The school board wants to clear the forest surrounding the local high school to build more fields for high school sports. What environmental factors need to be investigated before clearing the land?

The environmental factors which need to be investigated before clearing the land can involve living and non-living factors. The land clearing will remove species of animals and plants acquiring their habitat in the forest. The loss of floral species will affect the faunal species. The faunal species will extinct, decrease in number or may migrate to different locations. Therefore, complete loss of biodiversity will result.

This will also result in disturbance important cycles in nature like water, oxygen, nitrogen and carbon which will lead to disturbance of rainfall, seasonal or weather changes. Soil an important non-living factor will loose it's fertility due to soil erosion.