Economic Activities and Regional Development Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The one that is not a primary industrial region is South Asia.

Geography textbooks recognise four major manufacturing regions of the world: eastern North America (the north-eastern U.S.A. and south-eastern Canada), western and central Europe, eastern Europe (Russia and Ukraine) and eastern Asia (Japan, China and South Korea). Together they account for most of the world's manufacturing output.

South Asia has important industrial centres, such as Mumbai, Ahmedabad and the Chota Nagpur belt, but it is not one of the primary industrial regions. Eastern Asia, western and central Europe and eastern North America all are.

Answer: B

Both statements are true but the Reason does not explain the Assertion.

The Assertion is true: unplanned and excessive exploitation of forests, soils, water, minerals and fisheries is a major problem today, causing depletion and environmental degradation.

The Reason is also true as a statement of policy: sustainable development, meeting present needs without compromising those of future generations, should be followed to conserve resources. But it is a remedy, not a cause. It says what ought to be done; it does not explain why unplanned exploitation has become a problem, so the key gives the second option.

Answer: B

The proportion of area under various crops at a point of time is the cropping pattern.

Cropping pattern describes the share of the cultivated area under each crop in a region at a given time, for example 40 percent under rice, 25 percent under pulses and so on. It changes over time with prices, irrigation and technology.

Crop combination identifies the group of crops that together dominate a region, as in Weaver's method. Crop concentration measures how strongly one crop is concentrated in an area compared with a larger region. Crop diversification refers to the number of crops grown and the shift towards more of them, not their proportions.

Answer: A

The model of development based on linear development is Rostow's.

W. W. Rostow, in The Stages of Economic Growth (1960), proposed that every society passes along the same linear path through five stages: the traditional society, the preconditions for take-off, the take-off, the drive to maturity and the age of high mass consumption.

August Losch and Walter Christaller are known for location theory and central place theory, about the spacing of settlements and market areas, not a sequence of development stages. No linear stage model of development is credited to Kindell in the standard accounts, so Rostow is the only fit.

Answer: C

The statement that is not correct is According to Thunen's model-I the intensity of production of a particular crop increases with distance from the market.

In von Thunen's first model, for a single crop, the intensity of production falls with distance from the central market town. Transport costs rise with distance, so economic rent falls, and it pays to apply less labour and capital to each hectare the farther the land lies from the city.

The other statements are correct. The theory is built on economic (location) rent, its aim was to show how and why land use varies with distance from the market, and in the second model several land uses compete, forming concentric rings of different land use around the town.

Answer: B

The term not applicable is Range of the goods.

The range of a good, the maximum distance consumers will travel to buy it, is a concept of Christaller's central place theory, which deals with the location of service centres.

The other three belong to Alfred Weber's theory of industrial location (1909). His least cost principle places industry where transport, labour and agglomeration costs are lowest. Isodapanes are lines of equal additional transport cost, and the critical isodapane marks where savings from cheap labour or agglomeration just balance the extra transport cost.

Answer: C

The statement that is not correct is Traditional method of agriculture and dominant role of hand labour characterise this type of farming.

Commercial grain farming, found on the prairies of North America, the steppes, the pampas and in Australia, is highly mechanised: tractors, combine harvesters and grain elevators replace labour, which is scarce and expensive in these thinly populated regions. Traditional methods and hand labour describe subsistence farming instead.

The other statements are correct: farms are very large (often hundreds of hectares), wheat is the leading crop, and each farm has its own complex of farm buildings such as the farmhouse, sheds and storage bins.

Answer: D

The key is Threshold analysis, and no source found calls it the 'procedural' technique.

Threshold analysis, associated with the Polish planner Boleslaw Malisz and used in physical and regional planning, asks what a town or region can take before growth needs a large step in investment. Each barrier of that kind is a threshold, such as the point where a settlement needs a new water source or trunk sewer. It is used as a step in drawing up a plan.

The other three are analytical tools of regional economics. Industrial location analysis studies why industry sits where it does. Economic base analysis divides activity into basic and non-basic parts to explain regional growth. Regional multiplier analysis measures the knock-on effect of basic income and is built on the base idea. They describe or forecast a regional economy. Threshold analysis is the one used in the planning procedure itself, which is how the key reads the question.

Answer: B

The key is Baker.

Oliver E. Baker's 1926 paper on the agricultural regions of North America is the work geographers cite as the starting point of agricultural regionalisation. He drew the Cotton Belt, Corn Belt and Wheat Belt boundaries from observed distributions of crops and livestock, which is the empirical approach. Later work, by Weaver and Doi among others, used statistical crop-combination methods.

Von Thunen (1826) gave a theory of land use around a market, not a delimitation of regions. Whittlesey's world classification of major agricultural regions came after Baker. Doi's crop-combination method is statistical and later still. The word 'pioneer' for Baker could not be confirmed in a single source, so this follows the key and the dates.

Answer: D

The statement that is not correct is Non-renewable energy resources include coal, oil, natural gas, geothermal energy and nuclear power, because geothermal energy is renewable.

Geothermal energy is heat from the Earth's interior, continuously produced by radioactive decay and drawn from hot water or steam reservoirs. It is classed as a renewable source, along with solar, wind and hydro power. Coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear fuel (uranium) are non-renewable.

The other statements are correct: energy underpins economic development and welfare, energy sources are both renewable and non-renewable, and firewood, solar, wind and water energy are all renewable.