Natural Resources
These are materials from Earth that humans use.
What are natural resources?
Land used to grow crops or raise livestock.
What is agricultural land?
Water found above Earth’s surface in rivers, lakes, and streams.
What is surface water?
Pollution that comes from one specific location.
What is point-source pollution?
The growth of cities and towns as people move into urban areas.
What is urbanization?
A resource that can be replaced at the same rate it is used.
What is a renewable resource?
A mixture of mineral fragments, water, air, and organic material.
What is soil?
Water stored underground in soil or rock.
What is groundwater?
Pollution that comes from many small sources.
What is nonpoint-source pollution?
Building roads, homes, and shopping centers outside cities is called this.
What is urban sprawl?
Coal, oil, and natural gas are examples of this type of resource.
What are nonrenewable resources?
The process where wind, water, or gravity moves soil from one place to another.
What is erosion?
Water that is safe to drink.
What is potable water?
Pollution caused when warm water is released into rivers or lakes.
What is thermal pollution?
This can happen when too much groundwater is removed from an aquifer.
What is subsidence or saltwater intrusion?
This type of resource is used to generate electricity or heat.
What is an energy resource?
The removal of trees and vegetation from an area.
What is deforestation?
A body of rock or sediment that stores groundwater.
What is an aquifer?
Pollution caused by harmful chemicals entering water.
What is chemical pollution?
Dams affect rivers by changing this.
What is the natural flow of water?
This forms from buried remains of plants and animals over
What is a fossil fuel?
The process where land becomes more desertlike and unable to support life.
What is desertification?
A body of water formed behind a dam.
What is a reservoir?
When extra nutrients cause algae to grow rapidly and reduce oxygen in water.
What is eutrophication?
Human activity that caused the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.
What is overplowing and overgrazing?