AP®︎ Environmental Science: Topic 5.4 Flashcards

Mechanical digging, turning, or mixing of soil that prepares fields but removes protective cover, breaks soil aggregates, and increases erosion and topsoil loss

Clearing land by cutting, drying, and burning vegetation; ash briefly supplies nutrients, but clearing causes nutrient loss, erosion, habitat loss, and carbon emissions

Cultivating a cleared plot briefly and then leaving it fallow to recover; shortened fallow periods cause greater degradation and repeated deforestation

Adding nutrients to increase crop growth; nutrients applied beyond crop uptake can pollute groundwater, surface water, soil, and the atmosphere

Downward movement of dissolved substances through soil, which can carry highly soluble nitrate below roots and into groundwater

Human-caused nutrient enrichment of water that increases algal or plant growth, whose decomposition consumes dissolved oxygen

A condition of abnormally low dissolved oxygen, often produced when decomposers consume oxygen while breaking down nutrient-stimulated biomass

An aquatic area where dissolved oxygen is too low to support many animals, often as a severe result of nutrient enrichment and decomposition