Glossary

Upcycling is a form of recycling in which waste and seemingly useless materials are creatively transformed into something new.

Various materials are suitable for mulching. For beds and vegetable gardens green manure, straw, leaves and compost are best. Bark mulch, cocoa shells or inorganic materials such as lava or sand can be applied in shrub beds. Bark mulch, wood chips, leaves, etc. are a good choice for mulching trees and groves.

This term describes chemical agents for the destruction of plant and animal pests of all kinds.

“Used land” refers to areas that have been directly and permanently changed by humans for construction, transport, leisure, other purposes through construction or through mining areas and have lost their biological productivity.

The fauna – also called “animal world” – includes all animals and their habitat.

This is a species-rich family belonging to the annelid worms. Around 650 species are known worldwide. The best-known representative is the earthworm. Enchytraea are important decomposers in the soil.

The term “emission” means the discharge of pollutants and other disruptive factors into the environment. In environmental law, this includes discharges from toxic, harmful or environmentally hazardous chemical substances. Common examples are gaseous or particulate pollutant emissions (from cars and airplanes), liquid emissions (from contaminated sites and factories), particulate emissions (from dumps), road noise, and

In an inversion weather situation, the temperatures do not decrease as usual, but increase. Due to this phenomenon, no exchange can take place between the upper and lower air layers and a barrier layer is created. Exhaust gases and dust particles collect under this and contribute to increased air pollution.

Atmospheric deposition means the deposition of atmospheric air admixtures on natural and artificial surfaces.

The term describes the grouping of particles of a certain grain size. There is no internationally valid definition. In German-speaking countries, for example, there are the fraction groups fine soil, fine skeleton and coarse skeleton, which in turn are subdivided into main fractions (e.g., clay, silt, sand, gravel).

The troposphere is the layer of the earth’s atmosphere closest to the ground. Most of the weather occurs in this layer.

Manure is a faecal mixture of faeces and urine.

The term refers to the formation of the earth’s surface or the shape of a terrain and can be described, for example, on the basis of differences in height, slope and distance.