AP environmental midterm review chapter 1
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16 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Point source pollution | single, identifiable source of pollution |
| Non-point source pollution | sources of pollution that are dispersed and often difficult to identify |
| per capita | per region |
| natural capital | the natural resources and natural services that keep us and other forms of life alive and support out human economies |
| Natural Resources | materials and energy in nature that are essential or useful to humans |
| Natural services | processes in nature which support life and human economies |
| Sustainability | ability of earth's various systems to survive and adapt to changing environmental conditions indefinitely |
| Sustainable yield | highest rate at which a potentially renewable resource can be used indefinitely without reducing it's available supply |
| Ecological footprint | amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply a population with the renewable resources it uses and to absorb or dispose of the waste from such resource use |
| Developed nations | country that is highly industrialized and has a high per capita GDP |
| Developing nations | country that has low to moderate industrialization and low to moderate per capita GDP |
| Renewable resource | resource that can be replenished rapidly through natural processes as long as it's not used up faster than it is replaced |
| Nonrenewable Resource | Resource that exists in a fixed amount in the earths crust |
| Perpetual Resource | essentially inexhaustible resource on a human time scale be cause it is renewed continuously. ex. solar energy |
| exponential growth | growth in which some quality increases at a constant rate per unit of time |
| affluence | wealth that results in high levels of consumption and unnecessary waste of resources. |
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