Rainwater harvesting
Rainwater harvesting collects and stores rainfall, usually from roofs, so it can be reused for gardens, landscaping, cleaning, toilet flushing, or other approved purposes.
Category
Environment Topics
Browse Qlopedia topics grouped under Environment.
63 topics, showing 1-24 on page 1 of 3.
Topics
Vernal pool
A vernal pool is a seasonal wetland that fills with water during part of the year and often dries later, creating fish-free habitat for amphibians, invertebrates, rare plants, and other wildlife adapted to temporary water.
Dark-sky reserve
A dark-sky reserve is a protected dark core area surrounded by a populated region where lighting policies, stewardship, monitoring, and public education help preserve natural night skies.
Bioremediation
Bioremediation uses living organisms or their biological processes to break down, transform, immobilize, or remove pollutants from contaminated soil, groundwater, sediments, sludge, and waste. It can be powerful, but it depends on the contaminant, site conditions, biology, time, monitoring, and cleanup goals.
Pollinator garden
A pollinator garden is a planted space designed to provide food, shelter, host plants, and safer habitat for bees, butterflies, moths, flies, beetles, hummingbirds, and other pollinators. Good designs use locally appropriate plants, staggered bloom times, reduced pesticide pressure, and nesting or overwintering habitat.
Urban forestry
Urban forestry is the planning, planting, protection, and care of trees and forests in cities and towns. It treats street trees, parks, yards, campuses, and remnant woodlands as living infrastructure for shade, stormwater, health, habitat, and climate resilience.
Anaerobic digestion
Anaerobic digestion is a controlled process in which microbes break down organic material without oxygen. It can turn food waste, manure, wastewater solids, and other feedstocks into biogas and digestate.
Mangrove
Mangroves are salt-tolerant trees and shrubs that grow in tropical and subtropical tidal zones. Their roots stabilize shorelines, shelter young fish, trap sediment, filter runoff, and store large amounts of blue carbon.
Wetland
A wetland is an ecosystem where water shapes the soil, plants, and wildlife. Wetlands include marshes, swamps, bogs, fens, and coastal wetlands that store floodwater, filter pollution, support biodiversity, and connect land with water.
Rain garden
A rain garden is a shallow planted depression that collects runoff from roofs, driveways, lawns, or streets and lets water soak into the ground. It combines soil, plants, and careful grading to reduce stormwater flow and filter pollutants.
Battery recycling
Battery recycling recovers useful materials from used batteries while reducing disposal hazards. It is especially important for lithium-ion batteries used in phones, tools, vehicles, and energy storage systems.
Composting
Composting is the managed breakdown of organic material into a stable soil amendment. It turns food scraps and yard waste into compost through oxygen, moisture, carbon-rich browns, nitrogen-rich greens, and microbial activity.
Acid rain
Acid rain is acidic wet or dry deposition formed when sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides react in the atmosphere and return to Earth.
Sulfur dioxide
Sulfur dioxide is a reactive gas from sulfur-containing fuels and industrial processes that can affect breathing, form fine particles, and contribute to acid rain.
Nitrogen dioxide
Nitrogen dioxide is a reddish-brown reactive gas from combustion that can irritate airways and help form ozone and particle pollution.
Carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas from incomplete combustion that can poison people indoors and also appears in outdoor air quality monitoring.
Ozone
Ozone is a reactive form of oxygen that protects life high in the stratosphere but can harm lungs and vegetation when it forms near the ground.
Particulate matter
Particulate matter is a mixture of tiny solid particles and liquid droplets in the air, including dust, soot, smoke, and fine particles that can affect health.
Air quality index
The air quality index, or AQI, translates outdoor air pollution levels into color-coded health guidance so people can adjust activity and reduce exposure.
Desertification
Desertification is land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas, driven by climate variations and human activities. It reduces soil productivity, vegetation cover, water security, biodiversity, and livelihoods, but it is not simply the spread of existing deserts.
Peatlands
Peatlands are wetlands where waterlogged conditions slow decay and let partially decomposed plant material build into peat. They cover a small share of land but store vast amounts of carbon, shape water flows, support specialized species, and become major emission sources when drained or burned.
Storm drains
Storm drains collect rainwater runoff from streets, parking lots, roofs, and other hard surfaces and move it through drainage systems.
Aquifer recharge
Aquifer recharge is the process of water moving underground to replenish groundwater stored in aquifers.
Water table
The water table is the level below ground where soil and rock spaces become saturated with groundwater in an unconfined aquifer.