APHG Day 8

Biome

A major ecological community, including plants and animals, occupying an extensive Earth area

Global climate change

Change in the Earth's climate system, whether natural or caused by humans

IPAT equation

An equation relating the environmental impact of a society to the key factors of population, affluence, and technology

Soil

The complex mixture of loose material including minerals, organic and inorganic compounds, living organisms, air, and water found at the Earth's surface and capable of supporting plant life.

Ecosystem

A population of organisms existing together in a small, relatively homogeneous area (pond, forest, small island), together with the energy, air, soil, and chemicals upon which it depends

Hydrosphere

All water at or near the Earth's surface that is not chemically bound in rocks, including the oceans, surface waters, ground water, and water held in the atmosphere

Aquifer

A porous, water-bearing layer of rock, sand, or gravel below ground level

Environment

Surroundings; the totality of things that in any way may affect a person or other living organism, including both biophysical and sociocultural conditions

Greenhouse effect

Heating of Earth's surface as shortwave solar energy passes through the atmosphere, which is transparent to it but opaque to reradiated long-wave terrestrial energy; also, increasing the opacity of the atmosphere through addition of increased amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases that trap heat

Atmosphere

The air or mixture of gases surrounding the Earth

Shifting cultivation

(syn: slash-and-burn agriculture; swidden agriculture) Crop production on tropical forest clearings kept in cultivation until their quickly declining fertility is lost. Cleared plots are then abandoned and new sites are prepared. A type of extensive subsistence agriculture.

Deforestation

The clearing of land through total removal of forest cover

Ecosphere/biosphere

The region of air, water, solid Earth, and living organisms where life is found. The ecosphere includes the atmosphere, the hydrosphere of surface and subsurface waters, the lithosphere of the upper reaches of the Earth's crust, the biosphere of living organisms.

Desertification

Extension of desert-like landscapes as a result of overgrazing, destruction of the forests, or other human-induced changes, usually in semiarid regions

Hydrologic cycle

The natural system by which water is continuously circulated through Earth systems by evaporation, condensation, and precipitation

Lithosphere

The Earth's solid crust and mantle

Rotation

The agricultural practice of planting two or more crops simultaneously or successively on the same area to preserve fertility or to provide a plant cover to protect the soil

Sustainable development

A concept populatized by the World Commission on Environment and Development's Bruntland Report (1987) calling for development that meets the needs of the present without endangering the ability of future generations to meet their needs; the concept of sustainable development seeks to balance the desire for economic growth with the recognition of environmental limits to growth

Fallowing

The practice of allowing plowed or cultivated land to remain (rest) uncropped or only partially cropped for one or more growing seasons.

Terracing

The practice of planting crops on steep slopes that have been converted into a series of horizontal step-like level plots (terraces)

Transboundary river basin

Drains land from two or more countries, thus requiring international cooperation over the management of water resources.

Acid precipitation

Precipitation that is unusually acidic; created when oxides of sulfur and nitrogen change chemically as they dissolve in water vapor in the atmosphere and return to Earth as acidic rain, snow, or fog.

Dead zone

Coastal zone, often near the mouth of major rivers, where water are very low in oxygen and subject to major die-offs of marine life. Coastal dead zones are generally caused by environmental pollution from fertilizers and manure in agricultural runoff, as well as urban sewage

Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY)

Protests from local residents that often appear when companies or public agencies try to select a location for a waste treatment facility or other potentially polluting facility

Ozone

A gas molecule consisting of three atoms of oxygen (O3) formed when diatomic oxygen (O2) is exposed to ultraviolet radiation. In the upper atmosphere it forms a normally continous, thin layer that blocks UV light; in the lower atmosphere it constitutes a damaging component of photochemical smog

Hazardous waste

Discarded solid, liquid, or gaseous material that poses a substantial threat to human health or to the environment when improperly disposed of or stored