Environmental Management Lecture Notes

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering terminology related to ecosystems, food chains, trophic levels, environment types, bio-geochemical cycles, and environmental pollution from the lecture transcript.

Ecosystem

The basic functional unit used to study ecology, formed by biotic and abiotic factors and their interactions with each other in a definite geographical area.

Biotic Components

All types of living organisms in an environment, including bacteria, fungi, plants, and animals.

Abiotic Components

Physical factors in an environment such as air, water, soil, sunlight, temperature, and humidity.

Producers

Organisms, such as green plants, that utilize solar energy to perform photosynthesis and occupy the first trophic level.

Primary Consumers

Herbivores like grasshoppers, deer, goats, and sheep that feed upon producers and occupy the second trophic level.

Secondary Consumers

Organisms such as frogs that feed on primary consumers and occupy the third trophic level.

Tertiary/Apex Consumers

Organisms such as snakes (tertiary) or hawks and eagles (apex) that can kill and feed on other consumers, occupying the fourth or highest trophic levels.

Decomposers

Organisms like fungi and bacteria that act on all levels of a food chain to break down organic matter and release elements back into nature.

Food Chain

A linear sequence of feeding interactions between producers, consumers, and decomposers usually constituting four to five trophic levels.

Food Web

A complex network formed when many small food chains are interwoven together.

Scavengers

Organisms such as caterpillars, termites, and insects present in dung that carry out decomposition and help clean the environment.

Jivo Jivasya Jivanam

A Sanskrit saying meaning that one living organism makes its living on another, which is the foundational principle for food chains and predator-prey interactions.

Energy Pyramid

A diagrammatic representation that depicts the energy levels at various trophic levels and shows how energy travels up a food chain.

Environment

The collective term for physical, chemical, and biological factors including biotic and abiotic components that surround a living organism.

Ecology

The science that deals with the study of interactions between biotic and abiotic factors of the environment.

Natural Environment

A type of environment consisting of air, atmosphere, water, land, and living organisms.

Anthropogenic Environment

A man-made or artificial environment that directly or indirectly affects the natural environment.

Bio-geochemical Cycles

Cycles that maintain environmental balance through the continuous movement of nutrients like carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus; these include gaseous and sedimentary types.

Environmental Pollution

The contamination or unacceptable changes in physical, chemical, and biological properties of air, water, and soil that cause environmental degradation.

Natural Pollution

Pollution caused by natural sources and processes, such as earthquakes and the eruption of lava.

Artificial Pollution

Pollution caused by human activities such as population explosion, fast industrialization, deforestation, and unplanned urbanization.

Radioactive Pollution

Pollution caused by natural radiations (UV and IR) or man-made radiations like X-rays and emissions from atomic energy plants.

Effects of Radiations

Harmful results from exposure including cancerous ulcerations, destruction of body tissues, genetic changes, and adverse effects on vision.

Chernobyl, Windscale, and Three Miles Island

Three major international mishaps involving radioactive accidents that affected thousands of people over the long term.

UNEP

The United Nations Environment Program, established following a conference on human and environment in Stockholm in $1972$.

Ministry of Environment and Forests

A department in India that since $1985$ has started various programs for planning, inducting, and increasing awareness about the environment and forests.