Glossary
Accumulated: verb. gather together or acquire an increasing number or quantity of, or build up.
Acidic: adjective. Acid-forming.
Aesthetic value: that an object, event or state of affairs (most paradigmatically an artwork or the natural environment) possesses in virtue of its capacity to elicit pleasure (positive value) or displeasure (negative value) when appreciated or experienced aesthetically.
Anthropogenic: adjective. (chiefly of environmental pollution and pollutants) originating in human activity.
Bequest value: the value of satisfaction from preserving a natural environment or a historic environment, in other words natural heritage or cultural heritage for future generations.
Biodiversity: noun. the variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem.
Breeding: noun. the sexual propagation of plants or animals.
Carbon storage: the removal and storage of carbon from the atmosphere in carbon sinks (such as oceans, forests or soils) through physical or biological processes, such as photosynthesis.
Chemical changes: a usually irreversible chemical reaction involving the rearrangement of the atoms of one or more substances and a change in their chemical properties or composition, resulting in the formation of at least one new substance.
Climate change: noun. a change in global or regional climate patterns, in particular a change apparent from the mid to late 20th century onwards and attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels.
Density Dependence: noun. An effect in which the intensity changes with the increasing population density
Depth of thermocline: oceanic water layer in which water temperature decreases rapidly with increasing depth
Destabilize: verb. to cause something to be incapable of functioning or surviving.
Ecosystem: noun. the complex of a community of organisms and its environment functioning as an ecological unit.
Environment: noun. the complex of physical, chemical, and biotic factors (such as climate, soil, and living things) that act upon an organism or an ecological community and ultimately determine its form and survival.
Environmental indicators: a value derived from parameters, that points to, provides information about and/or describes the state of the environment, and has a significance extending beyond that directly associated with any given parametric value
Erosion: noun. The process of eroding or being eroded by wind, water, or other natural agents.
Existence value: Willingness to pay for the existence of an environmental resource without on-site use. It can be motivated by an ecological ethic, altruism toward others or bequests to future generations.
Food chain: noun. an arrangement of the organisms of an ecological community according to the order of predation in which each uses the next usually lower member as a food source.
Habitat: noun. The place or environment where a plant or animal naturally or normally lives and grows.
Hypothermia: noun. Condition in which the temperature of your body is very low
Natural disasters: noun. damage, loss, and distress. They are the result of natural phenomena such as earthquakes, floods, etc.
Nutrient cycle: noun. repeated pathway of a particular nutrient or element from the environment through one or more organisms and back to the environment.
Overexploitation: also called over-harvesting, refers to harvesting a renewable resource to the point of diminishing returns
Overpopulation: the condition of having a population so dense as to cause environmental deterioration, and impair the quality of life, or a population crash.
Ph: a measure of acidity and alkalinity of a solution.
Physical parameters: a property (as color, hardness, boiling point) of matter not involving in its manifestation a chemical change.
Physicochemical environment: of or relating to chemistry that deals with the physicochemical properties of substances.
Poaching: illegal hunting.
Population control: noun. the number of people living in each unit of area (such as a square mile)
Preservation: verb. To keep alive, intact, or free from decay.
Restoration: verb. To bring back to or put back into a former or original state.
Salinity: noun. consisting of or relating to the salts of the alkali metals
Sanctuary: noun. A refuge for wildlife where predators are controlled and hunting is illegal.
Sea-surface temperature: is the water temperature close to the ocean's surface
Sediment: noun. The matter that settles to the bottom of a liquid.
Sequestration: noun. The action of taking forcible possession of something; confiscation.
Thermocline: noun. The region in a thermally stratified body of water which separates warmer surface water from cold deep water and in which temperature decreases rapidly with depth.
Trophic levels: A trophic level is the group of organisms within an ecosystem which occupy the same level in a food chain. There are five main trophic levels within a food chain, each of which differs in its nutritional relationship with the primary energy source.
Wetlands: noun. land consisting of marshes or swamps; saturated land.
Wildlife: noun. Living things and especially mammals, birds, and fishes that are neither human nor domesticated.