Basic Geographical Terms

Introduction

Welcome back students I'm Mrs Makuyana, and today I'm going to share with you some basic terms you should know as Geography learners. 

Cloud Seeding
- It is a type of weather modification which changes the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds, by injecting substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei.

El Nino
- This refers to the southern oscillation cycle of warm and cold temperatures, as measured by sea surface temperature, of the tropical central and eastern Pacific Ocean.

Extensive Agriculture
- It is an agricultural production system that uses small inputs of labour, fertilizers, and capital, relative to the land area being farmed. A good example is cattle ranching.

Green house
- It is a structure with walls and roof made of transparent material, such as glass or plastic, in which plants requiring regulated climatic conditions are grown.

Global Warming
- It refers to the rise in average surface temperatures on earth normally caused by change in climate.

Hydromagmatic
- It is anything formed by the interaction of water and hot volcanic magma.

Intensive agriculture
- This involves the various types of agriculture with higher levels of input and output per cubic unit of agricultural land area. It is characterized by a low fallow ratio, higher use of inputs such as capital, labour and higher crop yields per cubic unit in land area. A good example is horticulture where crops such as potatoes, flowers, vegetables are grown.

Lamina
- It is the direct opposite of El Nino, it occurs when sea surface temperatures in
the central Pacific Ocean drop to lower-than-normal levels.

Phenomena
- It is something which happens or occurs.

Pyroclastic materials
- It is anything made up of or containing rock fragments or ash from a volcanic eruption.

Torrential
- It means falling rapidly and with force.

Tsunami
- It refers to a weather hazard, a cataclysm resulting from a destructive sea wave caused by an earthquake or volcanic eruption.