75 of the Geography glossary’s terms, each with the part of the syllabus where you first meet it.
The delivery of public services and information through digital channels, such as online applications, digital identity and electronic voting.
A passport with an embedded chip that stores the holder’s details and biometric data, digitally signed by the issuing state so that border systems can verify it.
Discarded electrical and electronic equipment and its parts, which contain valuable materials such as copper and gold and hazardous substances such as lead and mercury.
A system that detects or forecasts a hazard and sends timely, understandable warnings to people at risk so that they can act to protect themselves and their property.
The calculated date each year on which humanity’s demand on nature exceeds what the Earth can regenerate that year: world biocapacity divided by world footprint, multiplied by 365.
A system that detects the first, faster seismic waves of an earthquake and sends automatic alerts that arrive seconds to tens of seconds before the strongest shaking reaches more distant places.
An environment, especially online, in which people mainly encounter opinions that match their own, so that their views are reinforced rather than challenged.
A city or urban district planned or redeveloped to minimise its ecological footprint, through renewable energy, efficient buildings, low-car transport, recycling, green space and compact, mixed-use development.
The level of visitor use a site can sustain before damage to its ecosystems, such as erosion, coral loss or wildlife disturbance, becomes unacceptable or irreversible.
The amount by which a population’s ecological footprint exceeds the biocapacity available to it; when biocapacity is larger, the difference is an ecological reserve.
The area of biologically productive land and sea needed to produce the resources a person or population consumes and absorb its wastes, especially CO₂, measured in global hectares.
The level of tourism beyond which it displaces other economic activities or raises costs for residents, such as housing, to the point that the local economy is harmed.
The monetary value of the damage and disruption caused by a hazard event, including destroyed property and infrastructure and lost production, whether or not it is insured.
A person who moves voluntarily, within a country or between countries, mainly to find work or earn higher wages.
A common market whose members also co-ordinate or share economic policies, often including a single currency and a central bank, as in the euro area.
A shortage caused by a lack of investment, infrastructure or institutional capacity rather than of water, so that people cannot access water that is physically available.
The benefits people obtain from ecosystems, grouped as provisioning (food, water), regulating (flood control, purification), supporting (habitat, nutrient cycling) and cultural (recreation, heritage) services.
Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of local people and involves education about the environment; one form of sustainable tourism.
A concentration of offices, shops and entertainment that grows at the edge of a metropolitan area, usually around a motorway junction, far from the traditional city centre.
A volcanic eruption in which low-viscosity magma flows out gently as lava because gases escape easily.
The warm phase of ENSO, in which the trade winds weaken, warm water spreads east across the equatorial Pacific, upwelling off South America weakens and rainfall shifts east.
The irregular cycle of coupled changes in sea surface temperature and air pressure across the tropical Pacific, with a warm phase (El Niño), a cold phase (La Niña) and a neutral state.
An explanation of earthquakes in which rocks on either side of a locked fault bend as stress builds, then break and spring back, releasing energy as seismic waves.
The Emergency Events Database, a global record of disasters since 1900 kept by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Belgium, which lists events that meet set thresholds for deaths, people affected or calls for help.
The greenhouse gases released in producing and transporting a good or service, carried in effect from the producing country to the consuming country when the good is traded.
The volume of fresh water used to produce a good or service, such as a kilogram of beef, which is traded invisibly when the product is exported; also called virtual water.
A small, young and unstable sand dune at the top of a beach, formed where sand collects around obstacles and is colonised by salt-tolerant pioneer plants such as sea couch grass.
A coastline where the land has risen relative to the sea, leaving former shoreline landforms such as raised beaches and relict cliffs above the reach of waves.
A middle-income country with rapid economic growth, industrialisation and a growing role in world trade and investment, such as China, India, Brazil, Indonesia or Mexico.
A state or union of states whose rapidly growing economic, military, political and cultural influence may allow it to become a superpower, such as China or India.
A process in which people, especially groups who have been excluded, gain the power, resources, rights and confidence to make choices and influence decisions that affect their lives.
A language at risk of falling out of use, usually because children no longer learn it from their parents as their first language.
Describing a disease that is constantly present in a particular population or region at a fairly stable, expected level.
The balance between the incoming shortwave radiation the Earth absorbs from the Sun and the outgoing longwave radiation it emits to space; when the two are equal, global mean temperature is stable.
The food energy produced by a farming system divided by the energy put into it from labour, animals and fossil fuels; a value above 1 means more energy is produced than used.
The share of a country’s energy use met by net imports, calculated as energy imports minus exports divided by energy use, times 100; negative values indicate a net exporter.
The combination of primary energy sources, such as oil, coal, gas, nuclear power and renewables, used to meet the energy needs of a country, region or the world.
The route by which energy resources travel from source to consumer, such as an oil or gas pipeline, a tanker shipping lane or an electricity transmission line.
A lack of access to modern energy services, especially electricity and clean cooking fuels, or the inability to afford enough energy for basic needs.
The uninterrupted availability of energy sources at an affordable price, including the ability to cope with sudden supply disruptions and to meet future demand.
The strengthening of the natural greenhouse effect by human emissions of greenhouse gases, which raise their concentrations, trap more longwave radiation and warm the Earth’s surface.
A set of forecasts made by running a weather or flood model many times with slightly different starting conditions, so that the spread of results shows the probability of each outcome.
A theory, set out by Amartya Sen in 1981, that famines happen when groups of people lose their ability to obtain food through production, wages, trade or transfers, not only when total food supply falls.
The quantity, timing and quality of water released or left in a river to sustain its ecosystems and the people who depend on them.
A person who moves within or across borders mainly because sudden or gradual environmental change has damaged their life or living conditions; “climate refugee” has no legal status.
A fieldwork method that scores the quality of a place on several criteria, such as litter, noise and building condition, on a set scale to allow comparison.
The level of use or stress beyond which an environment's condition changes sharply, so that damage accelerates or can no longer be reversed naturally.
A river that flows only for short periods after rainfall and is dry for most of the year, common in arid regions; an intermittent river flows seasonally.
The point on the Earth's surface directly above the focus of an earthquake, usually close to where the shaking is strongest.
A sudden increase in the number of cases of a disease well above the level normally expected in a population or area.
A model (Omran, 1971) of the long-term shift in a population’s main causes of death from communicable diseases, famine and malnutrition to non-communicable diseases as development proceeds.
The line on a glacier, often given as an altitude, at which annual accumulation equals annual ablation, separating the zone of accumulation from the zone of ablation.
The wearing away and removal of rock and sediment by a moving agent such as a river, waves, ice or wind.
A rock fragment, often a large boulder, transported by ice and deposited far from its source on bedrock of a different type, showing the direction and extent of former ice.
The tidal mouth of a river where fresh water mixes with sea water, and where tides and waves remove sediment rather than letting it build a delta.
A residential area in which one ethnic or cultural group is concentrated and has its own businesses, places of worship and community institutions.
Membership of a group of people who share, or believe they share, a common ancestry, history, culture and often language or religion.
A worldwide change in sea level caused by a change in the volume of ocean water, such as water stored in ice sheets during glacial periods or melting and thermal expansion today.
The enrichment of a body of water with nutrients, especially nitrates and phosphates, causing excessive growth of algae and plants and leading to oxygen depletion.
The skill of weighing strengths and limitations, costs and benefits, or competing arguments and evidence, and reaching a reasoned judgment about their value or importance.
The process by which liquid water is changed into water vapour and returned to the atmosphere from surfaces such as oceans, lakes, soil and wet vegetation.
The combined loss of water to the atmosphere by evaporation and transpiration; potential evapotranspiration (PET) is the amount that would be lost if water were always available.
The number of deaths from all causes in a period above the number expected from previous years, used to estimate the full death toll of a crisis.
The area of sea up to 200 nautical miles from a state's baseline in which that state has sole rights to the natural resources of the water and seabed, while other states keep freedom of navigation.
Diffusion in which a phenomenon spreads to new areas while remaining present in its place of origin, so that the total area or number affected grows.
The first stage of Butler's model, when small numbers of independent, adventurous visitors arrive and there are almost no facilities built for tourists.
A volcanic eruption in which gas trapped in viscous magma expands violently, shattering the magma into ash and tephra.
The presence of people, livelihoods, infrastructure, ecosystems or economic assets in places that could be adversely affected by a hazard, such as a low-lying coast or a drought-prone region.
A longer written answer of 10 marks or more, such as an essay, marked holistically with a markband for knowledge, analysis, evaluation and structure.
Farming that uses low inputs of labour and capital per unit of land over large areas, producing low yields per hectare.
An environment in which climate and relief set severe limits on plant growth, human comfort and economic activity, so that it supports few people without special adaptation; cold, high-altitude and hot arid environments are the main types.
Living on less than the World Bank’s international poverty line, US$3.00 a day per person at 2021 purchasing power parity, a level at which basic needs can barely be met.
A weather event that is rare at a particular place and time of year, such as a heatwave, extreme rainfall, drought or intense storm.
The calm, often cloud-free centre of a tropical cyclone, typically 20–50 km across, where air sinks and surface pressure is lowest.
The ring of towering thunderclouds around the eye of a tropical cyclone, where air rises fastest and the strongest winds and heaviest rain occur.