Land Use & Cover - AP Human Geography

“Capital-intensive agriculture” is a type of agricultural production in which a mid-size land holding is used to produce as much goods as possible. The vast majority of the labor is carried out by machinery, with relatively little human work required.

California, with its temperate and reliable climate and its varied terrain, has a very similar style of agriculture as that practiced in the Mediterranean. This is why traditional Mediterranean crops like grapes and olives grow so well in regions of California.

Derwent Whittlesey is famous for developing the concept of eleven distinct agricultural regions in the 1930s. Whittlesey divided these eleven regions into some that were important to developed societies (e.g. livestock farming) and some that were important to developing societies (e.g. pastoral nomadism).

A “commercial-agricultural economy” is the one that exists in most wealthy capitalist countries, and prevails generally around the world. It is an agricultural economy in which farmers produce and sell their own goods on the open market with the aim of making the largest profit possible.

“Capital-intensive agriculture” is primarily distinguishable from labor-intensive agriculture in that capital-intensive agriculture makes greater use of machinery and involved relatively little manual labor.

All of these are physical districts except for a dangerous neighborhood, which is an example of an “emotional district.” According to Kevin Lynch, an emotional district is an area of a city that an individual has emotional feelings about (i.e. “this is where wealthy people live” or “this is a dangerous neighborhood”).

The town needs to be located in the center of the concentric rings, but a minimum population was never specified.

Wetlands provide many services. They filter water to make it cleaner, they absorb water from storms and decrease the probability of flooding in the surrounding area. They also tend to give a home to many different organisms. Destruction of wetlands impedes all of these services. Therefore, the correct answer must be "increased resistance to storms and flooding."

The primary advantage of “slash-and-burn” agriculture is that it allows for somewhat sustainable farming in relatively small tropical societies. The soil in many tropical climates is relatively weak in nutrients and so must be constantly recycled. Through a controlled system of “slash-and-burn” agriculture tropical soil is given enough time to recover and tropical vegetation is allowed the opportunity to regrow.

Deforestation is the destruction of forest or forested areas by human or natural means. Some notable human-based causes are slash and burn agriculture and production of forest products (i.e logging). Desertification can also lead to deforestation.

Solar energy production is not directly linked to deforestation, and is in fact a form of sustainable, renewable energy.

The term “swidden” is used to describe land that has been cleared for agricultural use using slash-and-burn techniques. By “slash-and-burn” we mean that the land has cleared through burning of existing plants and is then used for agricultural purposes by the local community for a few years before they move on to “slash-and-burn” another piece of land.

“Slash-and-burn” agriculture involves burning a portion of forest so that the soil there can be used for agricultural purposes. The community then uses this land for a short time, possibly a few years, and then moves on to a new area, which is, in turn, burned for agricultural use. This practice of agriculture is defined by a constant process of moving from one plot of land to another and is known as “shifting cultivation.”

Desertification is the process by which deserts expand or arise. Many phenomena can lead to increased risk of desertification including: drought, over farming, and deforestation.

Of the options, only one is not really directly related to desertification. Ocean acidification, although a very real and pressing problem, is not as directly related to desertification as the others.

The term “desertification” is used to describe the process by which previously fertile lands become arid and unusable for farming. This process has happened in many places throughout the world, famously in Ancient Greece and Ancient Mesopotamia. The primary cause of desertification is usually over farming.

“Salinization” occurs frequently in arid climates. People use water to “irrigate” a previously untenable plot of land and make it usable for agricultural purposes. This allows them to work new plots of land for a period of time, but the water in this newly irrigated land evaporates much quicker than elsewhere and soon the earth is covered in residues of “salt” that render the land infertile.

Although you might not have known when exactly the “American Drought Relief Service” was created you should be able to guess based on information that you do know. The Dust Bowl drought, which occurred in the first half of the 1930s was the most severe drought in American history and led to widespread famine and forced migration. The Drought Relief Service was created to try to alleviate this problem.

“Degraded agricultural land” is l_and that was once fertile but has been made infertile by mismanagement and human intervention_. It is most common in densely populated areas of the world where large-scale farming has been common for a long period of time. For this reason, densely populated Western Europe is the correct answer. While all of these answers may contain some amount of degraded agricultural land, Western Europe contains the highest percentage of such land.

“Desertification” is the name given to the process by which previously fertile agricultural lands are made infertile made by human practices. “Salinization,” which refers to the buildup of salt deposits through irrigation and evaporation, is an example of desertification.

“Salinization” occurs when soil in an arid climate has been made available for agricultural production using irrigation. The water evaporates quickly off the newly irrigated land, leaving residues of salt lying in the earth. Over time this causes the land to become infertile. This process is known as “salinization.”