| Fall overturn
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| Annual cycle in deep lakes in temperate climates, in which the warm surface water and cool subsurface water mix.
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| Fallout
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| Radioactive materials produced during an atomic detonation and later deposited from the air.
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| Family planning
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| Making contraceptives and other health and reproductive services available to couples in order to enable them to achieve a desired family size.
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| Famines
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| Acute food shortages characterized by large-scale loss of life, social disruption, and economic chaos.
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| FAO
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| Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. farm cooperatives. An association of consumers who jointly own and manage a farm for the production of produce specifically for their own consumption.
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| Farmer-centered Agricultural Resource Management (FARM) Program
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| A U.N. FAO-administered program in Asian countries fostering sustainable agriculture.
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| Fauna
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| All of the animals present in a given region.
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| FDA
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| Federal Food and Drug Administration, with jurisdiction over foods, drugs, and all products that come in contact with the skin or are ingested.
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| Fecal coliform test
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| A test for the presence of Escherichia coli, the bacterium that normally inhabits the gut of humans and other mammals. A positive test indicates sewage contamination and the potential presence of disease-causing microorganisms carried by sewage.
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| Fecundity
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| The physical ability to reproduce. fen An area of waterlogged soil that tends to be peaty; fed mainly by upwelling water; low productivity.
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| Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform (FAIR) Act of 1996
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| Major legislation removing many subsidies and controls from farming.
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| Feedlot
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| Fenced area where cattle are raised in close confinement to minimize energy loss and maximize weight gain.
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| Feral
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| A domestic animal that has taken up a wild existence.
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| Fermentation
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| (alcoholic) A type of anaerobic respiration that yields carbon dioxide and alcohol; used in commercial fermentation processes, including production of raised bakery dough products and alcoholic beverages.
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| Fertility
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| Measurement of actual number of offspring produced through sexual reproduction; usually described in terms of number of offspring of females, since paternity can be difficult to determine.
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| Fertility rate
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| See total fertility rate.
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| Fertility transition
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| The pattern of change in birth rates in a society from high rates to low; a major component of the demographic transition.
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| Fertilizer
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| Material applied to plants or soil to supply plant nutrients, most commonly nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium but may include others. Organic fertilizer is natural organic material such as manure, which releases nutrients as it breaks down. Inorganic fertilizer, also called chemical fertilizer, is a mixture of one or more necessary nutrients in inorganic chemical form.
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| Fetal alcohol syndrome
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| A tragic set of permanent physical and mental and behavioral birth defects that result when mothers drink alcohol during pregnancy.
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| Fibrosis
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| The general name for accumulation of scar tissue in the lung.
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| Fidelity
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| A principle that forbids misleading or deceiving any creature capable of being mislead or deceived. We are to be truthful in our dealings with others.
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| Field scouts
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| Persons trained to survey crop fields and determine whether applications of pesticides or other pest-management procedures are actually necessary to avert significant economic loss.
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| FIFRA (Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act)
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| The key U.S. legislation to control pesticides.
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| Filters
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| A porous mesh of cotton cloth, spun glass fibers, or asbestos-cellulose that allows air or liquid to pass through but holds back solid particles.
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| Fire climax ecosystems
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| Ecosystems that depend on the recurrence of fire to maintain the existing balance.
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| Fire-climax community
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| An equilibrium community maintained by periodic fires; examples include grasslands, chaparral shrubland, and some pine forests.
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| First law of thermodynamics
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| Also called the law of conservation of energy. States that energy is neither created nor destroyed; it can only be transformed from one form to another.
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| First law of thermodynamics
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| The fact based on irrefutable observations that energy is never created or destroyed but may be converted from one form to another, e.g., electricity to light. Also called the law of conservation of energy. (See also second law of thermodynamics.)
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| First principle of ecosystem sustainability
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| Ecosystems use sunlight as their source of energy.
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| First World
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| The industrialized capitalist or market-economy countries of Western Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.
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| First-generation pesticides
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| Earliest known chemical pesticides such as ashes, sulfur, ground tobacco, and hydrogen cyanide. Contrast with second- and third-generation pesticides.
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| First-law efficiency
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| A measure of the efficiency of energy use. Total amount of useful work derived from a system divided by the total amount of energy put into a system.
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| Fish ladder
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| A stepwise series of pools on the side of a dam where the water flows in small falls that fish can negotiate.
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| Fishery
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| Fish species being exploited, or a limited marine area containing commercially valuable fish.
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| Fission products
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| Any and all atoms and subatomic particles resuIting from splitting atoms in nuclear reactors. All or most such products are highly radioactive.
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| Fission
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| The splitting of a large atom into two atoms of lighter elements. When large atoms such as uranium or plutonium fission, tremendous amounts of energy are released.
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| Fitness
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| Features of an organism that adapt it to survive and reproduce in the environment.
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| Flat-plate collector
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| A solar Jollector that consists of a stationary, flat, black surface oriented perpendicular to the average sun angle. Heat absorbed by the surface is removed and transported by air or water (or other liquid) flowing over or through the surface.
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| Flood
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| An overflow of water onto land that normally is dry.
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| Flood irrigation
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| Technique of irrigation in which water is diverted from rivers through canals and flooded through furrows in fields.
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| Floodplains
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| Low lands along riverbanks, lakes, and coastlines subjected to periodic inundation.
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| Flora
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| All of the plants present in a given region.
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| Flue-gas scrubbing
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| Treating combustion exhaust gases with chemical agents to remove pollutants. Spraying crushed limestone and water into the exhaust gas stream to remove sulfur is a common scrubbing technique.
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| Fluidized bed combustion
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| Pressure air is forced through a mixture of crushed coal and limestone particles, lifting the burning fuel and causing it to move like a boiling fluid.
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| Food aid
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| Food of various forms that is donated or sold below cost to needy people for humanitarian reasons.
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| Food chain
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| A linked feeding series; in an ecosystem, the sequence of organisms through which energy and materials are transferred, in the form of food, from one trophic level to another.
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| Food guide pyramid
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| A graphic presentation of six basic food needs arranged in a pyramid to indicate the relative proportions of each food type needed for good nutrition.
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| Food security
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| The ability of individuals to obtain sufficient food on a day-to-day basis. food surpluses Excess food supplies.
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| Food web
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| A complex, interlocking series of individual food chains in an ecosystem.
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| Food web
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| The combination of all the feeding relationships that exist in an ecosystem.
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| Forest management
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| Scientific planning and administration of forest resources for sustainable harvest, multiple use, regeneration, and maintenance of a healthy biological community.
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| Fossil fuel
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| Any one of the organic fuels (coal, natural gas, oil, tar sands, and oil shale) derived from once-living plants or animals.
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| Fourth principle of ecosystem sustainability
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| Biodiversity is maintained.
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| Fourth World
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| A political/economic category describing very poor nations that have neither market economies nor central planning and are either not developing or are developing very slowly. Also used to describe indigenous communities within wealthier nations.
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| FQPA (Food Quality Protection Act of 1996)
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| Legislation that amended the Delaney clause and replaced many provisions of FIFRA.
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| Fragmentation
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| The division of a landscape into patches of habitat by road construction, agricultural lands, or residential areas.
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| Framework Convention on Climate Change
|
| A result of the 1992 Earth Summit, this international treaty was a start in negotiating agreements on steps to prevent future catastrophic climate change.
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| Free market economy
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| In its purest form, an economy where the market itself determines what goods will be exchanged and how. The system is wholly in private hands.
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| Freezing condensation
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| A process that occurs in the clouds when ice crystals trap water vapor. As the ice crystals become larger and heavier, they begin to fall as rain or snow.
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| Freons
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| See chiorofluorocarbons.
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| Fresh water
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| Water other than seawater; covers only about 2 percent of earth¡¦s surface, including streams, rivers, lakes, ponds, and water associated with several kinds of wetlands.
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| Freshwater ecosystems
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| Ecosystems in which the fresh (nonsalty) water of streams, rivers, ponds, or lakes plays a defining role.
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| Front
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| The boundary where different air masses meet.
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| Frontier
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| An unexploited natural area at the leading edge of human settlement.
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| Frontier mentality
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| A mind-set that views humans as "above" all other forms of life rather than as an integral part of nature and sees the world as an unlimited supply of resources for human use regardless of the impacts on other species. Implicit in this view are the notions that bigger is better, continued material wealth will improve life, and nature must be subdued.
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| Fuel assembly
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| A bundle of hollow metal rods containing uranium oxide pellets; used to fuel a nuclear reactor.
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| Fuel elements
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| The pellets of uranium or other fissionable material that are placed in tubes, which, with the control rods, form the core of the nuclear reactor.
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| Fuel rods
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| See fuel elements.
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| Fuel-switching
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| A change from one fuel to another.
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| Fuelwood
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| Branches, twigs, logs, wood chips, and other wood products harvested for use as fuel.
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| Fungi
|
| One of the five kingdom classifications; consists of nonphotosynthetic, eukaryotic organisms with cell walls, filamentous bodies, and absorptive nutrition.
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| Fungicide
|
| A chemical that kills fungi.
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| Fungus, pl. fungi
|
| Any of numerous species of molds, mushrooms, brackets, and other forms of nonphotosynthetic plants. They derive energy and nutrients by consuming other organic material. Along with bacteria, they form the decomposer component of ecosystems.
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| Fusion
|
| The joining together of two atoms to form a single atom of a heavier element. When light atoms such as hydrogen are fused, tremendous amounts of energy are released.
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