The Concise Dictionary of Environmental Terms has been written for academic use in grade schools, high schools, colleges, and universities. In addition, it has not only been written for technical individuals who work in environmental or in environmentally related fields, but also for non technical (in an environmental sense) individuals such as office workers, secretaries, doctors, lawyers, etc., and, last but not least, the consumer. In effect, it is a dictionary that may be used whenever and wherever information about environmental words and/or terms is likely to be sought. One-sentence definitions for approximately 6,000 words or terms are provided in non technical jargon. Every attempt has been made to present as much information as possible in this one sentence without complicating its meaning.
The words and terms are drawn from the following environmental areas: air; water; solid waste; risk; meteorology; regulations; toxicology; engineering; inorganic chemicals; multimedia concerns; sustainable development; ISO 14000; ecology; and health, safety, and accident management. The appendix section, consisting of acronyms, units/conversion factors, and references, rounds out the scope of this work.
In addition to the references provided, the reader will find a computer diskette attached to the back cover of the dictionary. The diskette contains two program files, a Word Perfect 5.1 file which can be run from the WINDOWS Program Manager, and an ASCII file. Both of these text files contain the entire dictionary of words and enable the reader to quickly find a definition using the search capability of the modern word processor.