forms and occurrence of mineral wealth.
4) Climate – it is the most dominant component of physical environment. It is understood through temperature, rainfall, humidity and sunlight. It affects various aspects such as plant growth, type of soil, occupation etc.
5) Energy – energy received from sun is the main source of heat and light is the environment. It is also the life giving force for the plant and animal world. The biotic components are those which influence living organism, plants, animals and man. They are as producers or autographs, consumer or hetrotrophs, decomposers and reducers. The biotic components are interlinked and form a food chain.
II) Culture or human components
It basically includes all the man-made and ^artificial characterstics of human society. Man stays in physical or natural environment but the changes or modifies, this natural environment to suit his needs and requirements. In other words he develops a cultural environment.
The cultural environment can be further divided into the following categories
1) Social environment – it can be understood interms of the non-material aspect include the norms, values, ideas knowledge etc. whereas the material aspects are the manifest forms of the non-material aspects.
2) Economic environment – it involves the different types of economic activities developed by man. Each type of economic activity has its own requirement of resources as well as technology.
3) Political environment – it includes the type of environment and its ideological principles, various important factors such as production, consumption, use of resources etc. are determined by the strategies and policies advocated by the -government. This in turn determines the level of development and progress of the society. Thus environment is a complex phenomena.