Best Management Practices: Methods or techniques found to be the most effective and practical means of achieving an objective, such as preventing water quality impacts or reducing pesticide usage.
Drift: The physical movement of pesticide droplets or particles through the air at the time of pesticide application or soon thereafter from the target site to any non- or off-target site. (Environmental Protection Agency definition)
Integrated Pest Management: IPM is a balanced, tactical approach to pest control. It involves taking action to anticipate pest outbreaks and to prevent potential damage. IPM is a pest management strategy that utilizes a wide range of pest control methods or tactics. The goal of this strategy is to prevent pests from reaching economically or aesthetically damaging levels with the least risk to the environment. (Definition from Maryland Pesticide Applicator Core Manual. National Association of State Departments of Agriculture Research Foundation.)
Leaching: Transport of water-soluble plant nutrients or chemicals from the soil as water moves through the soil profile and into the saturated zone.
Littoral Shelf: Shallow areas (typically 1-2 feet in depth) within the near shore area of a lake or pond. Littoral shelves provide emergent aquatic vegetation the appropriate water depth necessary to thrive
Nonpoint Source: Pollution not originating from a discrete location; comes from many different sources including land runoff, precipitation, atmospheric deposition, drainage, seepage, or modifications to natural waterways.
Riparian Buffer: The aquatic ecosystem and the portions of the adjacent terrestrial ecosystem that directly affect or are affected by the aquatic environment. This includes streams, rivers, lakes, bays and their adjacent side channels, floodplain, and wetlands. (Definition from U.S. Department of Agriculture.) Natural riparian buffers are composed of grasses, trees, or both types of vegetation.
Runoff: Water flow along the ground’s surface that can pick up contaminants, such as fertilizers and pesticides. Runoff occurs when the soil is saturated, compacted, high in clay particles, or has lost soil structure (large pores).
Sedimentation: The transport of soil particles (sediment) in runoff that are deposited into surface waters.
Stormwater: Water that originates as some form of precipitation, either rainfall or snowmelt.
Tidal Wetlands: From the State of Maryland (Tidal Wetlands Act; Natural Resources Article, Annotated Code of Maryland Regulations), “tidal wetlands” are defined as “all State and private tidal wetlands, marshes, submerged aquatic vegetation, lands, and open water affected by the daily and periodic rise and fall of the tide within the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, the coastal bays adjacent to Maryland’s coastal barrier islands, and the Atlantic Ocean to a distance of 3 miles offshore of the low water mark.”
Wetlands/Nontidal Wetlands: From the State of Maryland (Nontidal Wetlands Act; Natural Resources Article, Code of Maryland Regulations), “nontidal wetlands” are areas meeting the following conditions: “(a)…an area that is inundated or saturated by surface water or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances does support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions, commonly known as hydrophytic vegetation; (b) is determined according to the Federal Manual; (c) does not include tidal wetlands regulated under Natural Resources Article, Title 9, Annotated Code of Maryland.”
