42 of the ESS glossary’s terms, each with the part of the syllabus where you first meet it.
A supplementary agreement to the Convention on Biological Diversity, adopted in 2010 and in force since 2014, on access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits from their use.
A plan prepared by a least developed country under the UNFCCC that identifies its most urgent climate adaptation needs and ranks priority projects for funding.
A large area of land or sea protected by a national government for its natural features, wildlife and landscape, usually open to visitors for recreation and education.
A country's own climate action plan under the Paris Agreement, setting out its emissions targets and policies, updated every five years.
The stock of natural resources and ecosystems, such as forests, soils, fish stocks, groundwater and the atmosphere, that provides goods and services of value to people.
The yield of goods and services obtained from natural capital, such as the fish caught from a stock each year or the flood protection provided by a wetland.
The difference between the crude birth rate and the crude death rate of a population, excluding migration, given per 1,000 per year or as a percentage (divide by 10).
A raw material or source of energy obtained from the Earth and used by society, such as sunlight, air, water, land, rocks, minerals, ecosystems and living organisms.
The process by which individuals with heritable variations better suited to their environment survive and reproduce more, so those variations become more common in the population over generations.
A protected area managed mainly for the conservation of wildlife, habitats or geological features, often with restricted human use.
The IUCN Red List category for species that do not currently qualify as threatened but are close to doing so, or are likely to qualify in the near future.
A feedback loop in which the output of a process inhibits or reverses the same process, reducing change and stabilising a system around its equilibrium.
The difference between the number of immigrants and the number of emigrants for an area over a period, positive when more people arrive than leave.
The rate at which producers store energy or biomass after their own respiratory losses, per unit area per unit time; NPP = GPP − R.
The gain in biomass or energy by an organism or trophic level per unit area per unit time that remains after respiratory losses; NP = GP − R.
The rate at which consumers store energy or biomass in new tissue after respiratory losses, per unit area per unit time; NSP = GSP − R.
A state in which human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are cut as far as possible and any that remain are balanced by an equal amount of greenhouse gas removed from the atmosphere.
The particular set of abiotic and biotic conditions and resources on which an organism or population depends, including how it obtains food and all the interactions that affect its survival and reproduction.
A negatively charged ion of nitrogen and oxygen (NO₃⁻); a highly soluble plant nutrient that is easily washed from soil into water and contributes to eutrophication.
The conversion of ammonium into nitrite and then nitrate by nitrifying bacteria in aerobic soil and water.
The ion NO₂⁻, an intermediate form of inorganic nitrogen produced from ammonium and then converted into nitrate during nitrification.
The biogeochemical cycle by which nitrogen moves between the atmosphere, soils, water and organisms, largely through transformations carried out by bacteria.
The conversion of unreactive nitrogen gas (N₂) from the atmosphere into ammonia or ammonium, carried out by nitrogen-fixing bacteria, by lightning or industrially by the Haber process.
A group of gases, mainly nitrogen monoxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), formed when nitrogen and oxygen in air combine at the high temperatures of combustion; written NOₓ.
Bacteria that convert atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, either living freely in soil and water or in mutualistic association with plants, such as Rhizobium in the root nodules of legumes.
A long-lived greenhouse gas (N₂O), released mainly from fertilised soils, manure and some industrial processes, with a 100-year global warming potential of about 273; it also depletes stratospheric ozone.
An area of sea or fresh water in which all fishing and other removal of living or non-living resources is banned.
A system of herding livestock that are moved between seasonal pastures and water sources, so that no area is grazed long enough to be degraded.
Describes a substance that decomposers cannot break down, or break down only very slowly, so it persists in the environment for years.
A not-for-profit organisation that operates independently of government, such as Greenpeace or WWF, often campaigning, researching or running projects on environmental and social issues.
Pollution that enters the environment from many dispersed sources over a wide area, such as run-off from farmland or roads, so that no single source can easily be identified.
A natural resource replaced so slowly, over geological time, that any use reduces the remaining stock, such as fossil fuels, metal ores and phosphate rock.
An adaptation to climate change that changes behaviour, rules, knowledge or practices rather than building infrastructure, such as early warnings, land zoning, building codes or drought-resistant crops.
Any product other than timber gathered from forests for food, medicine, materials or sale, such as nuts, fruit, resins, honey and mushrooms.
The value people place on a resource that they do not use and may never see, including existence value and bequest value; it has no market price.
Human-made substances and materials, such as synthetic chemicals, plastics and pesticides, released into the environment; one of the nine planetary boundaries.
Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, the three mineral nutrients that plants need in the largest amounts and that are most often measured in soil tests and added in fertilisers.
The splitting of a large, unstable atomic nucleus, such as uranium-235, into two smaller nuclei after it absorbs a neutron, releasing a large amount of energy and further neutrons.
Electricity generated using heat released by nuclear reactions in a reactor, in present-day stations almost always by the fission of uranium or plutonium nuclei.
The statement, tested by a statistical test, that there is no difference, correlation or association between the variables studied, so that any pattern in the data is due to chance.
A plant that shelters the seedlings of other species as they grow, for example gorse providing shade and shelter for native tree seedlings during regeneration.
The total amount of nutrients, mainly nitrates and phosphates, entering a body of water over a period from natural sources and human activities such as farming and sewage.