05 Natural Resources and Biodiversity Free Online FlashCards

What are natural resources?

Natural resources include land and soil, water, living organisms, timber, minerals, and fossil fuels; they support life and human well-being.

What makes resource management sustainable?

It meets present needs while maintaining ecosystems and resource availability for the future, and considers who benefits and who bears the costs.

What roles does healthy soil play?

Healthy soil stores water and nutrients, supports plant growth, and helps regulate carbon and water cycles.

How can agroforestry benefit both production and nature?

Agroforestry grows trees alongside crops or livestock; it can provide products while protecting soil and supporting wildlife.

Why is usable freshwater limited even though water is renewable?

Although water is renewed through the water cycle, usable freshwater is limited by its location, season, quality, and the rate of withdrawal or pollution.

What does integrated water resources management coordinate?

It coordinates water decisions across sectors and communities, typically at the scale of river basins or aquifers, while accounting for human and ecological needs.

At what levels is biodiversity expressed?

Biodiversity is the variety of life at genetic, species, and ecosystem levels.

What does biodiversity conservation involve beyond creating protected areas?

Conservation protects species and habitats, maintains connections between ecosystems, restores damaged areas, and manages harvesting so populations can recover. It also depends on management beyond protected-area boundaries.

What area-conservation target does the Kunming–Montreal Framework set for 2030?

The Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework sets a 2030 target to conserve and effectively manage at least 30 percent of terrestrial, inland-water, coastal, and marine areas. It is a target, not an achieved result.

How can a renewable material resource become depleted?

Some materials can regrow if harvested within ecological limits, but even renewable resources can be depleted—for example, when forests are cut faster than they regrow.

What does sustainable material management consider across a resource’s life cycle?

Sustainable material management considers extraction, processing, use, and disposal. It can reduce impacts through less material use, durable and repairable design, reuse, recycling, and restoration of extraction sites.

What can land degradation do?

Erosion, salinization, compaction, and loss of organic matter can reduce land productivity and damage habitats.