Sustainability Flashcards
Ecosystem Services
Benefits we receive from the environment (ecosystem)
Environmental Indicators
Describes or gives insight into current state of the environment; used to track state of environment (land, water, air)
Bioindicators
frogs and lichens
Sustainability
living in such a way that resource use does not deprive future generations of that resource; finding alternatives and protecting capacity of environment to continue to supply resources; the capacity to endure.
Stewardship
responsible use and protection of the natural environment
Perpetual Resources
supply continuous; cannot be depleted on a human time scale. Solar
Potentially Renewable Resources
Takes several days to several hundred years to be replenished through natural processes. Soil, forests, freshwater, fish populations, fresh air. Highest rate at which they can be used is sustainable yield.
Non-Renewable Resources
Exist in a fixed quantity in earth’s crust; exhaustible. Geologic processes create these resources on a time scale of millions to billions of years. Fossil fuels, metallic mineral resources, non-metallic mineral resources
Ecological Footprint
Amount of biologically productive land and water needed to provide the people in a particular country or area with an indefinite supply of renewable resources and to absorb and recycle wastes and pollution associated with resource use.
I=PxAxT
I= impact on environment, P= population, A=affluence (consumption per person), T= technology (Technology impact; cars, garbage, etc)
Tragedy of the Commons
Overexploiting shared renewable resources
Private Property
individuals or companies own rights to land, minerals or other resources
Common Property
rights to certain resources are held by large groups or individuals
Open-access renewable resources
owned by no one and available for use by anyone at little or no charge
Solutions of Tragedy of the Commons
1- Use resource at a rate well below the sustainable yield. 2- convert to private ownership
