Technical terms and some jargon on planning natural areas.
Aquifer: These are the layers of rocks that enclose the groundwater which determine the aquifer horizon.
Capillary water: It is the water that is lodged in the rivers and in the small cracks of the rocks, remaining in them by the superficial tension; This water is freely absorbed by the radical hairs of plants.
Artesian waters: These are the interlayer groundwater that lies between the pressure strata under certain geological conditions (impermeability of the rock) and forms artesian basins.
Groundwater: These are those found in the first permanent aquifer horizon starting from the surface and not covered by a layer of impermeable rocks.
Apnea: action of suspending respiration during immersion in the aquatic environment or specifically in the body of water to be studied.
Flurry: It is the deposit of the materials that the river transports that the process undergoes changes: they are elaborated (they are spent, they split and they roll) and they are selected (according to the weight and size).
Flurries: It constitutes the solid runoff of the rivers to which they integrate particles transported by the current of the same and that are formed as a consequence of the transport of said particles from the surface of the basin and by the washing of the channel; they can be of funds and surface.
Anticyclones: They are descending atmospheric whirlwinds with their inclined axis, which on the Earth's surface manifest as a closed region of high pressures (baric maximum) and a corresponding system of winds from
the center towards the periphery (clockwise in the boreal hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere).
Protected Natural Area: Area specially chosen to achieve the conservation of an ecosystem, biological and genetic diversity, or a specific species.
Atmosphere: It is the aerial envelope of the solid and liquid surface of the Earth, the outermost of the terrestrial spheres and that is in continuous interaction with the others that make up our planet.
Biotic: Refers to living organisms or beings.
Bentos: Group of organisms that live at the bottom of the sea, lakes and rivers.
Food chain: Succession or series of organisms through which energy flows by transfer. It is made up of links, each one made up of specific groups of organisms. In this concatenated system, each link or trophic level feeds and obtains energy from the one that precedes it and, in turn, is consumed by the next link. An ecosystem usually consists of several chains hatched in a food web.
Litter: Children that give birth or breed to an animal female.
Song: Melodious song birds that make up the largest sub order Oscines of the Order Passerines.
Canido: Family of carnivorous mammals whose type is the dog.
Carnivore: An animal that feeds on meat, particularly an animal of the carnivorous order.
Channel: They are the longitudinal depths that the current of water creates as it flows through the earth's surface.
Flow: It is the amount of water per second that passes through the living section of the river.
Hunting: Hunting action; activity that seeks to obtain an animal, generally killing it through the use of a firearm or other weapon.
Cervid: Family of ruminant Artiodactyls, whose males have branching horns that fall, and are periodically renewed, such as deer, reindeer, etc.
Peaks: They are the lowest elevations (up to 200 m in relative height) with gentle slopes and a slightly expressed foot line.
Conservation: Management aimed at the preservation and rational use of natural resources, to ensure the greatest benefit that the sustainable development of society has.
Thermal conversion: It is the process that manifests itself in the atmosphere as a result of the irregular heating of the active surface and the air that makes contact with it, giving rise to the air that makes contact with it, giving rise to the warmer air (more light) rises carrying heat and the colder (denser), descends receiving heat.
Hydrographic basin: It is the area drained by a river system; It is the basin of reception of the fluvial system from where the water drains towards the same. It is made up of sub-basins according to each one of the tributaries of the system that can be grouped by orders according to the classification used.
Deforestation: Logging of a forest with the purpose of creating arable land, for agricultural or livestock uses and to take advantage of the Wood for construction or industrial purposes. This process eliminates the forest and its undergrowth, altering the entire ecosystem, but the loss of soil smoke is particularly damaging.
Sustainable development: Use and potential of natural resources in a rational way, guaranteeing their protection and recovery, in such a way that the environmental balance is not altered; This ensures the permanent use of natural resources for several generations.
Biological diversity: Variety of life forms that occupy a certain region, the ecological function that they carry out and the genetic varieties that they contain.
Genetic diversity: An extensive genetic variety of an organism, species, population, or ecosystem that influences the role of different biological levels in biosphere systems. These levels are interdependent so that the final conservation of ecosystems is closely related to the conservation of biological diversity.
Canopy: Upper forest cover, tree canopy.
Ecosystem: Set or system formed by one or more biotic communities (living beings) with the physical environment (abiotic resources) that surround it, in a certain area. Fundamental unit of the biosphere, with a high level of organization and with very sensitive mechanisms of feedback and biochemical information.
Island Ecosystem: Region in a natural or almost natural state, which has been surrounded by land due to human activities, without protective zones and which is therefore subject to disturbances (hunting, pollution, excessive tourism)
Greenhouse effect: This is how the ability of the Earth's atmosphere to expel short-wave radiation from the Sun (direct and scattered radiation) and retain long-wave radiation from Earth is known. It is like the effect of a crystal: it lets sunlight through and retains the returning long-wave radiation.
Emigrate: Change the place or territory of certain animals. Contrary to immigrating.
Endemic: Species are said to be endemic in certain areas if they do not live anywhere else.
Environment: Surroundings of man, natural and created by him, which constitute his immediate, near and distant habitat and which is an integral part of his existence.
Heat season: Period when an animal feels the desire for reproduction, it is said that the female of the species entered into "estrus".
River runoff: It is the amount of water that passes through the living section of the river during a more or less long period.
Species: Fundamental unit of the classification of living beings, systematically established by their taxonomy and phylogeny.
Key species: Animal or vegetable that has particular importance in a food chain, especially at the higher trophic level, for contributing more than other species to maintaining processes and ecological balance in an ecosystem. This is the case of certain trees that produce the food of frugivorous animals, during a whole time of the year; or some carnivorous fish that give space for the reproduction of other species, further down the trophic chain.
Indicator species: Organisms from the same population, in a given habitat, that are very sensitive to small changes in environmental factors. When its population declines, due to some disturbance not noticeable to other species, it is a sign of potential danger for some or all.
Specimen: Animal, vegetable or mineral specimen. Representative individual of the population of a species. Collection sample of a species of flora or fauna in the context of an investigation.
Family: A group of genres similar in certain characters but differing in one or more characters or from other families.
Fauna: Set of animals that inhabit a certain region.
Geographical strip: It is thus considered a greater zonal subdivision that is distinguished on the basis of the differences in the predominant types of radiation balance and from the character of the general circulation of the atmosphere. Geographical strips do not have a uniform circular shape, but rather they widen or narrow and curve under the influence of surface characteristics.
Flora: Set of vegetation with a specific habitat or region.
Gen: Unit that contains the inheritance information.
Gender: A group of species that are related or similar in certain characters and differ from other genera of a family to which they belong.
Pregnancy: Pregnancy; the time elapsed from fertilization to the birth of the offspring.
Gregarious: Animal that usually lives alternating with others in large groups.
Weathering: It is the process by which rocks are destroyed under the action of exogenous factors.
Humus: degraded, stable organic material from which plants extract mineral elements and nutrients.
Inventory: Field evaluation, corrected in a permanent surveillance process, that identifies and diagnoses the state of the biotic environmental components of a region; animals, plants and terrestrial or aquatic ecosystems that typify the natural diversity of a region or country.
Lapiez: It is a form of karst (karstic) relief that manifests as deep grooves in the uncovered surface of calcifying rocks, separated by narrow, often sharp ridges, located in parallel rows or constitutes compound labyrinths that branch and their depth varies between several centimeters and 2 meters.
Macrophile: Large leafy vegetation.
Microphile: Leafy leaf that, although large, has a single, unbranched vein running from base to apex (with the exception of certain fossil lycopodia)
Monitoring: Environmental Observation System, on changes in the natural environment and the anthroposphere, due to human activity. It serves as a fundamental source of multidisciplinary information on the current state of the environment.
Mountains: It is an elevation that has a relative height of not less than 200 meters and rises isolated within a more or less flat space. These by their origin and structure are conventionally divided into tectonic, volcanic and erosive.
High mountains: It is a morphological type of mountain which has an absolute height of over 2000 meters and a dismemberment depth of not less than 1000 meters.
Low mountains: In a morphological type of mountain which has an absolute height from 200 to 700-800 meters and a dismemberment depth from 150 meters to 450 meters.
Mountains of medium height: It is a morphological type of mountain which has an absolute height from 800 to 2000 meters and a dismemberment depth from 350 to 1000 meters.
Necton: Group of pelagic animal species that, due to their own mobility, are able to move actively regardless of currents, unlike plankton.
Biological levels: Different layers of biological organization and function that living beings present, fundamental are: the molecular, organic, population, species, community, and ecosystem levels. Genetic diversity manifests itself in all of them.
Passerines: birds capable of roosting due to their anatomical characteristics (4 toes on each leg 3 forward and 1 backward). It is the largest existing order with more than 5,700 spp.
National Park: Category of Protected Natural Area, characterized by having a large area, under a state or mixed property regime; it contains one or more unaltered or slightly altered natural systems and outstanding natural features of national or regional interest. It allows controlled use, based on zoning for recreational, educational, tourism or scientific research purposes.
Water part: They are the dividing lines or borders of the basins from where the runoff flows, which generally coincide with the tops of the mountain ranges, but can also be lakes, swamps, etc.
Ecological profile: systematized description of the populations, ecosystems and life zones of a region, region or country.
Disturbance: Set of all non-specific alterations, which arise under the influence of all kinds of factors and which are accompanied by the restructuring of the body's defense systems.
Plankton: Set of the smallest beings that are in suspension in the sea or in fresh waters.
River flood plan: It is an extension of the river valley as a result of the horizontal work of the river, which has a flat and wide bottom, the channel occupies a part of the bottom, the remaining space is covered by water during floods, it is that is, it represents the plane of the flood.
Premountain: It is the limit of the passage from the slopes of the mountains to the surface of the plains; often the step is gradual and that line is called premountain zone or foot of mountains.
Natural resources: any factor of the natural environment, that can mean some benefit to man. Like water, air, soil, minerals, vegetation, wildlife. They are essential for man, since they provide food, shelter, construction, gestation of energy and aesthetic satisfaction.
Relicto: Ecosystem or reduced area of ecological importance that has survived unchanged, as an island, surrounded by areas with systems modified by man or nature itself. They are considered of enormous importance as a seedbed or nursery for recovery, for the regeneration of modified or destroyed ecosystems.
River: It is a natural water current that undermines a channel through which it flows continuously; Five essential parts are distinguished from this: the birth, the upper course, the middle course, the lower cure and the mouth.
Undergrowth: Lower layer of a forest.
Sink: It is a form of the karst relief in the form of a funnel of superficial dissolution, sinking and infiltration through which the water penetrates inwards through which it circulates.
Animal taxonomy: Part of biology that deals with the classification of beings. Within Zoology the taxonomy receives the name of "Zootaxia", which its maximum is its maximum expression and the most complex form becomes "Systematic Zoology".
River terrace: It is a horizontal or slightly inclined platform, extended along the slope of the valley and separated from the lower terrace (or from the bottom of the valley) by an abrupt ridge (slope of the terrace), they can be erosive and cumulative.
Transect: Narrow and long line or band that is chosen in order to carry out some environmental analysis. These transects allow studies to be carried out over time, evaluating species or samples from any physical or biological medium, from the same place.
Rational use: proper management of a resource. This use presupposes the application of environmental conservation methods.
Fluvial valley: They are eroded and cumulative forms of relief created by permanent water currents of different magnitudes and powers.
Protective zones: area or strip of territories located on the periphery of a protected natural area, which separates it from areas of human activity (agriculture, livestock, forestry, hunting, industry, urban settlements), with the aim of mitigating the negative influence of such actions on protected natural areas.
Life zone: set of specific biotic areas determined by fundamental climatic factors. These zones can be configured as a group of associations related to each other, through the effects of temperature, rainfall and humidity. The Holdridge life zone system is universally applied.
