Glossary

Anthropic: related to human activities (industry, agriculture, etc.).

Aragonite: mineral composed of natural calcium carbonate with the formula CaCO₃. Aragonite differs from calcite in its crystalline system.

Biocapacity: the capacity of ecosystems to supply useful biological materials and assimilate human-generated waste using existing management methods and extraction technologies ( Global Footprint Network definition).

Biomass: organic, non-fossil material of biological origin, which can be used as a biogenic raw material in the food supply or in other products, or as a fuel to produce heat or electricity.

Biome: a vast ecological unit covering a fraction of one or more continents, characterized by the same climate and a set of specific plant and animal species, such as tundra, tropical rainforest or savannah.

Carbon budget: estimate of net global anthropogenic CO₂ emissions since pre-industrial times, up to a level of zero net emissions that would limit global warming to a given level (e.g. 2°C), taking into account the impact of anthropogenic emissions of other GHGs. By extension, estimate of the quantity of CO₂ that can still be emitted with the same objective of limiting global warming, taking into account the cumulative anthropogenic emissions of CO₂ since the beginning of the industrial period.

Carbon footprint: indicator estimating the quantity of greenhouse gases emitted by a population to satisfy its consumption in the broadest sense (goods, services, use of infrastructures), taking into account emissions linked to imports and exports. France's carbon footprint makes it possible to assess the overall pressure on the climate of French domestic demand, whatever the geographical origin of emissions. It is calculated by the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion. It covers metropolitan France plus the overseas territories belonging to the European Union, and takes into account three greenhouse gases: CO₂ , CH₄ and N₂O.

Carbon neutrality: carbon neutrality is defined by the French energy-climate law as "a balance, within the national territory, between anthropogenic emissions by sources and absorptions by sinks of greenhouse gases". In France, achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 implies a 6-fold reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 levels (source: MTECT).

Carbon sink: a reservoir that captures and stores atmospheric carbon. The main sink is the oceanic sink, which absorbs between 2 and 3 billion tonnes of carbon, or 7 to 10 billion tonnes of CO₂ , representing around a quarter of the emissions resulting from human activities. Other sinks are forests and peatlands.

Carbonate: in chemistry, a salt of carbonic acid, characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, CO₃^2-. Associated with calcium, calcium carbonate is an essential constituent of the shells and skeletons of marine animals, including hard corals, along with magnesium carbonate.

Carbonate ion: polyatomic (or molecular) ion with the chemical formula CO₃^2-. In mineralogy, a carbonate is a mineral whose chemical composition is aragonite and calcite CaCO₃, etc.

Coral reef: natural underwater structure built by corals, invertebrate marine animals that build their hard calcareous skeletons from carbonates and calcium present in seawater. Coral reefs are among the richest marine ecosystems in terms of biodiversity.

Cycads: plants belonging to the gymnosperm family (vascular plants that produce seeds not protected by a fruit), characterized mainly by their morphology, which resembles that of palms or tree ferns.

Dependent species: a species that is strongly linked to an organism or an environment and can hardly live without it.

Earth's radiation balance: balance of solar radiation entering and leaving the atmosphere.

Ecological footprint: the biologically productive area of land and water required by an individual, population or activity to produce the resources it consumes and absorb the waste it generates ( Global Footprint Network definition).

Ecosystem: functional ecological unit comprising a set of animal and plant populations in constant interaction within one or more natural or semi-natural habitats.

Ecosystem services: tangible or intangible benefits that people derive from ecosystems: provisioning services (food resources, medicines, energy, etc.), regulating services (regulation of natural hazards, natural water purification, carbon storage, etc.) and socio-cultural services (well-being, recreational and cultural activities, etc.).

Endemic species: a species whose entire population is found only in a given territory. The notion of endemism is therefore inseparable from a given geographical area. For example, the Lesser Antillean iguana(Iguana delicatissima) lives exclusively in the Lesser Antilles, and is found nowhere else on Earth.

Eutrophication: excessive enrichment of watercourses and bodies of water with nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen, which act as fertilizers for aquatic plants. Eutrophication manifests itself through the proliferation of aquatic plants and a marked reduction in the oxygen content of the water. The result, among other things, is reduced animal and plant diversity and disrupted uses.

Greenhouse gas (GHG): gas of natural origin (water vapor) or anthropogenic (linked to human activities) that absorbs and re-emits part of the sun's rays (infrared rays), a phenomenon that causes the greenhouse effect.

Habitat: a homogeneous, non-dissociable whole made up, on the one hand, of a biotope (local climate, nature and physico-chemical properties of the soil, geological nature of the subsoil) and, on the other, of a biocenosis (community of living organisms). Habitats are the living environments of species.

IPBES (Intergovernmental science-policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services): an independent intergovernmental organization whose mission is to provide an interface between the scientific community and governments, and whose secretariat is provided by the United Nations (UNEP). It helps to inform political decision-making by disseminating multidisciplinary knowledge on biodiversity and ecosystems.

Mesofauna: fauna of intermediate size between microfauna and macrofauna.

MSA (Mean Species Abundance): an indicator similar to the Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII) used by the Stockholm Research Centre to set a global limit. MSA expresses the average abundance of original terrestrial species (mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, invertebrates and vascular plants) in a territory, relative to their abundance in original, undisturbed ecosystems.

Nitrogen biogeochemical cycle: cycle that describes the succession of changes undergone by the various forms of neutral nitrogen into reactive forms (diazote, nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, organic nitrogen) and vice versa.

Net withdrawal: often referred to as "consumption", corresponds to volumes of water withdrawn that are not directly returned to the aquatic environment. For more details, see the assumptions made.

Ozone: a pollutant formed by solar radiation and complex chemical reactions between different pollutants, in particular nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds.

Participatory science or citizen science: an information-gathering program involving citizen participation as part of a scientific approach. Several programs of this type exist for counting animals, such as Vigie-Nature.

pH (hydrogen potential): the lower the pH of a liquid, the more acidic it is, and the higher the pH, the more alkaline or basic the liquid, neutral pH being 7. The average pH of the oceans is around 8.25: this is the level at which marine life thrives. Over the last few decades, ocean pH has been on a downward trend: it is now around 8.14, a drop of 0.1 pH points.

Phosphorus biogeochemical cycle: unlike other major biogeochemical cycles (nitrogen, carbon), the phosphorus cycle has no gaseous component and virtually no effect on the atmosphere. It is therefore a limiting element for many terrestrial ecosystems, in the absence of an atmospheric reservoir.

Pollution: in the sense of the Meadows report, pollution broadly represents all local or global phenomena which, beyond a certain threshold, have negative effects on human health and agricultural productivity, which become increasingly serious as pollution increases.

RCP (Representative Concentration Pathway) scenarios: set of four scenarios used by the IPCC to estimate variations in future climate based on assumptions about greenhouse gas emissions.

Reactive nitrogen: one of the forms of nitrogen (dinitrogen, nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, organic nitrogen).

Red List: a regularly revised list of species classified according to the degree of threat they face, based on a methodology defined by the IUCN. In France, production of the national Red List is coordinated by the UMS PatriNat (OFB-CNRS-MNHN) and the IUCN French Committee.

Schéma régional d'aménagement, de développement durable et d'égalité des territoires (SRADDET): a strategic, forward-looking and integrating document, enforceable against certain levels of local government. Territorial coherence schemes (SCoT) or, failing that, local urban planning schemes (PLU), communal maps or equivalent documents, as well as urban travel plans (PDU), territorial climate-air-energy plans (PCAET) and the charters of regional nature parks (PNR), must take into account the objectives of the SRADDET and be compatible with the rules set out in its section 1.

Sub-catchment area: hydrographic sub-unit defined by the European directive (2000/60/EC) establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy, known as the Water Framework Directive. Metropolitan France is divided into 33 sub-basins. Each of the French overseas departments has a single sub-basin.

Surplus nitrogen/phosphorus: quantity of nitrogen/phosphorus applied in excess of crop requirements, which is therefore not used by the plants and remains in the soil after harvest before reaching the water via infiltration or soil erosion.

Useful agricultural area (UAA): a statistical concept used to evaluate the area devoted to agricultural production. UAA comprises arable land (field crops, market gardening, artificial meadows, etc.), areas still under grass (permanent meadows, mountain pastures), perennial crops (vines, orchards, etc.). It does not include woods and forests. It does, however, include fallow land (included in arable land).

Watershed: catchment area of a river or lake, delimited by water divides. The results are presented here on the scale of the sub-watersheds defined to comply with the European directive (2000/60/EC) establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy, known as the "Water Framework Directive" (WFD).