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The Precautionary Principle is a strategy to cope with possible risks where scientific understanding is yet incomplete. It implies that there is a social responsibility to protect the public from exposure to harm when scientific investigation has found a plausible risk.

Riparian rights are a system of water allocation that grants to the landowners adjacent to a watercourse the right to make reasonable use of it as it flows through or over their properties. This includes rights for use in irrigation, power production, and water supply.

NEPA was one of the first laws ever written that establishes a broad national framework for protecting the environment. Its most significant requirement is that all branches of government give proper consideration to the environment prior to undertaking any major federal action that significantly affects the environment.

A principle in environmental law where the polluting party pays for the damage done to the natural environment. It is based on the idea that those who produce pollution should bear the costs of managing it to prevent damage to human health or the environment.

Adaptive management is a structured, iterative process of robust decision making in the face of uncertainty, with an aim to reducing uncertainty over time via system monitoring. This approach is used to manage natural resources in a resilient and flexible manner.

Non-point source pollution refers to diffuse contamination that does not originate from a single discrete source. It is often the cumulative effect of small amounts of contaminants gathered from a large area, such as fertilizer runoff or automobile exhaust.

The Clean Air Act is a United States federal law designed to control air pollution on a national level. It is one of the comprehensive environmental laws that regulate air emissions from stationary and mobile sources and prescribe the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the authority to establish national ambient air quality standards.

Commonly known as Superfund, CERCLA is a United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances and pollutants. It authorizes the EPA to identify responsible parties and compel them to clean up contaminated sites or reimburse the government for EPA-led cleanups.

The Tragedy of the Commons is a concept illustrating the conflict between individual interests and the common good. It describes a situation within a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling the shared resource.

An Environmental Impact Statement is a document required by NEPA for certain actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment. An EIS is a tool for decision making that describes the positive and negative environmental effects of a proposed action.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act governs the disposal of solid and hazardous waste in the United States. It provides the framework for the proper management of hazardous and non-hazardous solid waste and includes provisions for waste minimization and phasing out land disposal of hazardous waste.

The Endangered Species Act provides a program for the conservation of threatened and endangered plants and animals and the habitats in which they are found. It prohibits any action that causes a 'taking' of any listed species of endangered fish or wildlife.

Sustainable development is a concept that aims at meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It integrates economic development with environmental protection and social equity.

The Public Trust Doctrine is a principle that certain natural and cultural resources are preserved for public use, and that the government owns and must protect and maintain these resources for the public's use.

The Clean Water Act is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Its objective is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters by preventing point and nonpoint pollution sources, providing assistance to publicly owned treatment works for the improvement of wastewater treatment, and maintaining the integrity of wetlands.

Environmental torts are a category of common law that deals with situations where contaminates have trespassed onto someone's property or when someone's actions have negligently caused harm to another person's property or health.

An environmental audit is a voluntary assessment of a company's environmental performance. It is a systematic, documented, periodic, and objective review by regulated entities to ensure compliance with environmental laws and regulations.

Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.

Mitigation banking is a system that allows for the protection, restoration, or creation of environmental assets (such as wetlands or habitats) to compensate for unavoidable environmental impacts of development projects elsewhere, often ahead of harmful impacts occurring.