Human Impact & Mitigation
This refers to the change in population distribution from high-density areas to low-density suburbs that spread into rural lands.
What is urban sprawl?
Pollutants like carbon monoxide released directly from a source are classified as this type of pollutant.
What are primary pollutants?
Dividing 70 by the percentage population growth rate approximates the population's doubling time, according to this rule.
What is the rule of 70?
All fossil fuels have their energy extracted through this chemical process.
What is combustion?
This type of mining involves digging a large pit into the earth.
What is pit mining?
This land covering allows for water to penetrate and reduces the negative hydrologic impacts of urban sprawl.
What is permeable paving>
A device in vehicles that converts toxic pollutants like NOx and CO into less harmful substances.
What is a catalytic converter?
When a population exceeds its carrying capacity, it is called this.
What is overshoot?
This category of fuels are the most widely used for energy production.
Fossil Fuel
A clay and/or plastic line is used to collect this from landfills after rain.
What is leachate?
Urbanization can lead to the depletion of resources and this in the hydrologic cycle in coastal areas.
What is saltwater intrusion?
This is a condition where a layer of cool air is trapped below a layer of warm air, trapping air pollutants near the ground.
What is a thermal inversion?
Populations without limits, or invasive species in a new and ideal environment exhibit this kind of growth.
What is exponential growth?
Coal is an organic mineral found in the Earth's crust and it begins its formations in bogs made of this substance.
What is peat?
Out of the three R's, which one represents the most effective way to decrease the amount of waste in a landfill?
What is reduce?
Using and buying wood harvested by ecologically sustainable techniques, reforestation, and reusing wood are methods for mitigating this.
What is deforestation?
Acid deposition is caused by the release of sulfur dioxide and these other oxides from fossil fuel combustion.
What are nitrogen oxides (NOx)?
The high mortality rate of sea turtle eggs and hatchlings—where only 1 in 1,000 survives to maturity—is the classic example of this type of survivorship.
What is type iii survivorship?
Aside from the environmental downsides, fossil fuels have one large disadvantage in their limited nature making them this.
What is nonrenewable?
Mountain top removal mining can result in erosion, and the heavy metals in the earth can cause the nearby waterways with this.
What is acid mine drainage?
Urbanization, through the burning of fossil fuels and landfills, affects the carbon cycle by increasing the amount of this in the atmosphere.
What is carbon dioxide (CO2)?
This secondary pollutant is harmful at ground level, but our DNA would would be destroyed without a layer of it in the stratosphere.
What is ozone?
The tendency for a fruit tree to create large nutritious fruits for its seeds gives evidence for its selection towards this type of species.
What is K-selected?
The burning of this high grade of coal in the eastern united states has caused the death of many forests in the north eastern U.S.
Anthracite
This gas is generated in landfills and can be collected to create electricity.
What is methane (CH4)