Burrard Inlet Environmental Indicators Report - the BIEAP and ...

Burrard Inlet Environmental Indicators Report February 2008
PART 5 – Glossary
Ambient air pollution – outdoor air pollution
within a region
Airshed – geographical area associated with a
given air supply and air supply in a given region
Anthropogenic – effects, processes, objects, or
materials derived from human activities, as
opposed to those occurring in natural
environments without human influences
Atmospheric deposition – refers to the
movement of pollutants from the air to the land or
water surface through rain and snow, falling
particles, and absorption from the gas phase to
the water.
Basin – a region drained by a single river
system, i.e., Fraser Basin
BERC – the Burrard Environmental Review
Committee, a coordinated project review body
that operates under BIEAP
BIEAP – Burrard Inlet Environmental Action
Program (BIEAP), an inter-governmental
partnership established to coordinate the
environmental management of Burrard Inlet
Benthic organism – the organisms living on or
very near, the bottom of the ocean, sea, river, or
lake; an important food source for fish
Biodiversity – the variation of life forms within a
given ecosystem, region or the entire planet;
often used as a measure of the health of
biological systems.
Biomagnification – the increase in concentration
of a substance, such as the pesticide DDT, from
one link in a food chain to another
Bioaccumulation – uptake of a toxic substance
by an organism at a rate greater than its loss
(excretion or metabolisms)
Buffering – the ability to moderate the effect of
addition of acidic or alkaline substances
Catchment – an area of land where water from
rain or snow melt drains downhill into a body of
water; also includes the streams and rivers that
convey the water (watershed)
Carbon sink – the natural ability of trees, other
plants and the soil to soak up carbon dioxide and
temporarily store the carbon in wood, roots,
leaves and the soil
CITYgreen – software used to calculate the
environmental and economic benefits of tree
cover in a region
Coliform – bacteria abundant in the feces of
warm-blooded animals, and also in water, soil
and on vegetation; Eschericia coli and fecal
coliform bacteria are commonly used as
indicators of fecal (sanitary waste) contamination
in water and their presence may indicate the
presence of pathogenic organisms of fecal origin
CSO – combined sewer overflow, a system
where sanitary and stormwater waste flow in the
same pipe to the wastewater treatment plant;
during heavy rainfall, increased flows can result
in discharge of untreated sewage and stormwater
through an overflow pipe into a river or the
marine environment
CACs – Criteria Air Contaminants (ground-level
ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides,
sulphur oxides, volatile organic compounds,
particulate matter (