The process of becoming more salty; the accumulation of soluble salts (e.g. sodium chloride) in soil or water. Many Australian soils and landscapes contain naturally high levels of sodium salts held deep in the soil profile.
The timing of annual ice advance and retreat, and duration of the resultant ice coverage.
Submerged mountain rising more than 1,000 metres from the ocean floor with its summit below the sea surface.
(Indigenous); when Indigenous people determine their affairs themselves, including decision-making, interacting with non-Indigenous parties and creating the solution to a problem.
See carbon sequestration.
A specific place or area, identified for its values or activities.
(Indigenous); places of importance and significance to Aboriginal people because they provide a link to former or current traditions, people or practices.
Fog mixed with smoke (i.e. mixing of particulate pollutants with water droplets). Also photochemical smog, which results from the action of sunlight on nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons present in a polluted atmosphere.
Networks together with shared norms, values and understanding that facilitate cooperation within and among groups (OECD 2001).
A group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.
A quality of being that transcends our physical reality and provides a deep sense of interconnectedness.
A sudden or major change.
The region of Earth’s atmosphere extending from the top of the troposphere, at heights of about 10–17 kilometres, to the base of the mesosphere, at a height of about 50 kilometres.
The characteristic belt of high pressure over the subtropics. The subtropical ridge is typically centred over southern Australia in winter and near or off the southern coastline in summer.
In law, the only one of its kind, constituting a class of its own; standalone focused legislation. For Indigenous cultural and intellectual property, sui generis laws can be developed to cover something previously unprotected or under-protected.
A sudden bloom of phytoplankton (microscopic plants) that occurs near the surface of a body of water.
See also algal bloom.
Using ‘natural resources within their capacity to sustain natural processes while maintaining the life-support systems of nature and ensuring that the benefit of the use to the present generation does not diminish the potential to meet the needs and aspirations of future generations’. (Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, p. 815.) Sustainability is often thought of as a long-term goal (i.e. a more sustainable world), while sustainable development refers to the many processes and pathways to achieve it (e.g. sustainable agriculture and forestry, sustainable production and consumption, good government, research and technology transfer, education and training, etc.).
See also sustainable development.
Development that uses many processes and pathways to achieve sustainability (e.g. sustainable agriculture and forestry, sustainable production and consumption, good government, research and technology transfer, education and training), and meets present needs without compromising the ability of future needs to be met.
See also sustainability, sustainable.