grazing land management |
The strategies used by people to promote both high quality and quantity of forage for domesticated livestock.
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Land degradation and restoration assessment |
great acceleration |
Great Acceleration refers to the acceleration of human-induced changes of the second half of the 20th century, unique in the history of human existence. Many human activities reached take-off points and sharply accelerated towards the end of the century.
|
Global assessment (1st work programme) |
green bonds |
A mode of private financing that tap the debt capital market through fixed income instruments (i.e. bonds) to raise capital to finance climate-friendly projects in key sectors of, but not limited to, transport, energy, building and industry, water, agriculture and forestry and waste.
|
Global assessment (1st work programme), Sustainable use assessment |
green growth |
Green growth means fostering economic growth and development while ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which our well-being relies.
|
Global assessment (1st work programme) |
green hunting |
Green hunting occurs with tranquilizer dart guns and the animals are released alive. This is typically performed for veterinary procedures or translocation, and has been suggested as an alternative to lethal forms of hunting.
|
Sustainable use assessment |
green infrastructure |
Green infrastructure refers to the natural or semi-natural systems (e.g. riparian vegetation) that provide services for water resources management with equivalent or similar benefits to conventional (built) “grey” infrastructure (e.g. water treatment plants).
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Global assessment (1st work programme) |
green public procurement |
A process whereby public authorities seek to procure goods, services and works with a reduced environmental impact throughout their life-cycle when compared to goods, services and works with the same primary function that would otherwise be procured.
|
Asia-Pacific assessment |
green revolution |
Period of food crop productivity growth that started in the 1960s due to a combination of high rates of investment in crop research, infrastructure, and market development and appropriate policy support, and whose environmental impacts have been mixed: on one side saving land conversion to agriculture, on the other side promoting an overuse of inputs and cultivation on areas otherwise improper to high levels of intensification, such as slopes.
|
Sustainable use assessment |
green revolution |
A set of research and the development of technology transfer initiatives occurring between the 1930s and the late 1960s (with prequels in the work of the agrarian geneticist Nazareno Strampelli in the 1920s and 1930s), that increased agricultural production worldwide, particularly in the developing world, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s. The initiatives resulted in the adoption of new technologies, including: new, high- yielding varieties (HYVs) of cereals, especially dwarf wheats and rices, in association with chemical fertilizers and agro-chemicals, and with controlled water-supply (usually involving irrigation) and new methods of cultivation, including mechanization. All of these together were seen as a package of practices to supersede traditional technology and to be adopted as a whole.
|
Land degradation and restoration assessment, Global assessment (1st work programme) |
green revolution |
Period of food crop productivity growth that started in the 1960s due to a combination of high rates of investment in crop research, infrastructure, and market development and appropriate policy support, and whose environmental impacts have been mixed: on.
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green water |
Water transpired through plants to the atmosphere.
|
Land degradation and restoration assessment |
greenhouse gas |
Those gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, that absorb and emit radiation at specific wavelengths within the spectrum of infrared radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface, the atmosphere, and clouds. This property causes the greenhouse effect.
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Land degradation and restoration assessment |
greenhouse gas |
Greenhouse gases are those gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, that absorb and emit radiation at specific wavelengths within the spectrum of terrestrial radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface, the atmosphere itself, and by clouds. This property causes the greenhouse effect. Water vapour (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4) and ozone (O3) are the primary greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. Moreover, there are a number of entirely human-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as the halocarbons and other chlorine- and brominecontaining substances, dealt with under the Montreal Protocol. Beside CO2, N2O and CH4, the Kyoto Protocol deals with the greenhouse gases sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs).
|
Global assessment (1st work programme) |
greenhouse gas |
Greenhouse gases are those gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, that absorb and emit radiation at specific wavelengths within the spectrum of terrestrial radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface, the atmosphere itself, and by clouds. This property causes the greenhouse effect. Water vapour (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4) and ozone (O3) are the primary greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. Moreover, there are a number of entirely human-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as the halocarbons and other chlorine- and bromine containing substances, dealt with under the Montreal Protocol. Beside CO2, N2O and CH4, the Kyoto Protocol deals with the greenhouse gases sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs).
|
Sustainable use assessment |
grey water |
Any wastewater that is not contaminated with faecal matter.
|
Land degradation and restoration assessment |
gross primary production |
Total terrestrial Gross Primary Production (GPP) is the total mass of carbon taken out of the atmosphere by plant photosynthesis.
|
Land degradation and restoration assessment |
gross primary productivity |
The amount of carbon fixed by the autotrophs (e.g. plants and algaes).
|
Global assessment (1st work programme) |
lag phase |
the time between when an alien species arrives in a new area and the onset of the phase of rapid, or exponential, increase. Multiple factors are frequently implicated in the persistence or dissolution of the lag phase in biological invasions, including an initial shortage of suitable sites, the absence or shortage of essential mutualists, inadequate genetic diversity, and reduction in competition or predation (due to other alterations in the resident biota)
|
Invasive alien species assessment |
land abandonment |
Land abandonment occurs when a particular land use ceases, and there is no clearly- defined subsequent land use practice. It is often associated with poorly defined ownership and/or land use governance.
|
Land degradation and restoration assessment |
land cover |
The physical coverage of land, usually expressed in terms of vegetation cover or lack of it. Related to, but not synonymous with, land use.
|
Sustainable use assessment |
land cover |
The observed (bio)physical cover on the earth's surface.
|
Global assessment (1st work programme), Land degradation and restoration assessment |
land cover |
The physical coverage of land, usually expressed in terms of vegetation cover or lack of it. Related to, but not synonymous with, land use (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005).
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land cover |
The surface cover on the ground, whether vegetation, urban infrastructure, water, bare soil or other. Identifying, delineating and mapping land cover is important for global monitoring studies, resource management, and planning activities. Identification of land cover establishes the baseline from which monitoring activities (change detection) can be performed, and provides the ground cover information for baseline thematic maps.
|
Asia-Pacific assessment |
land degradation |
Refers to the many processes that drive the decline or loss in biodiversity, ecosystem functions or their benefits to people and includes the degradation of all terrestrial ecosystems.
|
Americas assessment, Sustainable use assessment, Africa assessment, Global assessment (1st work programme) |
land degradation neutrality |
A state whereby the amount of healthy and productive land resources, necessary to support ecosystem services, remains stable or increases within specified temporal and spatial scales.
|
Land degradation and restoration assessment |
land degradation |
Refers to the many processes that drive the decline or loss in biodiversity, ecosystem functions or services and includes the degradation of all terrestrial ecosystems.
|
Asia-Pacific assessment, Land degradation and restoration assessment, Europe and Central Asia assessment, Global assessment (1st work programme) |
land grabbing |
See ‘Grabbing (of wild species and space)’.
|
Sustainable use assessment |
land grabbing |
See ‘Large scale land acquisition'.
|
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land grabbing |
The large-scale acquisition of land (especially in developing countries), driven primarily by concerns about food and energy security of high-income countries and often executed by the private sector.
|
Land degradation and restoration assessment |
land sharing and sparing |
Concepts used to describe, in general terms, spatial-temporal arrangements of agricultural and non-agricultural areas. Land sharing is a situation where farming practices enable biodiversity to be maintained within agricultural landscapes. Land sparing, also called land separation involves restoring or creating non-farmland habitat in agricultural landscapes at the expense of field-level agricultural production - for example, woodland, natural grassland, wetland, and meadow on arable land. This approach does not necessarily imply high-yield farming of the non-restored, remaining agricultural land. See also 'Conservation agriculture'.
|
Global assessment (1st work programme) |
land sharing |
A situation where low-yield farming enables biodiversity to be maintained within agricultural landscapes.
|
Land degradation and restoration assessment, Americas assessment, Europe and Central Asia assessment |
land sparing |
Also called Land separation involves restoring or creating non-farmland habitat in agricultural landscapes at the expense of field-level agricultural production - for example, woodland, natural grassland, wetland, and meadow on arable land. This approach does not necessarily imply high- yield farming of the non restored, remaining agricultural land. (From Rey Benayas & Bullock, 2012). See also Conservation agriculture in this Glossary.
|
Americas assessment |
land sparing |
Land sparing, also called land separation involves restoring or creating non-farmland habitat in agricultural landscapes at the expense of field-level agricultural production - for example, woodland, natural grassland, wetland, and meadow on arable land. This approach does not necessarily imply high-yield farming of the non-restored, remaining agricultural land. See also Conservation agriculture.
|
Europe and Central Asia assessment, Land degradation and restoration assessment |
land tenure |
The relationship, whether legally or customarily defined, among people, as individuals or groups, with respect to land.
|
Land degradation and restoration assessment |
land transformation |
A process whereby the biotic community of an area is substantially altered or substituted by another, along with the underlying ecological and human processes responsible for its persistence, often as a result of a deliberate decision to change the purpose for which the land is used.
|
Land degradation and restoration assessment |
land use change |
Land use refers to the modification or management of natural environments into human dominated environments, such as settlements, semi-natural and agricultural areas.
|
Asia-Pacific assessment |
land use change |
See Land use.
|
Americas assessment, Europe and Central Asia assessment |
land use intensification |
Activities undertaken with the intention of enhancing the productivity or profitability per unit area of rural land use, including intensification of particular land uses as well as changes between land uses (Martin et al., 2018).
|
Global assessment (1st work programme) |
land use |
The human use of a specific area for a certain purpose (such as residential, agriculture, recreation, industrial, etc.). Influenced by, but not synonymous with, land cover. Land-use change refers to a change in the use or management of land by humans, which may lead to a change in land cover.
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Africa assessment, Pollination assessment, Global assessment (1st work programme), Land degradation and restoration assessment, Europe and Central Asia assessment, Sustainable use assessment, Asia-Pacific assessment, Americas assessment |
land use |
The human use of a specific area for a certain purpose (such as residential; agriculture; recreation; industrial, etc.). Influenced by, but not synonymous with, land cover. Land use change refers to a change in the use or management of land by humans, whi.
|
Global assessment (1st work programme) |
landrace |
A breed that has largely developed through adaptation to the natural environment and traditional production system in which it has been raised (FAO, 2013).
|
Global assessment (1st work programme) |
landscape composition |
The abundances of patch types represented within a landscape. Composition is not spatially explicit because it refers only to the variety and abundance of patch types, but not their placement or location (dispersion) in the landscape.
|
Pollination assessment |
landscape configuration |
The distribution, size and abundances of patch types represented within a landscape. Configuration is spatially explicit because it refers not only to the variety and abundance of patch types, but also to their placement or location (dispersion) in the landscape.
|
Europe and Central Asia assessment |
landscape functioning |
The capacity or potential of landscapes to provide services (Bolliger & Kienast, 2010).
|
Global assessment (1st work programme) |
landscape heterogeneity |
Landscape heterogeneity is a complex phenomenon involving the size, shape and composition of different landscape units and the spatial (and temporal) relations between them (G. Cale & J. Hobbs, 1994).
|
Global assessment (1st work programme) |
landscape heterogeneity |
Landscape heterogeneity is a complex phenomenon involving the size, shape and composition of different landscape units and the spatial (and temporal) relations between them.
|
Sustainable use assessment |
landscape planning |
An activity concerned with reconciling competing land uses while protecting natural processes and significant cultural and natural resources.
|
Pollination assessment |
landscape socio-ecological approach |
The landscape scale approach incorporates the socio-ecological system, including natural and human-modified ecosystems, influenced by ecological, historical, economic, and socio-cultural processes. The landscape includes an array of stakeholders small enough to be manageable, but large enough to deliver multiple functions for stakeholders with differing interests.
|
Land degradation and restoration assessment |
landscape |
A human-defined area ranging in size from c. 3 km2 to c. 3002 km. Landscape is spatially heterogeneous in at least one factor of interest and often consists of a mosaic of interacting ecosystems.
|
Land degradation and restoration assessment |
landscape |
An area delineated by an actor for a specific set of objectives, constitutes an area in which entities, including humans, interact according to rules (physical, biological, and social) that determine their relationships; Place-based systems that result from interactions between people, land, institutions (laws, rules and regulations) and values. Interactive aspects that define a landscape are functional interactions, negotiated spaces and multiple scales.
|
Global assessment (1st work programme), Asia-Pacific assessment |