A Flashcards

Question

Agglomeration

Answer 1

The grouping together of businesses in the same area to minimize costs through linkages.

Answer 2

Deposition of load within river channels.

Answer 3

Corporations organized to provide vertical linkages both below and above the farm itself.

Answer 4

The science, art, and business of cultivating the soil, producing crops, and raising livestock; farming.

Answer 5

Every step in the process(es) that lead to the consumption of food.

Answer 6

A period of fundamental changes to agricultural systems which tend to concentrate land and production into fewer hands while increasing yields. Changes may be organizational and technological.

Answer 7

Transfer of resources from a donor to a recipient. May be undertaken at a variety of scales usually under the following conditions: (1) Bilaterally between national governments. The donor will usually attach specific conditions both economic and political. (2) Multilaterally where donors contribute to an agency (e.g. World Bank) which then distributes to recipients again imposing political and economic conditions but at a system level. (3) Voluntary aid - charitable, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) generate income from collection campaigns in the donor country for use in smaller-scale often community level schemes in recipient countries. Usually not tied.

Answer 8

See acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Answer 9

Large body of air with shared temperature and humidity characteristics associated with its area of origin e.g. maritime or continental; tropical or polar.

Answer 10

The force of the atmosphere on the surface.

Answer 11

The amount of insolation reflected from the atmosphere and surface back to space. Darker, heavily vegetated surfaces have low albedo, snow and ice have high albedo. Angle of sun causes variation over time of albedo of water surfaces.

Answer 12

Collective name for a group of chlorophyll-containing plants, ranging in size from single cells to stems, including seaweeds and freshwater forms.

Answer 13

Rapid growth of phytoplankton in water bodies usually in the surface layers. May be hazardous both through the production of toxins and through the blocking of insolation to lower layers.

Answer 14

One in which the major components have formed in situ.

Answer 15

When an external environmental factor causes a process to occur.

Answer 16

An alluvial fan with highly steep slopes usually found where mountain streams exit narrow valleys.

Answer 17

A fan-shaped deposit of river load where energy has been lost due to the river exiting abruptly from a narrow upland valley to a lowland plain.

Answer 18

The process of depositing alluvium.

Answer 19

River deposits found either on the floodplain or historic point-bars.

Answer 20

A measure of connectivity in a network. Expresses the cyclomatic number as a percentage of the maximum possible circuits. A low percentage indicates low connectivity. Formula is: α = 100 x (e-v+1)/(2v-5) where e is number of edges and v is number of vertices.

Answer 21

The use of low-cost, often labour-intensive, technology, based on local resources, that is appropriate to Economically Less Developed Countries. May originate internally or externally.

Answer 22

Height above sea-level.

Answer 23

The movement of air up slopes due to convection.

Answer 24

Literally without free oxygen. In geography, applied to waterlogged soils which will then experience reduction of ferric compounds to ferrous compounds and turn from red to blue colourings.

Answer 25

See braiding.

Answer 26

The maintenance of course by an old river over more recent uplifting.

Answer 27

A stable, generally subsiding air mass producing high pressure, warming conditions. The resultant fall in relative humidity leads to clear skies.

Answer 28

Rapidly rising column of air in a convectional thunderstorm will soon reach the tropopause and be forced to spread in its upper portion to form an anvil shape.

Answer 29

See alternative technology. Appropriate technology might more commonly be the term applied to alternative technology originating externally.

Answer 30

Highly managed use of water environments to enhance food production e.g. fish farms.

Answer 31

All animal species which require the continual presence of water for survival.

Answer 32

Fall into four categories: (1) Emergents ( rooted in sediment and protrude above the surface) (2) Free-floaters (3) Floating-leaved (rooted in sediment with leaves floating on the surface) (4) Submergents

Answer 33

A permeable rock which stores and transfers water. Useful when underlain by impermeable rock to trap the water and allow it to be tapped.

Answer 34

Cultivation of crops such as cereals, legumes, roots and leaves.

Answer 35

When a cave in the side of a headland is eroded right through to the other side forming a bridge-shaped landform.

Answer 36

An air mass originating over the Arctic Circle.

Answer 37

In the UK, land areas given special protection by act of parliament to preserve their natural beauty. Local authorities maintain strict control over permission for development within them. England has 35, Wales has 4, 1 is astride the border, and N. Ireland has 9. Scotland uses the National Scenic Area designation and has 40 areas.

Answer 38

A sharp, knife-edged ridge in an upland area. Develops as the backwalls of adjacent back to back corries meet. Freeze-thaw further steepens this ridge.

Answer 39

Climatic areas characterized by extreme dryness. Simple definitions set maximum annual precipitation (up to 250mm per year). More complex definitions recognize the importance of evapotranspiration (or potential evapotranspiration) where precipitation is very low.

Answer 40

Approximate rectangular shaped valley cut in floodplain alluvium, with a smaller stream in the base. Usually found in semi-arid areas.

Answer 41

The upward movement of groundwater by hydrostatic pressure.

Answer 42

Deliberate release of water from dam reservoirs to create downstream flooding that is beneficial to farmland or wetland areas.

Answer 43

Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. So named for their rapid economic growth from 1970s to crash of 1997.

Answer 44

Direction in which a slope faces.

Answer 45

Layer of rock in the mantle approximately 80km deep and at a temperature of 1400°C. Rocks here become much softer and more easily deformed than in the lithosphere above.

Answer 46

Water with a different proportion of dissolved salts than is usual in seawater.

Answer 47

Layer of gases surrounding earth and held there by gravity. Nitrogen forms 78.09% by volume and Oxygen 20.95%. The remaining 0.96% is made up of a further 19 gases. The boundary of the atmosphere is 1000km above sea level but 99% of the gases are held in the lower 40km. This is split into three layers - the troposphere and the stratosphere separated by the tropopause. Carbon dioxide in the troposphere allows photosynthesis and also holds long-wave radiation to give warmth. Temperatures fall with altitude at a rate of approximately 6.5°C per km to the tropopause where they are stable. Ozone in the stratosphere traps ultraviolet radiation and leads to an increase in temperature in this layer.

Answer 48

Solids present in the atmosphere. May be naturally occurring dusts and soils etc. or human pollutants such as smoke.

Answer 49

A ring-shaped coral reef.

Answer 50

A process of erosion where the collisions between parts of the load lead to comminution.

Answer 51

The right of self-government. Exists at nation-state and sub-national, regional levels.

Answer 52

An organism that can produce nutritional organic substances from simple inorganic substances. Thus, plants grow by synthesizing carbon dioxide and water using sunlight.

Answer 53

Rapid, down slope mass movement of ice and / or snow due to a trigger overcoming reduced friction in an unstable accumulation.

Answer 54

A soil which does not demonstrate much, if any, evidence of soil-forming processes. Often little more than regolith, they are controlled by parent material and relief.