Glossary

Abundance: The degree and frequency of a species population, often indicative of the success it is experiencing in the wild.
Amenity grassland: Grassland that improves the quality of an area by contributing to the physical or material comfort of users (as places to picnic, walk, engage in leisure pursuits etc), and which increases the attractiveness or value of its geographic location.
Arboricultural: Arboriculture is the planting and care of woody plants, especially trees.
Attrition: A rubbing away or wearing down by friction.; back to top

Baseline: A measurement, calculation, or location used as a basis for comparison in science.
Basin: A region drained by a single river system.
Biodiversity: The diversity, or variety, of plants, animals and other living things in a particular area or region. It encompasses habitat diversity, species diversity and genetic diversity. Biodiversity is of value in its own right and has social and economic value for human society.
Biodiversity Action Plan: A plan that sets objectives and actions for the conservation of biodiversity, with measurable targets, following the UK Biodiversity Action Plan
Bioremediation: The use of biological agents, such as bacteria or plants, to remove or neutralise contaminants, as in polluted soil or water.
Brownfield: Any land or premises which has previously been used or developed and is not currently in full use, although it may be partially occupied or utilised. The land may also be vacant, derelict or contaminated. This excludes parks, recreation grounds, allotments and land where the remains of previous use have blended into the landscape, or have been overtaken by nature conservation value or amenity use and cannot be regarded as requiring redevelopment.; back to top

Census: An official, usually periodic enumeration of a population, often including the collection of related demographic information.
Channelisation: Creation of a trench, furrow or groove through which water flows (eroded by the water or man-made) which becomes the new bed of a stream or river.
Colonisation: Successful invasion of a new habitat by a species; the occupation of bare ground by soil by seedlings or sporeling.
Colony: A group of the same kind of animals, plants, or one-celled organisms living or growing together.
Conservation: Protection, management and promotion for the benefit of wild species and habitats, as well as the human communities that use and enjoy them.
Coppice: To cut back (as young timber) so as to produce shoots from stools or roots.
Deciduous:: Shedding or losing foliage at the end of the growing season: deciduous trees.; back to top

Distribution: The geographical range of a taxon or group; the pattern or arrangement of the members of a population or group.
Dredging: Any of various machines equipped with scooping or suction devices and used to deepen harbours and waterways.
Ecosystem: A community of organisms and their physical environment interacting as an ecological unit.
Erosion: Weathering away; the removal of land surface by water, ice, wind or other agents.
Eutrophication: Over enrichment of a water body with nutrients, resulting in excessive growth of organisms and reduction in oxygen.

Fauna: All the animal life in a particular region.
Feral: Used of a plant or animal that has reverted to the wild from a state of cultivation or domestication.
Flagship species: A species perceived favourably by the public for reasons of aesthetics or other value, used to promote and publicise habitat conservation.
Flood defence realignment: A strategy for coping with encroaching waters, particularly in reference to coastal areas affected by sea level rise, whereby waters are permitted to reposition often through the reclamation of previously drained land.
Flora: All the plant life in a particular region.; back to top

Greater London: The geographical area encompassed by the 32 London boroughs and the City of London
Green corridors: Green corridors are relatively continuous areas of open space leading through the built environment, which may link sites to each other and to the Green Belt or Metropolitan Open Land. They often consist of railway embankments and cuttings, roadside verges, canals, parks and playing fields and rivers. They may allow animals and plants to be found further into the built-up area than would otherwise be the case and provide an extension to the habitats of the sites they join.
Habitats: The area or environment where an organism or ecological community normally lives or occurs: a fresh water habitat.
Heronry: A place where herons nest and breed.
Hibernation: The torpid or resting state in which some animals pass the winter; cessation from or slowing of activity during the winter; especially slowing of metabolism in some animals.

Invertebrate: An animal, such as an insect or mollusc that lacks a backbone or spinal column.
Larvae: The newly hatched, wingless, often wormlike form of many insects before metamorphosis.
Linear reedbeds: Reedbeds that are narrow and elongated with nearly parallel margins, often the surviving remnants of previously more widespread habitat.
Marginal habitats: Habitats located at, or constituting, a margin, border or edge.
Marginal plant: A plant species that occurs on the edge of habitat or community.
Mitigation: Any process or activity designed to avoid, reduce or remedy adverse environmental impacts likely to be caused by a development project. Mitigating factors are taken into account as a benefit on balance to offset against any perceived or demonstrable harmful impact
Monitoring: To keep track of systematically with a view to collecting information: monitor the bear population of a national park. To test or sample, especially on a regular or ongoing basis.

National Nature Reserves: Nature reserves designated by English Nature under the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act.
Native: Originating, growing, or produced in a certain place or region; indigenous.
Nutrient enrichment: See 'eutrophication'.
Ornithologist: A branch of zoology; someone who studies birds.
Over-abstraction: With reference to rivers and streams, the act of abstracting or withdrawing water for agricultural and commercial use to a point which negatively affects natural water levels.

Parasitic: An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host..
Pesticide: A chemical used to kill pests, especially insects.
Pioneer species: The first species or community to colonise a barren or disturbed area, thereby commencing a new ecological succession.
Plant communities: A group of plants living and interacting with one another in a specific region under relatively similar environmental conditions.
Precautionary principle: Where significant environmental damage may occur, but the knowledge on the matter is incomplete, decisions made and measures implemented should err on the site of caution.
Priority habitat: London's priority habitats, identified by the London Biodiversity Partnership, cover both areas defined particularly by their vegetation - as in chalk grassland - and areas defined by their land use, such as railway linesides. There are 19 priority habitats and these aims to cover all of London's important wildlife areas.
Priority species: These are species that are chosen for priority action in biodiversity action planning, because they are under particular threat or they are characteristic of a particular region, i.e. London. In London these have been listed in the first volume of the Partnership's London Biodiversity Action Plan.
Protected species: Certain plant and animal species are protected to various degrees in law, particularly the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (as amended).; back to top

Range: The geographic region in which a plant or animal normally lives or grows.
Reintroduction: To introduce again a species which has become extinct within its former range.
Relict: An organism or species of an earlier time surviving in an environment that has undergone considerable change.
Riparian habitat: Habitat located on the banks of a river or stream.
Rodenticides: Substances used to destroy or inhibit the action of rats, mice, or other rodents.
Run-off/urban run-off: The build up of water occurring at ground surface level at times when rainfall cannot be absorbed by the soil, as particularly occurs in urban areas where the ground is covered by concrete and other non-permeable materials.; back to top

Salinity: The saltiness or content of salt in a solution.
Scrub: A growth or tract of stunted vegetation.
Sedentary: Remaining or living in one area, as certain birds; not migratory.
Sustainable urban Drainage (SUDS) systems: Sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) are concerned primarily with the drainage of rainwater from developed or urbanised areas, often involving the concept of rainwater re-use. SUDS is a concept that focuses decisions about drainage on the environment and people. When drainage systems take account of water quantity, water quality and amenity, then it is SUDS.
Sustainable Development: Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It is often summed up by the phrases 'think globally act locally' and 'don't cheat your children' .; back to top

Tidal tributaries: A stream that flows into a larger stream or other body of water during tide.
Translocation: The removal of things from one place to another; substitution of one thing for another.
Unitary Development Plan: Statutory plans produced by each borough which integrate strategic and local planning responsibilities through policies and proposals for development and use of land in their area. Now superseded by Local Development Plans.
Wet woodlands: Woodland occurring on poorly drained or seasonally wet soils, usually with alder, birch and willows as the predominant tree species, but sometimes including ash, oak, pine and beech on drier riparian areas. It is found on floodplains, as successional habitat on fens, mires and bogs, along streams and hillside flushes, and in peaty hollows.
Wetland: Lowland areas, such as marshes and swamps, that are saturated with moisture, the natural habitat of much wildlife.

Source: Definitions taken from Connecting with London's Nature, The Mayor's Biodiversity Strategy 2002; and Lincoln, R. J et. Al (1982). 'A dictionary of ecology, evolution and systematics'. Cambridge University Press.