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Sand Dune Stabilization
Sand dune stabilization is a coastal management practice designed to prevent erosion of sand dunes. Sand dunes are common features of shoreline and desert environments. Dunes provide habitat for highly specialized plants and animals, including rare species, rare and endangered species. They can protect beaches from erosion and recruit sand to eroded beaches. Dunes are threatened by human activity, both intentional and unintentional (see sand theft and sand mining). Countries such as the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Netherlands, operate significant dune protection programs. Stabilizing dunes involves multiple actions. Planting vegetation reduces the impact of wind and water. Wooden sand fences can help retain sand and other material needed for a healthy sand dune ecosystem. Trail, Footpaths protect dunes from damage from foot traffic. The location of the dune limits the types of plant that can thrive there. Beach dunes consist of the ''fore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coastal Management
Coastal management is defence against flooding and erosion, and techniques that stop erosion to claim lands. Protection against rising sea levels in the 21st century is crucial, as sea level rise accelerates due to climate change. Changes in sea level damage beaches and coastal systems are expected to rise at an increasing rate, causing coastal sediments to be disturbed by tidal energy. Coastal zones occupy less than 15% of the Earth's land area, while they host more than 40% of the world population. Nearly 1.2 billion people live within of a coastline and of sea level, with an average density three times higher than the global average for population. With three-quarters of the world population expected to reside in the coastal zone by 2025, human activities originating from this small land area will impose heavy pressure on coasts. Coastal zones contain rich resources to produce goods and services and are home to most commercial and industrial activities. History Coastal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hudsonia Tomentosa
''Hudsonia tomentosa'' is a species of flowering plant in the rockrose family known by the common names woolly beachheather, beach heather, and sand heather. It is native to northeastern North America, including central and eastern Canada and the northeastern United States. Description This species is a small shrub growing up to about 8 inches tall. The leaves are tiny, scale-like, and coated in woolly hairs. The yellow flowers have five petals and measure about a quarter inch wide. The plant flowers from May to July. Ecology This shrub grows in sandy habitat such as pine barrens and dunes. It may be a coastal species, but since it is less tolerant of sea spray than other coastal plants, it is generally found on arid backdunes and not at the water's edge. The plant is associated with green sands colonized with nitrogen fixing blue-green algae, particularly in Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sand Dunes At Spencer Park, New Zealand
Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is usually defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of soil or soil type; i.e., a soil containing more than 85 percent sand-sized particles by mass. The composition of sand varies, depending on the local rock sources and conditions, but the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal settings is silica (silicon dioxide, or SiO2), usually in the form of quartz. Calcium carbonate is the second most common type of sand. One such example of this is aragonite, which has been created over the past 500million years by various forms of life, such as coral and shellfish. It is the primary form of sand apparent in areas where reefs have dominated the ecosystem for millions of years, as in the Caribbean. Somewhat more rarely, sand may be composed of ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chaparral
Chaparral ( ) is a shrubland plant plant community, community found primarily in California, southern Oregon, and northern Baja California. It is shaped by a Mediterranean climate (mild wet winters and hot dry summers) and infrequent, high-intensity crown fires. Many chaparral shrubs have hard sclerophyllous evergreen leaves, as contrasted with the associated soft-leaved, drought-deciduous, scrub community of coastal sage scrub, found often on drier, southern-facing slopes. Three other closely related chaparral shrubland systems occur in southern Arizona, western Texas, and along the eastern side of central Mexico's mountain chains, all having summer rains in contrast to the Mediterranean climate of other chaparral formations. Etymology The name comes from the Spanish language, Spanish word , which translates to "place of the scrub oak". ''Scrub oak'' in turn comes from the Basque language, Basque word , which has the same meaning. Overview In its natural state, chaparral is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Water Table
The water table is the upper surface of the phreatic zone or zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with groundwater, which may be fresh, saline, or brackish, depending on the locality. It can also be simply explained as the depth below which the ground is saturated. The portion above the water table is the vadose zone. It may be visualized as the "surface" of the subsurface materials that are saturated with groundwater in a given vicinity. In coarse soils, the water table settles at the surface where the water Hydraulic head, pressure head is equal to the atmospheric pressure (where gauge pressure = 0). In soils where capillary action is strong, the water table is pulled upward, forming a capillary fringe. The groundwater may be from precipitation or from more distant groundwater flowing into the aquifer. In areas with sufficient precipitation, water infiltrates through pore spaces in the soil, passing through t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microclimate
A microclimate (or micro-climate) is a local set of atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric conditions that differ from those in the surrounding areas, often slightly but sometimes substantially. The term may refer to areas as small as a few square meters or smaller (for example a raised-bed gardening, garden bed, underneath a rock, or a cave) or as large as many square kilometers. Because climate is statistics, statistical, which implies Spatial analysis, spatial and temporal variation of the mean values of the describing parameters, microclimates are identified as statistically distinct conditions which occur and/or persist within a region. Microclimates can be found in most places but are most pronounced in topographically dynamic zones such as mountainous areas, islands, and coastal areas. Microclimates exist, for example, near bodies of water which may cool the local atmosphere, or in heavy urban areas where brick, concrete, and Asphalt concrete, asphalt absorb the sun's energy, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaccinium Ovatum
''Vaccinium'' is a common and widespread genus of shrubs or dwarf shrubs in the heath family (Ericaceae). The fruits of many species are eaten by humans and some are of commercial importance, including the cranberry, blueberry, bilberry (whortleberry), lingonberry (cowberry), and huckleberry. Like many other heath plants, they are restricted to acidic soils. Description The plant structure varies between species: some trail along the ground, some are dwarf shrubs, and some are larger shrubs perhaps tall. Some tropical species are epiphytic. Stems are usually woody. Flowers are epigynous with fused petals and have long styles that protrude from their bell-shaped corollas. Stamens have anthers with extended tube-like structures called "awns" through which pollen falls when mature. Inflorescences can be axillary or terminal. The fruit develops from an inferior ovary and is a four- or five-parted berry; it is usually brightly coloured, often red or bluish with purple juic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ilex Vomitoria
''Ilex vomitoria'', commonly known as yaupon () or yaupon holly, is a species of holly that is native to southeastern North America. The word yaupon was derived from the Catawban ''yą́pą'', from ''yą-'' tree + ''pą'' leaf. Another common name, cassina, was borrowed from Timucua (despite this, it usually refers to '' Ilex cassine''). The Latin name comes from an observation by early Europeans that the ingestion of the plant was followed by vomiting in certain ceremonies. The plant was traditionally used by Native Americans and Euro-American colonists to make an infusion containing caffeine and theobromine. This drink went by different names, such as cassina, beloved drink, or white drink among natives and "Carolina tea", or "South Seas tea" among colonists. It is one of only two known plants endemic to North America that produce caffeine. The other (containing 80% less) is '' Ilex cassine'', commonly known as dahoon holly. Recently, the plant has begun to be harvested for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empetrum Nigrum
''Empetrum nigrum'', crowberry, black crowberry, mossberry, or, in western Alaska, Labrador, etc., blackberry, is a flowering plant species in the heather family Ericaceae with a near circumboreal distribution in the Northern Hemisphere. Description ''Empetrum nigrum'' is a low growing, evergreen shrub with a creeping habit. The leaves are long, arranged alternately along the stem. The stems are red when young and then fade to brown. It blooms between May and June. It is usually dioecious. The flowers are small and not very noticeable, with greenish-pink sepals that turn reddish purple. The round fruits are drupes, wide, usually black or purplish-black but occasionally red. Its fruit persists for an average of 92.7 days, and bears an average of 7.8 seeds per fruit. Fruits average 86.5% water, and their dry weight includes 14.4% carbohydrates and 12.2% lipids, which is possibly the highest lipid content of any fleshy fruit in Europe. Subspecies * ''Empetrum nigrum'' subs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shrub
A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple Plant stem, stems and shorter height, less than tall. Small shrubs, less than tall are sometimes termed as subshrubs. Many botany, botanical groups have species that are shrubs, and others that are trees and herbaceous plants instead. Some define a shrub as less than and a tree as over 6 m. Others use as the cutoff point for classification. Many trees do not reach this mature height because of hostile, less than ideal growing conditions, and resemble shrub-sized plants. Others in such species have the potential to grow taller in ideal conditions. For longevity, most shrubs are classified between Perennial plant, perennials and trees. Some only last about five years in good conditions. Others, usually larger and more woody, live beyond ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbaceous Plant
Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of the '' Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'' defines "herb" as: # "A plant whose stem does not become woody and persistent (as in a tree or shrub) but remains soft and succulent, and dies (completely or down to the root) after flowering"; # "A (freq. aromatic) plant used for flavouring or scent, in medicine, etc.". (See: Herb) The same dictionary defines "herbaceous" as: # "Of the nature of a herb; esp. not forming a woody stem but dying down to the root each year"; # "BOTANY Resembling a leaf in colour or texture. Opp. scarious". Botanical sources differ from each other on the definition of "herb". For instance, the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation includes the condition "when persisting over more than one growing season, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Species
A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology (biology), morphology, behaviour, or ecological niche. In addition, palaeontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. The most recent rigorous estimate for the total number of species of eukaryotes is between 8 and 8.7 million. About 14% of these had been described by 2011. All species (except viruses) are given a binomial nomenclature, two-part name, a "binomen". The first part of a binomen is the name of a genus to which the species belongs. The second part is called the specific name (zoology), specific name or the specific ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
