Key Terms in Geography and Agriculture

Posted on Mar 2, 2025 in Geology

Anticyclone: Center of high atmospheric pressure, associated with stable weather.
Aridity: Lack of moisture; excessive dryness.
Barlovento: Area exposed to the wind direction (windward).
Borrasca: Depression generating intense winds, cloudiness, and precipitation.
Coastal Breeze: Light, local wind generated by thermal differences between land and sea.
Isobar: Imaginary line on a map connecting points with the same atmospheric pressure.
Isotherm: Imaginary line on a map connecting points with the same air temperature.
Isohyet: Imaginary line on a map connecting points with the same precipitation.
Precipitation: Quantity of water falling in a place; may be orographic, convective, or frontal.
Barometer: Measures the weight of the air column above a location; it is greater at sea level.
Insolation: Amount of direct solar radiation received by a horizontal surface unit.
Polar Front: Discontinuity separating cold polar air masses from warm tropical air masses.
Sotavento: Wind-protected area (leeward).
Thermal Regime: Variation experienced by temperatures throughout the seasons, depending on various factors.
Rain Gauge: Variation experienced by rainfall throughout the seasons, depending on various factors.

Deciduous Forest: Forest characteristic of mild oceanic climate zones, formed by trees or shrubs that lose their foliage for part of the year. It is dense and umbrophilous (shade-loving).
Evergreen Forest: Foliage never loses its color, associated with the Mediterranean climate. Consists of species adapted to aridity, with hard, small, thick leaves, a globular crown, and a trunk with thick bark.
Dehesa: Open evergreen forest with low forest cover and extensive shrub and herbaceous areas.

Flow Rate: Quantity of water in a river at a particular place and time.
Headwaters: Place of origin of a river, often coinciding with the highest parts of its watershed.
Watershed: Area defined by the union of all headwaters that form the main river, or the territory drained by a single natural drainage system.
Delta: Zone of river sediment accumulation forming at the mouth of some rivers when tides are weak and alluvium accumulation exceeds erosion.
Estuary: Widest and deepest part of a river’s mouth in the open sea or ocean.
Low Water (Magra): Minimum flow of a river during a particular time of year.
Rambla: Dry riverbed where water circulates only after sporadic and torrential rains; typical of arid regions.
Fluvial Regime: Refers to the evolution and variation of a river’s flow throughout the year. Factors affecting it include climate, geology, and biota. Rivers are classified by their feeding and flow.
River Transfer (Trasvase): Transfer of water from one river to another.

Irrigation: Land devoted to and fertilized by irrigated crops.
Farm: Highly technical and economic unit, the base of the primary sector, equivalent to a company in other economic sectors. Its output is agricultural products.
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP): One of the most important policies and essential elements of the European Union (EU) institutional system. The CAP manages subsidies given to agricultural production within the Union.