Want to talk like a schooled restoration ecologist? These sample words and phrases certainly won’t replace a degree in natural resource management, but they will give you a good idea of some of the most important terms being used in the field today.

Acid rain: Rain with increased acidity caused by environmental factors such as atmospheric pollutants that can be harmful to ecosystems and human structures.

Adaptation: A body part or behavior that helps a plant or animal to survive

Algae: Simple one-celled or many-celled plants capable of photosynthesis; usually aquatic.

Anthropogenic: Effects, processes, objects, or materials are those that are derived from human activities, as opposed to those occurring in natural environments without human influences.

Bankfull:  Term describing peak flow; the stage at which the channel is nearly full.

Best Management Practice (BMP): Conservation measures intended to minimize or mitigate impacts from a variety of land-use activities.

Bog: A poorly drained fresh water wetland with a thick layer of peat moss, usually in a low area, and often with carnivorous plants.

Brackish: A mixture of salt and fresh water

Buttress: The broadened base of a tree trunk that helps to support the tree.

Channelization:  Straightening and deepening of a stream or dredging of a new channel to which the stream is diverted.

Conservation: Planned management of a natural resource to prevent exploitation, destruction, or neglect

Decomposer: Organisms, bacteria and fungi that feed on and break down organic substances such as dead plants and animals.

Degradation: The geological process by which stream beds and floodplains are lowered in elevation by the removal of material; the opposite of aggradation.

Detritus: Dead plant, animal and other organic material.

Ecosystem: A community of organisms (plants and animals), interacting with each other and the non-living things in their environment.

Emergent: An aquatic plant that is rooted in a pond or stream bottom and has stems and leaves above the surface

Entrenchment:  The vertical containment of a river and the degree to which it is incised in the valley floor.

Erosion: The wearing away of land by wind or water  

Estuary: A partially closed coastal body of water where fresh water and salt water meet

Food Chain: The transfer of energy from the sun to plants to plant-eating animals, to animals that eat them, and so on.  Each organism can be described by its position in the energy flow.

Food Web: A model more complex than a food chain that shows the relationship of plants and animals to each other. While a food chain will have one representative, a food web shows the multiple organisms that are interacting at each level. 

Fresh Water Marsh: A wetland in which grasses are the predominant vegetation.

Fungi: A diverse group of mainly terrestrial organisms separated from other plants by their lack of chlorophyll.  They are generally saprophytic or parasitic.

Geomorphology: The branch of geology that deals with the origin and nature of landforms.

Habitat: The environment in which an organism lives 

Hard Surfacing:  Any alteration to the soil that reduces natural permeability.

Humidity: The amount of water vapor in the air

Humus: A soil that is made of decayed plant and animal matter, such as leaves, plants and insects.

Hydrograph: A graph showing the stage or discharge of a waterway with respect to time.

Indigenous: Describing an organism that is natural to an area, rather than introduced.

Invertebrate: An animal that does not have a backbone or a spinal column.

Life Cycle: The sequence of changes making up the span of an organism’s life from the fertilization of gametes to the same stage in the subsequent generation. 

Macroinvertebrate: Invertebrates that are large enough to be seen by the naked eye, such as insect larvae and crayfish.

Migration: Movement, usually seasonal, from one region or climate to another for the purpose of feeding or breeding 

Organic: Derived from living organisms.

Peat: Partially decomposed plant material that accumulates in water-logged anaerobic conditions in temperate humid climates, often forming a layer several meters deep.  Peat is used in fuel, and is the first step in coal formation.

pH: A measure that indicates the relative acidity or alkalinity of a substance.  The pH scale ranges from 0 (most acid) to 14 (most basic), with a pH of 7 being neutral.

Photosynthesis: The process by which green plants synthesize carbohydrates (food) from carbon dioxide and water using light as an energy source, and releasing oxygen as a byproduct.

Pollutant: A substance that contaminates an environment.

Raptor: A raptor is a bird of prey which captures and kills its food in its specially adapted talons

Riffle: A section of stream channel characterized by partially or completely submerged coarser bed materials and shallower faster-moving water.

Riparian: Pertaining to or situated on the banks of a stream or other body of water.

Riparian Zone: An area of land and vegetation adjacent to a stream or other body of water that is at least periodically influenced by flooding.

Runoff: Rainfall not absorbed by soil.

Salinity: The degree of saltiness, usually referring to water.

Saltwater marsh: A wetland occurring along the coast, where grasses are the predominant vegetation.

Sediment: Particles derived from rocks or biological materials that have been transported by a fluid.

Sinuosity: The ratio of channel length to direct down-valley distance.
  
Submergent: An aquatic plant that is rooted in a pond or stream bottom with completely submerged stems and leaves.  

Swamp: A wetland in which the soil is saturated and often inundated with water.  Trees are the dominant cover vegetation.

Thalweg: The middle, chief, or deepest part of a channel or waterway.

Water cycle: The continuous circulation of water in systems throughout the planet, involving condensation, precipitation, runoff, evaporation and transpiration.

Watershed: The entire area that contributes surface runoff to a given drainage system.

Wetland: An area that, at least periodically, has waterlogged soil or is covered with a relatively shallow layer of water.  Wetlands support plants and animals that are adapted to living in a watery environment.  Bogs, freshwater and saltwater marshes, and swamps are examples of wetlands.

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