Geography & Sustainability Exam Study Guide

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering geographic concepts, sustainability, ecosystem dynamics, demographic calculations, biomes, public land conservation, industrial agriculture, and environmental justice.

Geography

The study of Earth's places, environments, and how people interact with them.

Physical geography

The branch of geography that studies nature, including climate, mountains, rivers, and ecosystems.

Human geography

The branch of geography that studies people, cities, cultures, and populations.

Environmental determinism

The idea that the physical environment determines how people live, behave, and develop societies; it is widely criticized because culture, technology, history, and human choices also shape societies.

Location

Where something is on the Earth.

Place

The unique physical and human characteristics that distinguish a specific location.

Region

An area sharing common characteristics.

Scale

The geographic level or size being studied, such as local, regional, or global.

Spatial distribution

The arrangement or spread of things across an area.

Human-environment interaction

How people affect nature and how nature affects people.

Distance decay

The geographic principle that interaction between two places often decreases as the distance between them increases.

Sustainability

Meeting today's needs without preventing future generations from meeting their own needs, spanning environmental, social, and economic areas.

Environmental sustainability

The dimension of sustainability focused on protecting natural resources and ecosystems.

Economic sustainability

The dimension of sustainability focused on supporting jobs, income, and long-term prosperity.

Social sustainability

The dimension of sustainability focused on supporting healthy, fair, and safe communities.

Development

Improving people's living conditions and quality of life.

Economy

How goods and services are produced, distributed, and consumed.

Community capital

Resources that help a community thrive, including people, money, infrastructure, relationships, and nature.

Glocalization

Connecting global ideas or processes with local needs (such as a worldwide restaurant chain tailoring its menu to local ingredients and tastes).

Place-based sustainability

Solving sustainability problems based on the specific conditions and needs of a particular location.

System

A group of connected parts that interact and affect one another.

System dynamics

How a system changes over time as its different parts interact.

Stability

A system's ability to maintain its overall condition over time.

Disturbance

An event that disrupts an ecosystem or system, such as a wildfire destroying trees.

Resilience

The ability of an ecosystem or system to recover or adapt after a disturbance.

Ecological succession

The gradual change in an ecosystem's community structure and species composition over time.

Primary succession

The development of ecological communities in an area where no soil previously existed, such as on bare rock exposed by a retreating glacier.

Secondary succession

The reestablishment of an ecological community after a disturbance in an area where soil remains, such as a forest recovering after a fire.

Feedback loop

A process in which a change in a system triggers effects that loop back to influence the original change.

Positive feedback

A feedback mechanism that amplifies or reinforces an initial change in a system.

Negative feedback

A feedback mechanism that counteracts a change and helps stabilize a system.

Photosynthesis

The biological process by which plants use sunlight to convert light energy into stored chemical energy.

10% rule

The ecological principle that, on average, approximately $10\%$ of energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next.

Nutrient cycle

The continuous movement and recycling of essential elements, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, through the living and nonliving environment.

Eutrophication

The process where excessive nutrient runoff (such as nitrogen and phosphorus) enters water bodies, triggering rapid algae blooms, subsequent bacterial decomposition, and dissolved oxygen depletion.

Dead zone

An area of water with hypoxia (extremely low dissolved oxygen) where aquatic organisms cannot survive.

Speciation

The evolutionary formation of new and distinct biological species from an ancestral population.

Co-evolution

The process where two interacting species mutually exert selective pressures that influence each other's evolutionary adaptations over time.

Symbiosis

A close, long-term ecological relationship between two different biological species.

Mutualism

A symbiotic relationship in which both participating species receive biological benefits (e.g., bees obtaining nectar while pollinating flowers).

Commensalism

A symbiotic relationship in which one species benefits while the other is mostly unaffected (e.g., barnacles attaching to whales).

Parasitism

A symbiotic relationship in which one organism benefits at the expense of another by causing harm (e.g., ticks feeding on dogs).

Habitat alteration

Human modification or destruction of natural ecosystems where wild organisms live.

Invasive species

A non-native organism that establishes, proliferates, and causes ecological, economic, or environmental damage.

Generalist species

A species capable of surviving in diverse environments and utilizing a wide variety of ecological resources.

Biome

A large geographic region characterized by its regional climate, soil, dominant vegetation, and animal life.

Vertical zonation

The layering or distinct change in vegetation and ecosystem types across differing mountain elevations driven by decreasing temperature.

Deforestation

The permanent clearing and conversion of forested lands into non-forested uses, such as agriculture, ranching, or urban development.

Preservation

The environmental philosophy focused on protecting natural lands and wilderness from significant human disturbance and development.

Conservation

The environmental approach centered on managing natural resources responsibly and scientifically for sustainable, continued human use.

John Muir

An influential preservationist associated with the national park movement who argued wilderness should be preserved for its natural beauty and intrinsic value.

Gifford Pinchot

The first chief of the U.S. Forest Service and an advocate for conservation who promoted scientific management of natural resources for long-term public benefit.

National Park

Public land managed primarily to preserve natural and cultural resources, allowing public recreation only under strict protective rules.

National Forest

Federally owned forestland managed under a multiple-use mandate that balances timber harvesting, recreation, water resources, and wildlife habitat.

BLM land

Public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management for diverse multiple uses, including livestock grazing, mineral extraction, recreation, and energy production.

Tragedy of the Commons

An economic and ecological concept describing the depletion or degradation of an open-access shared resource when individuals act in their self-interest.

Appropriate Management Level (AML)

The targeted population range set by public land managers for wild free-roaming horses and burros on designated public rangelands.

Urban forest

All trees and associated vegetation situated within an urban area, including municipal parks, street trees, private yards, and public green spaces.

Demography

The statistical study of human populations, including births, deaths, age distributions, spatial distribution, and migration.

Population density

The total number of people residing per unit of total land area.

Physiological density

The total number of people per unit of arable (farmable) land.

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

The average number of children a woman is projected to have across her childbearing years under current age-specific fertility rates.

Life expectancy

The average number of years a newborn infant is expected to live under current mortality rates.

Dependency ratio

The ratio comparing the economically dependent population (individuals aged $0-14$ and $65+$) to the working-age population (aged $15-64$).

Demographic transition model

A theoretical model describing the historical shift from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates as a society industrializes and develops economically.

Crude Birth Rate (CBR)

The annual number of live births per $1{,}000$ individuals in a population, calculated as: $\text{CBR} = \left(\frac{\text{Number of Live Births}}{\text{Total Population}}\right) \times 1{,}000$

Crude Death Rate (CDR)

The annual number of deaths per $1{,}000$ individuals in a population, calculated as: $\text{CDR} = \left(\frac{\text{Number of Deaths}}{\text{Total Population}}\right) \times 1{,}000$

Rate of Natural Increase (RNI)

The annual percentage rate of population growth excluding migration, calculated as: $\text{RNI (\%)} = \frac{\text{CBR} - \text{CDR}}{10}$

Doubling Time

The estimated number of years required for a population to double in size at a constant annual growth rate, calculated using the rule of 70: $\text{Doubling Time} = \frac{70}{\text{Annual Growth Rate (\%)}}$

Food security

Consistent physical, social, and economic access for all people to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food meeting dietary needs for an active, healthy life.

Undernourishment

A nutritional deficiency resulting from an inadequate caloric intake failing to meet minimum daily dietary energy requirements.

Malnourishment

A condition resulting from a dietary imbalance, deficiency, or excess of essential vitamins, minerals, and nutrients, which can occur even if calorie needs are met.

Food desert

A geographic area, frequently within low-income communities, characterized by a lack of accessible and affordable fresh, nutritious food options.

Industrial farming

Large-scale modern agricultural production characterized by intensive mechanization, synthetic agrochemicals, monoculture, and specialized technology.

Green Revolution

The mid-20th-century agricultural transformation marked by the introduction of high-yielding crop varieties, synthetic fertilizers, expanded irrigation, and chemical pesticides that drastically expanded global grain yields.

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)

Industrial livestock operations where large densities of animals are confined and fed in high-density facilities rather than grazing on open pasture.

Love Canal

A community in Niagara Falls, New York, where housing and a school were built over a toxic chemical landfill, leading to public health crises, grass-roots activism, and federal emergency declarations in the late 1970s.

Warren County, North Carolina

The location of 1982 community protests against a state-sited polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) landfill in a predominantly Black, rural community, widely recognized as a catalyst for the environmental justice movement.

CERCLA (Superfund)

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980; federal legislation authorizing the EPA to clean up uncontrolled hazardous waste sites and compel polluters to pay.

Environmental justice

The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people in environmental laws, regulations, and policies, regardless of race, color, national origin, or income level.

Procedural justice

An aspect of environmental justice that guarantees all affected communities have fair, inclusive, and meaningful access to participate in environmental decision-making processes.

Distributional justice

An aspect of environmental justice concerned with the fair and equitable spatial allocation of environmental benefits and environmental hazards across all populations.

Environmental racism

Disproportionate exposure of racial minorities to environmental hazards, polluting industrial facilities, and substandard ecological enforcement due to systemic discrimination, policy choices, or institutional practices.