ESS Flashcards
EVS
A worldview or paradigm that shapes the way an individual, or group of people, perceives and evaluates environmental issues, influenced by cultural, religious, economic and sociopolitical contexts.
Ecocentric
A viewpoint that integrates social, spiritual, and environmental dimensions into a holistic ideal.
Anthropocentric
A viewpoint that humans must manage the global system, through the use of taxes, environmental regulation and legislation.
Technocentric
A viewpoint that technological developments can provide solutions to environmental problems.
Systems approach
A way of visualising a complex set of interaction which may be ecological or societal.
System
Comprised of storages and flows.
Transfers
A change of location.
Transformations
A change in the chemical nature.
Open system
Exchanges in both energy and matter across its boundary.
Closed system
Exchanges only energy across its boundary.
The first law of thermodynamics
The energy in an isolated system can be transformed but cannot be created or destroyed.
The second law of thermodynamics
The entropy of a system increases over time.
Entropy
A measure of the amount of disorder in a system. An increase in entropy arising from energy transformations reduces the energy available to do work.
Resilience
The tendency to avoid such tipping points and maintain stability.
Sustainability
The use and management of resources that allows full natural replacement of the resources exploited and full recovery of the ecosystems affected by their extraction and use.
Natural Capital
Natural resources that can produce a sustainable natural income of goods or services.
Natural Income
The yield obtained from natural resources.
Ecological footprint (EF)
The area of land and water required to sustainably provide all resources at the rate at which they are being consumed by a given population. If the EF is greater than a given area available to the population, this is an indication of unsustainability.
Pollution
The addition of a substance or an agent to an environment through human activity, at a rate greater than that at which it can be renewed harmless by the environment, and which has an appreciable effect on the organisms in the environment.
Intrinsic value
Something is of value just because it is there, you cannot sell it in return for anything else.
Species
A group of organisms that share common characteristics and that interbreed to produce fertile offspring.
Habitat
The environment in which a species normally lives.
Niche
Describes the particular set of abiotic and biotic conditions and resources to which an organism or population responds.
Fundamental niche
Describes the full range of conditions and resources in which a species could survive and reproduce.
Realised niche
Describes the actual conditions and resources in which a species exists due to biotic interactions.
Abiotic factors
The non-living, physical factors that influence the organisms and ecosystem e.g. temperature, sunlight, pH, salinity and precipitation.
Biotic factors
The interaction between the organisms e.g. predation, herbivory, parasitism, mutualism, disease, and competition.
Population
A group of organisms of the same species living in the same area at the same time, and which are capable of interbreeding.
Carrying capacity
The maximum number if species or “load” that can be sustainably supported by a given area.
Population
The study of the factors that cause changes to population size.
Community
A group of populations living and interacting with each other in a common habitat.
Ecosystem
A community and the physical environment with which it interacts.
Respiration
The conversion of organic matter into carbon dioxide and water in all living organisms, releasing energy.
Glucose + oxygen = carbon dioxide + water
Photosynthesis
The conversion of light energy into chemical energy by producers.
Carbon dioxide + water = oxygen + glucose
Bioaccumulation
The build-up of persistent or non-biodegradable pollutants within an organism or trophic level because they cannot be broken down.
Biomagnification
The increase in concentration of persistent or non-biodegradable pollutants along a food chain.
Productivity
The conversion of energy into biomass for a given period of time.
Net primary productivity
NPP = Gross primary productivity - respiration
Gross primary productivity
The total energy or biomass assimilated by consumers and is calculated by subtracting the mass of feral loss from the mass of food consumed.
Nitrogen fixation
When atmospheric nitrogen is made available to plants through the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen.
Nitrification
To convert ammonium to nitrites.
Dentrification
Converting ammonium, nitrate and nitrite ions to nitrogen gas which escapes into the atmosphere.
Biomes
A collection of ecosystems sharing similar climatic conditions.
Zonation
The change in community along an environmental gradients due to factors such as changes in altitude, latitude tidal level or distance from shore/coverage by water.
Succession
The process of change overtime in an ecosystem involving pioneer, intermediate and climax communities.
Turbidity
The cloudiness of a body of water.
Species diversity
A function of the number of species and their relative abundance. A product of two variable, the number of species (richness) and their relative proportion (evenness).
Genetic diversity
The range of genetic material present in a gene pool or population of a species.
Habitat diversity
The range of different habitats per unit area in a particular ecosystem or biome.
Speciation
The formation of new species when populations of a species become isolated and evolve differently from other populations.
Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD)
A measure of the amount of dissolved oxygen required to break down the organic material in a given volume of water through aerobic biological activity by microorganisms.
Indicator species
Plants and animals that show something about the environment by their presence, absence, abundance or scarcity.
Biotic species
Indirectly measures pollution by assaying the impact on species within the community according to their tolerance, diversity and relative abundance.
Translocation
Water carrying particles either up or down.
Leaching
Water transporting nutrients and minerals downwards.
Porosity
The amount of space between particles.
Permeability
The ease at which gases and liquids can pass through the soil.
Subsistence farming
The provision of food by farmers frothier own families or the local community - there is no surplus.
Cash cropping
Growing crops for the market, not to eat for yourself.
Commercial farming
Large scale farming- profit making scale - maximising yields per hectare.
Primary pollutants
Are active directly from emission.
Secondary pollutants
Formed when primary pollutants undergo a variety of reactions with other chemicals already present in the atmosphere.
Tropospheric ozone
An example of a secondary pollutant, formed when oxygen molecules react with oxygen atoms that are released from nitrogen dioxide in the presence of sunlight.
Energy security
The ability to secure affordable. Reliable and sufficient energy supplies for the needs of a particular country.
Climate
How the atmosphere behaves over a relatively long period of time.
Weather
The conditions in the atmosphere over a short period of time.
GWP
The relative measure of how much heat a known mass of a GHG traps over a number of years compared to the same number of years compared to the same mass of carbon dioxide.
Mitigation
Attempts to reduce the causes of climate change.
Adaption
Attempts to manage the impact of climate change.
Crude birth date
The number of births per thousand individuals in a population per year.
Crude death rate
The number deaths per thousand individuals in a population per year.
Natural increase rate
The rate of human growth expressed as a percentage change per year.
Natural increase rate = CBR - CDR / 10
Doubling time
The time in years that it takes for a population to double in size.
Doubling time = 70 / NIR
Total fertility rate
The average number of children each woman has over her lifetime.
Renewable natural capital
Can be generated and/or replaced as fast as it is being used.
Non-renewable natural capital
Is either irreplaceable or only replaced over geological timescales, e.g. fossil fuels, soil and minerals.
Carrying capacity
The maximum number of a species or “load: that can be sustainably supported by a given area.
Ecological footprint
The area of land and water required to support a defined human population at a given standard of living.
