Final answer:
Prevalence is defined as the commonness or frequency of something, evidenced by the widespread occurrence of an issue such as acid rain in a certain area.
Step-by-step explanation:
Based on the context clues provided in the sentence, the best definition of prevalence is the commonness or frequency of something. In the given context, prevalence refers to the widespread occurrence of acid rain and its consequent damage to rainforests and fish populations in South America.
Prevalence is an important epidemiological measure used to describe the proportion of individuals in a population who have a particular condition at a specific point in time, as highlighted in the data regarding infectious diseases and the impact of acid rain in different parts of the world. In the example of South Africa, the prevalence of a disease being 17.3 percent signifies that this percentage of the population is infected at the time of the study.