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APES Unit 5
REVIEW
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Subsistence farming: | Farming for consumption by the farming family and maybe a few neighbors. |
| Reserve | :In resource management, the known quantity of a resource that can be economically recovered. |
| Nonpersistent pesticides: | Pesticide that breaks down relatively rapidly, have fewer long-term effects but because they must be applied more often their overall environmental impact is not always lower than that of persistent pesticides. |
| Water footprint: | Total daily per capita use of fresh water for a country or the world. |
| Tragedy of the commons: | The tendency of a shared, limited resource to become depleted if it is not regulated in some way. |
| Pesticide resistance: | A trait possessed by certain individuals that are exposed to a pesticide and survive. |
| Furrow irrigation: | A form of irrigation where the farmer digs trenches, or furrows, along the crop rows, and fills them with water. |
| Bycatch: | The unintentional catch of nontarget species while fishing. |
| Strip cropping: | An agricultural method of planting crops with different spacing and rooting characteristics in alternating sets of rows to prevent soil erosion. |
| Persistent pesticides: | A pesticide that remains in the environment for years to decades. |
| Limestone: | A calcium carbonated sedimentary rock that has been ground up or crushed for easy application as fertilizer. |
| Flood irrigation: | A form of irrigation where an entire field is flooded with water. |
| Exurbs: | An area similar to a suburb, but unconnected to any central city or densely populated area. |
| Groundwater recharge: | The process by which water from precipitation percolates through the soil into groundwater. |
| Crop rotation: | A crop-planting strategy in which different types of crop species are planted from season to season or year to year on the same plot of land. |
| Crustal abundance: | The average concentration of an element in Earth’s crust. |
| Agroforestry: | An agricultural technique in which trees and vegetables are intercropped. |
| Slash-and-burn agriculture (Shifting agriculture): | An agricultural method in which land is cleared and farmed for only a few years until the soil is depleted of nutrients. |
| Selective pesticide (Narrow-spectrum pesticide): | A pesticide that targets a narrow range of organisms. |
| Industrial agriculture (Agribusiness): | Agriculture that applies the techniques of mechanization and standardization to the production of food. |
| Waterlogging: | A form of soil degradation that occurs when soil remains under water for prolonged periods. |
| Concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO): | A large indoor or outdoor structure designed for maximum occupancy of animals and maximum output of meat. |
| Strip mining: | The removal of overlying vegetation and “strips” of soil and rock to expose underlying ore. |
| Subsurface mining: | Mining techniques used when the desired resource is more than 100 m (328 feet) below the surface of Earth. |
| Windbreaks: | An agricultural technique that literally plants tall objects that “break” the wind and prevent soil erosion. |
| Delaney Clause: | A clause in the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act designed to prevent potentially harmful cancer-causing food ingredients. |
| Fishery: | A commercially harvestable population of fish within a particular ecological region. |
| Nomadic grazing: | The feeding of herds of animals by moving them to seasonally productive feeding grounds, often over long distances. |
| Rotational grazing: | The rotation of farm animals to different pastures and fields to prevent overgrazing. |
| Forest: | Land dominated by trees and other woody vegetation and sometimes used for commercial logging. |
| Cone of depression: | An area surrounding a well that does not contain groundwater. |
| Economies of scale: | The observation that average costs of production fall as output increases. |
| Spray irrigation: | A form of irrigation where water is pumped into an apparatus that contains a series of spray nozzles. |
| Anthropogenic: | Derived from human activities. |
| Salinization: | A form of soil degradation that occurs when the small amount of salts in irrigation water becomes highly concentrated on the soil surface through evaporation. |
| Energy subsidy: | The fossil fuel energy and human energy input per calorie of food produced. |
| Externality: | The cost or benefit of a good or service that is not included in the purchase price of that good or service or otherwise accounted for. |
| Free range grazing: | Allowing animals to graze outdoors on grass for most or all of their lifecycle. |
| Sustainability: | Living on Earth in a way that allows humans to use its resources without depriving future generations of those resources. |
| Ecological footprint: | A measure of the area of land and water an individual, population, or activity requires to produce all the resources it consumes and to process the waste it generates. |
| Sustainable development: | Development that balances current human well-being and economic advancement with resource management for the benefit of future generations. |
| Intercropping: | An agricultural technique that calls for physical spacing of different crops growing at the same time, in close proximity to one another, to promote biological interaction. |
| Prescribed burn: | When a fire is deliberately set under controlled conditions, thereby decreasing the accumulation of dead biomass on the forest floor. |
| Monocropping: | An agricultural method that utilizes large plantings of a single species or variety. |
| Sustainable agriculture: | Fulfills the need for food and fiber while enhancing the quality of the soil, minimizing the use of nonrenewable resources, and allowing economic viability for the farmer. |
| Fishery collapse: | The decline of a fish population by 90 percent or more. |
| Clear-cutting: | A method of harvesting trees that involves removing all or almost all of the trees within an area. |
| Manure lagoon: | Human-made pond lined with rubber built to handle large quantities of manure produced by livestock. |
| Broad-spectrum pesticide: | A pesticide that kills many different types of pest. |
| Water table: | The uppermost level at which the groundwater in a given area fully saturates the rock or soil. |
| Impervious surface: | Pavement or other surfaces that do not allow water penetration. |
| Artesian well: | A well created by drilling a hole into a confined aquifer. |
| Endangered Species Act: | A 1973 U.S. law designed to protect plant and animal species that are threatened with extinction, and the habitats that support those species. |
| Environmental indicators: | Describe the current state of an environmental system or the Earth. |
| Urban area: | An area that contains more than 385 people per square kilometer (1,000 people per square mile). |
| Mountaintop removal: | A mining technique in which the entire top of a mountain is removed with explosives. |
| Soil conservation: | The prevention of soil erosion while simultaneously increasing soil depth and increasing the nutrient content and organic matter content of the soil. |
| Open-pit mining: | A mining technique that creates a large visible pit or hole in the ground. |
| Insecticide: | A pesticide that targets species of insects and other invertebrates that consume crops. |
| Urbanization: | The process of making an area more urban, which means increasing the density of people per unit area of land. |
| Fungicide: | A pesticide that specifically targets fungi (the plural of fungus). |
| Urban blight: | The lack of support for and deterioration of urban communities. |
| Green manure: | Plant material deliberately grown in a field with the intention of plowing it under at the end of the season. |
| Urban sprawl: | Urbanized areas that spread into rural areas. |
| Reforestation: | The natural or intentional restocking of trees after clear-cutting to repopulate the forest reduce erosion, and begin the process of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. |
| Rodenticide: | A pesticide that specifically targets rodents. |
| Overgrazing | :Excessive grazing that can reduce or remove vegetation and erode and compact the soil. |
| Maximum sustainable yield (MSY): | The largest quality of a renewable resource that can be harvested indefinitely. |
| Contour plowing: | Plowing and harvesting parallel to the topographic contours of the land. |
| Ore: | A concentrated accumulation of minerals from which economically valuable materials can be extracted. |
| Saltwater intrusion: | An infiltration of salt water in an area where groundwater pressure has been reduced as a result of a cone of depression from extensive pumping of wells. |
| Green Revolution: | A shift in agricultural practices in the twentieth century that included new management techniques, mechanization, fertilization, irrigation, and improved crop varieties, that resulted in increased food output. |
| Confined aquifer: | Surrounded by a layer of impermeable rock or clay, which impedes water flow to or from the aquifer. |
| Plowing: | The process of digging deep into the soil and turning it over. |
| Sustainable forestry:and soil. | A methodology for managing forests so they provide wood while also providing clean water, maximum biodiversity, and maximum carbon sequestration in both trees |
| Biocontrol: | A shortened term for biological control, it uses biological organism to control agricultural pests. |
| No-till agriculture: | An agricultural method used in fields of annual crops where farmers do not till or plow the soil between seasons. |
| Selective cutting: | The method of harvesting trees that involves the removal of single trees or a relatively small number of trees from the larger forest. |
| Spring: | Water that naturally percolates up to the surface. |
| Placer mining: | The process of looking for minerals, metals, and precious stones in river sediments. |
| Terracing: | An agricultural technique where farms shape sloping land into step-like terraces that are flat. |
| Tilling: | The preparation of soil through a variety of activities including plowing but also including stirring, digging, and cultivating. |
| Carbon footprint: | A measure of the total carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emissions from the activities, both direct and indirect, of a person, country, or other entity. |
| Aquifere soil: | :Pore spaces found within permeable layers of rock and sediment underneath that store groundwater. |
| Unconfined aquifer: | Porous rock covered by soil. |
| Mine tailings: | Unwanted waste material created during mining; chemical compounds and rock residues that are left behind after the desired metal or ore is removed. |
| Integrated pest management (IPM): | An agricultural practice that uses a variety of techniques designed to minimize pesticide inputs. |
| Metal: | An element with properties that allow it to conduct electricity and heat energy and to perform other important functions. |
| Perennial plants: | Plants that live for multiple years and do not need to be replanted at the beginning of each growing season. |
| Synthetic fertilizer (Inorganic fertilizer): | Fertilizer produced commercially, normally with the use of fossil fuels. |
| Urban runoff: | Runoff, water that does not evapotranspire or infiltrate the soil, that occurs in an urban area. |
| Sense of place: | The feeling that an area has a distinct and meaningful character. |
| Ecologically sustainable forestry: | An approach to removing trees from forests in ways that do not unduly affect the viability of other noncommercial tree species. |
| Rangelands: | Dry, open grassland primarily used for grazing cattle. |
| Pesticide: | A substance, either natural or synthetic, that kills or controls organisms that people consider pests. |
| Organic fertilizer: | Fertilizer composed of organic matter from plants and animals. |
| Drip irrigation: | A form of irrigation where a slowly dripping hose on the ground or buried beneath the soil delivers water directly to the plant roots. |
| Organic agriculture: | The production of crops in a way that sustains or improves the soil, without the use of synthetic pesticides or fertilizers. |
| Herbicide: | A pesticide that targets plant species that compete with crops. |
| Natural predators: | Predators that occur naturally in the environment. |