Environmental Science

7.5 billion

7.5 billion

The world population, or the total number of humans currently living, is estimated to have reached ____ as of April 2017.

POPULATION

can be generally defined as a group of individuals of the same species occupying a given area at a given time.

POPULATION ECOLOGY

the study of populations and their interactions with their environment

DISPERSION

the pattern of spacing among individuals within the boundaries of the population.

CLUMPED PATTERN

- is the most common pattern of population dispersion.

UNIFORMLY PATTERN

when individuals are evenly spaced over the area they occupy. A pattern seen in species whose individuals do not have close interactions.

RANDOM PATTERN

individuals of a population have an unpredictable distribution. This pattern is common in species that prefer solitary lives.

population size

defined by the total number of individuals

population density

the number of individuals within a specific area or volume.

10 Billion

the carrying capacity of Earth.

FERTILITY

is the actual level of reproduction of a population per individual, based on the number of live births that occur.

FERTILITY RATE

also known as birth rate is the total number of live human births per 1,000 population divided by the length of a period in years.

MORTALITY RATE

also known as death rate is a measure of the number of deaths in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population per unit of time.

IMMIGRATION (INTO)

the act of someone coming to live permanently in foreign country.

EMIGRATION (EXIT)(OUT)

leaving your own country to settle permanently in another country.

TOTAL FERTILITY RATE

is the average number of children born to each woman, over the woman's lifespan, in a population.

EXPONENTIAL GROWTH

It is an accelerating pattern of increasing population size.

DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION MODEL

shows how birth rates and death rates change over time as a country becomes more developed.

LIFE EXPECTANCY

is the average number of years that a person in a particular population is expected to live.

AGE STRUCTURE DIAGRAMS

It provides a snapshot of the current population and can represent information about the past and give potential clues about future problems.

GLOBAL POPULATION

The world population refers to the entire number of people of all ages, living in all countries throughout the world.

DEMOGRAPHY

the study of human populations.

DEMOGRAPHERS

collect and process information about population processes such as fertility, mortality, and migration.

GROWTH RATE (ANNUAL)

The annual rate of growth of a population expressed as a percentage.

REPLACEMENT-LEVEL FERTILITY

Total fertility rate at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next, without migration.

INFANT MORTALITY

Number of deaths per thousand live births of children under one year of age.

POPULATION PROFILE OR AGE STRUCTURE

A chart or bar graph showing the number of males and females for successive ages in the population.

POPULATION MOMENTUM

The effect of the current population profile on future population growth; the tendency for the population to grow despite a fall in fertility.

CRUDE BIRTH RATE

The number of live births per thousand in a population in a given year.

CRUDE DEATH RATE

The number of deaths per thousand in a population in a given year.

FERTILITY TRANSITION

A decline in fertility which begins an irreversible trend downwards; completed when replacement- level fertility is achieved.

EPIDEMIOLOGIC TRANSITION

The shift from high death rates to low death rates in a population as a consequence of improved medical and sanitary conditions.

WATER

Plays a key role in sculpting the earth's surface, moderating climate, and removing and diluting wastes and pollutants.

GROUNDWATER

zone of saturation, these spaces are filled with water.

WATER TABLE

The top of this groundwater zone is the ____.

AQUIFERS

underground caverns and porous layers of sand, gravel, or bedrock through which groundwater flows.

SURFACE WATER

the freshwater from precipitation and snowmelt that flows across the earth's land surface and into rivers, streams, lakes, wetlands, estuaries, and ultimately to the oceans.

SURFACE RUNOFF

Precipitation that does not infiltrate the ground or return to the atmosphere by evaporation is called ____.

WATERSHED OR DRAINAGE BASIN

The land from which surface water drains into a particular river, lake, wetland, or other body of water is called its _____.

SOLID WASTE

any unwanted or discarded material we produce that is not a liquid or a gas. Solid waste can be divided into two types.

INDUSTRIAL SOLID WASTE

produced by mines, agriculture, and industries that supply people with goods and services.

MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE (MSW)

often called garbage or trash, which consists of the combined solid waste produced by homes and workplaces.

HAZARDOUS, OR TOXIC, WASTE

which threatens human health or the environment because it is poisonous, dangerously chemically reactive, corrosive, or flammable.

INTEGRATED WASTE MANAGEMENT

a variety of strategies for both waste reduction and waste management.

WASTE REDUCTION

in which much less waste and pollution are produced, and the wastes that are produced are viewed as potential resources that can be reused, recycled, or composted.

3Rs (REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE)

WAYS TO CUT SOLID WASTE

OPEN DUMPS

are essentially fields or holes in the ground where garbage is deposited and sometimes burned. They are rare in developed countries but are widely used near major cities in many developing countries.

SANITARY LANDFILLS

solid wastes are spread out in thin layers, compacted, and covered daily with a fresh layer of clay or plastic foam, which helps to keep the material dry and reduces leakage of contaminated water (leachate) from the landfill.

PHYSICAL METHODS

DEALING WITH HAZARDOUS WASTE:

detoxifying hazardous wastes include using charcoal or resins to filter out harmful solids and distilling liquid mixtures to separate outharmful chemicals. Especially deadly wastes can be encapsulated in glass, cement, or ceramics and then put in secure storage sites.

CHEMICAL METHODS

used to convert hazardous chemicals to harmless or less harmful chemicals through chemical reactions.

BIOLOGICAL METHODS

treatment of hazardous waste to be the wave of the future.

BIOREMEDIATION

bacteria and enzymes help to destroy toxic or hazardous substances or convert them to harmless compounds.

PHYTOREMEDIATION

involves using natural or genetically engineered plants to absorb, filter, and remove contaminants from polluted soil and water.

DEEP-WELL DISPOSAL

Liquid hazardous wastes are pumped through a pipe into dry, porous rock formations far beneath aquifers, many of which are tapped for drinking and irrigation water. - The most common form of burial.

SURFACE IMPOUNDMENTS

are ponds, pits, or lagoons into which liners are placed and liquid hazardous wastes are stored.

HAZARDOUS WASTES

can be incinerated to break them down and convert them to harmless or less harmful chemicals such as carbon dioxide and water.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Is an ideal whereby every person is entitled to protection from environmental hazards regardless of race, gender, age, national origin, income, social class, or any political factor.

CORE

the earth's innermost zone. It is extremely hot and has a solid inner part, surrounded by a liquid core of molten or semisolid material.

MANTLE

Most of the mantle is solid rock, but under its rigid outermost part is the asthenosphere—a zone of hot, partly melted rock that flows and can be deformed like soft plastic.

CRUST

The outermost and thinnest zone of the earth. It consists of the continental crust, which underlies the continents (including the continental shelves extending into the oceans), and the oceanic crust, which underlies the ocean basins and makes up 71% of the earth's crust.

TECTONIC PLATES

The flows of energy and heated material in the mantle's convection cells cause a dozen or so huge rigid plates, called _____.

DIVERGENT BOUNDARY

When oceanic plates move apart from one another molten rock, or magma, flows up through the resulting cracks.

CONVERGENT BOUNDARY

When an oceanic plate collides with a continental plate, the continental plate usually rides up over the denser oceanic plate and pushes it down into the mantle in a process called subduction.

TRANSFORM FAULT

where plates slide and grind past one another along a fracture (fault) in the lithosphere.

INTERNAL GEOLOGIC PROCESS

generated by heat from the earth's interior, typically build up the earth's surface in the form of continental and oceanic crust, including mountains and volcanoes.

EXTERNAL GEOLOGIC PROCESS

driven directly or indirectly by energy from the sun (mostly in the form of flowing water and wind) and influenced by gravity, tend to wear down the earth's surface and move matter from one place to another.

FISSURE

An active volcano occurs where magma reaches the earth's surface through a central vent or a long crack, called a _____.

SEISMIC WAVES

When a fault forms, or when there is abrupt movement on an existing fault, energy that has accumulated over time is released in the form of vibrations, called _______.

FOCUS

The place where an earthquake begins, often far below the earth's surface is called the ______.

TSUNAMI

is a series of large waves generated when part of the ocean floor suddenly rises or drops.

MINERAL

an element or inorganic compound that occurs naturally in the earth's crust as a solid with a regular internal crystalline structure.

ROCK

is a solid combination of one or more minerals found in the earth's crust.

SEDIMENTARY ROCK

made of sediments—dead plant and animal remains and existing rocks that are weathered and eroded into tiny particles.

IGNEOUS ROCK

forms below or on the earth's surface when magma wells up from the earth's upper mantle or deep crust and then cools and hardens.

METAMORPHIC ROCK

forms when a preexisting rock is subjected to high temperatures (which may cause it to melt partially), high pressures, chemically active fluids, or a combination of these agents.

ROCK CYCLE

The interaction of physical and chemical processes that change rocks from one type to another.

MINERAL RESOURCE

A concentration of naturally occurring material from the earth's crust that can be extracted and processed into useful products and raw materials at an affordable cost.

ORE

rock that contains a large enough concentration of a particular mineral—often a metal—to make it profitable for mining and processing.