R
Racial Prejudice: thinking unpleasant things about people because of the
colour of their skin and/or their ethnic group without knowing them.
Racism: unfair, ridiculing or threatening behaviour towards someone
because oi their particular racial group.
Rain Gauge: A rain gauge is an instrument that is used to measure the
amount of liquid precipitation or rainfall.
Rain Shadow The dry region on the leeward side of a mountain (the side
sheltered from the wind).
Rain Shadow: A place deprived of heavy rains because of a range of
mountain sheltering it.
Rain: In geographical terminology, rain is defined as the water that
falls in drops, formed due to the condensation of vapor in the atmosphere.
Rainshadow: An area having very little precipitation due to the blockage
of winds by barriers like mountains or hills is known as rainshadow. The very
little precipitation in these areas is due to the winds losing their moisture
before they can reach this area.
Rainshadow: An area of diminished precipitation on the lee (downwind)
side of a mountain or mountain range.
Raised Beach: A raised beach is a former or ancient beach that is raised
slightly above the current shoreline due to a relative fall in the level of the
water.
Raised Beach: beach left stranded high on a cliff face after a fall in
sea level.
Ranching: Ranching is the running of an extensive farm, known as a
ranch, where cattle or sheep are raised. This activity is carried out in areas
that are not suitable for other types of farming.
Ranching: rearing of beef cattle on a large scale.
Range of a Good: the maximum distance that people are prepared to travel
for a specific service.
Rapids: found where the river meets a band of resistant rock and usually
precede a waterfall.
Ravine: A ravine is a gorge or a deep narrow valley, created by running
water.
Raw Material Location: the bulkier and heavier these are to transport,
the nearer the factory should be located to the raw materials. With the decline
of traditional heavy industry, the three main factors deciding industrial
location today are the nearness to a large market, the availability of skilled
labour and government.
Raw materials: items from which more complex items are made. Steel is
made using coal, iron and limestone: coal, iron and limestone are raw
materials.
Raw Materials: Natural resources which are used to make things.
Read more at Buzzle:
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/geography-terms-glossary-of-geography-terms-and-definitions.html
Reclaimed Land: an area of drained land which was once under the sea.
Recreation: leisure activities; what people do in their non-working
time.
Recreational Forest: Recreational forests are forests that are specially
maintained for activities like bird-watching, camping, horse-riding, etc.
Recycling: The process of extracting useful materials from garbage that
can be put to use after reprocessing is known as recycling.
Recycling: Turning waste into something which is usable again.
Red Tide: Red tide, commonly known as 'algal blooms', is a phenomenon
that occurs due to excessive accumulation of algae, known as dinoflagellates,
that causes discoloration of the water.
Redevelop: To knock everything down and start all over again.
Redevelopment: the rebuilding of parts of a city. Sometimes large areas
are completely demolished before being rebuilt; sometimes all or some of the
old buildings are retained and modernised to combine the best features of the
old and the new.
Reforestation: The process of reviving a forest that was destroyed by
planting new trees or by natural regeneration is known as reforestation.
Refugees: people forced to move from where they live to another area.
Regelation: Regelation is the freezing together of two melted ice blocks
when pressure applies is lessened and the melting point of ice rises.
Region: An area having some characteristic or characteristics that
distinguish it from other areas. A territory that is of interest to people, for
which one or more distinctive traits are used as the basis for its identity.
Relative Humidity: In geographical terms, relative humidity is defined
as the amount of water vapor in the air at a particular temperature, compared
to the maximum amount of water vapor that the air can hold at that temperature.
It is expressed in a percentage form.
Relief Map: A map which shows heights of place through the material
Used- such as chalk, clay, etc.
Relief rainfall Formed when air is forced to rise over relief features
such as hills or mountains. Cooling and condensation occurs as the air rises.
Relief: The shape of the land surface and its height.
Renewable Resources: Any natural resource that is naturally restorative
at a rate that is more than the rate of human consumption of that resource is
called a renewable resource.
Repatriation: a government policy of returning immigrants to their
country of origin.
Research and Development: the branch of a manufacturing firm concerned
with the design and development of new products. R&D employs highly skilled
workers and is often located close to the company HQ.
Reservoir: A human made lake which is used to store water supplies,
often behind a dam.
Residential Preference: where people would like to live.
Residential: A housing area where people live.
Resistant Rock: A hard rock which resists being worn down and stands out
as hills.
Resource: Anything that is both naturally occurring and of use to
humans.
Resources: Things which can be useful to people. They may be natural
like coal and iron ore, or of other value like money and skilled workers.
Resurgence: It is defined as the return of a river that was running
underground, back to the surface.
Retail Park: an out-of-town shopping centre with a few large
warehouse-type stores, selling electrical goods, carpets, D.I.Y. goods,
building supplies etc.
Retailing: the sale of goods, usually in shops, to the general public.
Retraining Schemes: government-funded schemes to retrain unemployed
workers in Declining Areas in the new skills required by high-tech Assembly
industries attracted by Government Incentives.
Re-urbanisation: the process whereby towns and cities in MEDCs which
have been experiencing a loss of population are able to reverse the decline and
begin to grow again. Some form of redevelopment is often required to start
re-urbanisation.
Revetments: wooden, steel, or concrete fence-like structures that allow
sea water and sediment to pass through, but the structures absorb wave energy.
A beach can build up behind the revetment and provide further protection for
the cliff. These are used as part of coastal defences.
Ria: a river valley drowned by a rise in sea level. It provides an
excellent, natural, sheltered harbour.
Ribbon development: when housing grows out from a town along a main
road.
Ribbon Lake: Ribbon lakes are long, narrow lakes formed by a glacier,
usually found in glacial troughs.
Ribbon lakes: long, narrow lakes found in glaciated valleys formed in
locations where the glacier had more erosive power, e.g. in areas of softer
rock, where the valley gradient temporarily steepened or a tributary glacier
joined the main valley.
Richter Scale: An instrument or logarithmic scale used to measure the
magnitude of an earthquake and the energy released by an earthquake. Each
increasing step indicates a 10-fold energy increase.
Rift Valley: A long valley formed along a rift in the earth's crust due
to the gradual sinking of land between two parallel series of faults is called
a rift valley.
Rift Valley: A valley formed by the sinking of the strata.
Ring-road: a by-pass that provides a route around the CBD.
Rip-Rap: large boulders dumped on the beach as part as part of coastal
defences.
River Basin: The area drained by a river and its tributaries.
River Cliff: created on the outside of a meander bend by the erosive
effect of fast-flowing water.
Roaring Forties: Land between 40 and 50 degrees Latitude in the Herm
Hemisphere where great winds blow.
Roche Moutonée: A Roche moutonée is a rock hill that is shaped smooth on
the side of the upstream and grooved by glacial abrasion.
Roches Moutonnées: rocks looking like a sheep's head, one side smoothed
and polished and the other plucked and jagged.
Rock Strongpoints: rocks dumped into sea to form a narrow artificial
headland; these have replaced wooden groynes at Barton on Sea. Their aim is to
control longshore drift of sediment in a similar way to wooden groynes and have
proved to be more effective as they have a stronger structure to resist storm
waves.
Rossby Waves: Rossby waves are the movements of troughs and ridges in
the upper air or the jet stream surrounding the earth. It is named after
Carl-Gustaf Rossby who first came up with the theory of this jet stream.
Rotational Movement: avalanches of snow collecting at the back wall of a
cirque exert great pressure, forcing the ice out of the front of the hollow in
a rotational movement, similar to the pushing of jelly from bowl.
Route Centre: a settlement located at the meeting point of several
roads/railways; the meeting point of two or more river valleys (which provide
good road and rail routes through high land), is often the location of a
route-centre settlement. Bridging points, ports and gap towns are also natural
route centres.
Run-off: Run-off is a term used for the water from rain or melting snow
that does not get absorbed into the soil, but flows over the surface of the
land.
Rural Depopulation: people leaving the countryside usually to live in
towns (ie. rural-urban migration).
Rural Population Structure: young males move to urban areas due to
push-pull factors. This creates a characteristic indentation in the 20-35 age
group population structure.
Rural: Countryside.
Rural-to-urban Migration: The movement of people from the countryside to
the towns and cities.
Rural-Urban Fringe: a zone of transition between the built-up area and
the countryside, where there is often competition for land use. It is a zone of
mixed land uses, from shopping malls and golf courses to farmland and
motorways.
