Cards (29)

  • Base Flow
    Water that percolates downwards until it reaches the groundwater reservoir and then flows to surface streams as groundwater discharge.
  • Diffuse Pollution
    Pollution that arises from land activities spread across large areas that have no specific point of discharge.
  • Environmental Assessment
    The process of estimating and evaluating significant short-term and long-term affects of a programme or project on the quality of the location's environment.
  • Environmental Impact Assessment
    Aims to protect the environment by ensuring that a local planning authority has full knowledge of possible significant environmental effects of a proposed development, and mitigation for these, and takes these into account in the decision-making process.
  • Environmental Monitoring
    Describes the processes and activities that need to take place in order to characterise and monitor the quality of an environment over time.
  • Habitat
    The place where a plant or animal lives.
  • Habitat Destruction
    The process by which natural habitat is damaged to the extent that it is no longer able to support species and communities. This may be through a natural event such as flooding or a volcanic eruption, but is more usually caused by anthropogenic activities such as land drainage or deforestation.
  • Habitat Fragmentation
    The reduction of a large habitat area into smaller, scattered remnants.
  • Hydrograph
    A graph showing how a waterbody reacts after a period of rainfall. The discharge flow is measured past a specific point and over a given time, and this is usually expressed in cubic metres per second.
  • Initiative
    An action implemented in order to achieve the aims of a strategy and policy.
  • Invasive Non-Native Species
    A species introduced through human action outside its native distribution and which has a serious negative impact on native species, our health or our economy.
  • Keystone Species
    A species on which other species in an ecosystem largely depend, such that loss of the keystone species would drastically change the ecosystem.
  • Lag Time
    The time it takes for precipitation to find its way from land to a river.
  • Legislation
    Laws passed by the government.
  • Marine Protected Areas
    A formal conservation designation to protect nationally important marine wildlife, habitats, geology, and undersea landforms.
  • Native Species
    One that occurs naturally within a given ecosystem, rather than the result of accidental or deliberate introduction by humans.
  • Non-Native Species
    A species introduced through human action outside its native distribution.
  • Peak Discharge
    The time when a river reaches its highest flow.
  • Peak Rainfall
    The time of highest rainfall.
  • Plagioclimax
    A stable plant community which is maintained by persistent human interference such as burning or grazing.
  • Point Pollution
    Pollution that is discharged from a single location.
  • Policy
    A plan of action that focuses on a specific target.
  • Pollution
    The presence in the environment of substances in quantities that cause harm to the environmental components.
  • Reforestation
    The process of replanting an area with trees. Differs from afforestation, which is the planting of new areas where there was no previous tree cover.
  • Rewilding
    Intentional activities which initiate or accelerate the recovery of a habitat or an ecosystem with respect to its health, integrity, and sustainability.
  • Runoff
    The flow of water over land as surface water.
  • Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)

    A formal conservation designation for an area which has extremely high conservation value because of its plants, animals, geological, or landscape features.
  • Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)
    Aims to provide for a high level of protection of the environment from development. It is mandatory for plans and/or programmes which relate to large-scale changes in land use.
  • Strategy
    The methods and principles needed to achieve a policy are set out in strategy.