Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz), which originated in South America, is a herbaceous plant with tuberous roots that is extensively cultivated as an annual crop in many tropical and subtropical regions. Cassava belongs to the class of foods, roots, and tubers and is a major source of carbohydrates in developing countries. The plant is highly drought-resistant and also thrives in poor soil. Today, the plant is widely grown in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America, with great economic and food security benefits. (Bovell-Benjamin, Adelia & Roberts, Jerry. (2016). Naturally Occurring Toxicants: Presence in Selected Commonly Consumed Fruits. 10.1016/B978-0-12-800605-4.00013-X.)
Variations in the mean state and other statistics (standard deviations, the occurrence of extremes, and so on) of the climate on all spatial and temporal scales beyond that of individual weather events. Variability may be due to natural internal processes within the climate system (internal variability) or to variations in natural or anthropogenic external forcing (external variability). (Agard, J., Schipper, E.L.F., Birkmann, J., Campos, M., Dubeux, C., Nojiri, Y., Olsoon, L. et al. 2014. Glossary. In: IPCC, ed. Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. pp. 1757–1776. Cambridge, UK and New York, USA, Cambridge University Press. www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WGIIAR5-AnnexII_FINAL.pdf)
Thermal pollution is the degradation of water quality by any process that changes ambient water temperature. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_pollution)
The status and potential of an ecosystem to maintain its organizational structure, its vigor of function and resilience under stress, and to continuously provide quality ecosystem services for present and future generations in perpetuity. (Yonglong Lu, Ruoshi Wang, Yueqing Zhang, Hongqiao Su, Pei Wang, Alan Jenkins, Rober C. Ferrier, Mark Bailey, Geoff Squire. Ecosystem health towards sustainability. Ecosyst Health Sustain. 2015;1(1):1-15.DOI:10.1890/EHS14-0013.1)
