What does that mean?
The terms below are helpful for understanding the activities of ReVA. Refer to EPA's Terms of the Environment for a more complete glossary of terms related to environmental subjects.
- Assessment:
study to estimate or determine the significance and effects of factors or events
- Ecological Risk Assessment:
evaluation of the potential adverse effects that human activities have on the plants and animals that make up ecosystems
- Ecosystem:
biotic and abiotic environment within which most or all nutrients are recycled
- Environmental Stressor:
any event or situation that requires a nonroutine change in adaptation or behavior of the environment
- Estuary:
partially enclosed body of water formed where freshwater from rivers and streams flows into the ocean, mixing with the salty sea water
- Ground Water:
water occurring in the soil or in an aquifer
- Indicator:
a concise measure of cumulative effects and ecosystem vulnerability
- Landscape Characterization:
use of historical and current information to describe land cover types and other landscape features for the purpose of evaluating their change over time
- Receptor:
sensitive component of the ecosystem that reacts to or is influenced by environmental stressors
- Region:
large and indefinite part of the earth
- Scale:
extent covered by a study or data set; typically used to refer to time or geography
- Spatial Scale: also referred to as Spatial Distribution
geographic area bounded by geopolitical boundaries (state, county, municipality) or natural boundaries (rivers, mountains)
- Stressor:
any event or situation that precipitates a change
- Surface Water:
water found over the land surface in streams, ponds, marshes, lakes or other fresh (not salty) sources
- Temporal Scale:
duration or period of time
- Vulnerability:
susceptibility to degradation or damage from adverse factors or influences
- Watershed:
area of land that catches rain and snow and drains or seeps into a marsh, stream, river, lake or groundwater |
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