NSSCAS Geography 8233 flashcards
NSSCAS Geography 8233 · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Troposphere
- Lowest atmospheric layer holding most water vapour and weather; temperature falls with height at the environmental lapse rate until the tropopause.
- Coriolis force
- Apparent deflection of moving air caused by Earth's rotation; deflects right in the Northern Hemisphere and left in the Southern, stronger at higher latitudes.
- Relative humidity
- Ratio of actual water vapour pressure to saturation vapour pressure at a given temperature, expressed as a percentage; reaches 100% at the dew point.
- Plate boundary types
- Divergent boundaries create new crust at ridges; convergent boundaries cause subduction and fold mountains; transform boundaries slide past each other producing earthquakes.
- Storm hydrograph lag time
- Delay between peak rainfall and peak river discharge; shortened by impermeable rock, steep slopes, urbanisation and saturated soils.
- Soil horizons
- Vertical layers in a soil profile: O organic litter, A humus-rich topsoil, B subsoil illuviation, C weathered parent material, R bedrock.
- Trophic energy loss
- About 90% of energy is lost between successive trophic levels through respiration, heat and excretion, limiting food chains to four or five links.
- Primary succession
- Colonisation of bare substrate such as lava or sand dunes by pioneer species, gradually building soil and leading to a climax community.
- Demographic transition model
- Five-stage model tracing shifts from high birth and death rates through rapid growth to low stationary and declining populations as societies develop.
- Dependency ratio
- Number of people under 15 plus those over 64, divided by the working-age population aged 15 to 64, multiplied by 100.
- Rank–size rule
- The nth largest city in a country has roughly the largest city's population divided by n, describing a balanced urban hierarchy.
- Weber's least-cost location
- Industrial location theory where firms choose sites minimising transport and labour costs while benefiting from agglomeration economies.
- Human Development Index
- Composite indicator combining life expectancy, education (mean and expected years of schooling) and GNI per capita to measure development.
- Core–periphery model
- Development model where core regions accumulate capital and skilled labour while peripheral regions supply raw materials and cheap labour, reinforcing inequality.
- Counter-urbanisation
- Movement of people from cities to rural areas, driven by congestion, housing costs and improved transport and information technology.
- Gentrification
- Process where wealthier residents move into regenerated inner-city areas, raising property values and often displacing lower-income communities.
- Ecological footprint
- Area of land and water needed to supply a population's resources and absorb its waste, measured in global hectares.
- Water stress
- Condition where water demand exceeds available supply or quality, caused by over-abstraction, pollution, drought and irrigation demand.
- Six-figure grid reference
- Precise map location given by three-digit easting followed by three-digit northing, identifying a point within a 100-metre square.
- Spearman's rank correlation
- Statistical test measuring strength of association between two ranked variables, calculated as rs = 1 − (6Σd²) ÷ (n(n² − 1)).
- Vertical exaggeration
- Ratio of vertical scale to horizontal scale on a cross-section, showing how many times the relief appears steeper than reality.
- Bid-rent theory
- Model explaining urban land use: activities bid for land according to ability to pay, with commerce near the centre and housing further out.
- Megacity
- Urban agglomeration with a population exceeding ten million people, concentrated increasingly in Asia and Latin America.
- Air mass classification
- Labelling of large air bodies by source region and surface: tropical or polar, maritime or continental, determining temperature and moisture.
- Orographic rainfall
- Relief rainfall formed when moist air is forced over mountains, cooling and condensing on windward slopes while leeward areas stay dry.
- Longshore drift
- Movement of sediment along a coast by waves approaching at an angle, producing spits and bars over time.
- Mass movement types
- Downslope transfer of material as rockfall, landslide, mudflow or soil creep, triggered by steep slopes, saturation and vegetation removal.
- Ecosystem services
- Benefits people obtain from ecosystems: provisioning (food, water), regulating (climate, flood control), supporting (nutrient cycling) and cultural (recreation).
- Soil formation factors
- CLORPT: climate, organisms, relief, parent material and time interact to determine soil depth, texture and fertility.
- Push and pull factors
- Negative conditions driving migration from a place (poverty, conflict) and positive attractions drawing migrants to another (jobs, safety, services).
- Central place theory
- Model where settlements provide goods of different range and threshold, creating nested hexagonal service areas and a settlement hierarchy.
- Deindustrialisation
- Decline of manufacturing employment in an economy as production shifts to lower-cost regions and jobs move into service sectors.