Environmental Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Statements (b) and (c) are correct, so the answer is (b) and (c) only.

Statement (a) is wrong on both dates: the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in December 1997 and came into force in February 2005.

Statement (b) is correct: the Protocol committed industrialised countries to limit and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions according to agreed individual targets. Statement (c) is correct: it follows the UNFCCC principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, placing the binding burden on developed countries. Every option including (a) is therefore wrong.

Answer: B

The main contributors are oxides of nitrogen and oxides of sulphur.

Sulphur dioxide, mainly from burning coal and oil and from smelting, and nitrogen oxides, mainly from vehicles and power stations, react with water, oxygen and other chemicals in the atmosphere to form sulphuric and nitric acids. These fall as acid rain, with a pH below about 5.6.

Carbon dioxide forms only the weak carbonic acid that gives normal rain its slight acidity, and carbon monoxide does not form an acid. So the options built around carbon oxides are wrong.

Answer: A

Carbon trading was initiated under the Kyoto Protocol.

The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 created three market-based mechanisms: international emissions trading, the Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation. Emissions trading allowed countries with spare emission units to sell them to countries over their targets, creating the international market in carbon credits.

The Brundtland Commission (1987) defined sustainable development, Agenda 21 (1992) was the Rio action plan, and the Paris Agreement (2015) came long after carbon trading began, though it carries such mechanisms forward.

Answer: A

The disasters match as volcanic eruption with magma (4), cyclone with violent wind (1), tsunami with submarine earthquake or landslides (2) and drought with desertification (3), the code 4 1 2 3.

The other codes mismatch at least two of these pairs.

Magma is the molten rock that erupts from a volcano. A cyclone is a system of violent winds, a tsunami is a sea wave caused by a submarine earthquake or landslide, and drought is a long dry spell that leads to desertification. These definitions fix the code 4 1 2 3.

Answer: D

The term is famine.

A famine is an acute and widespread shortage of food that causes mass hunger, malnutrition and death across a large population. It usually arises from a combination of causes: crop failure through drought or flood, environmental damage, and socio-economic factors such as poverty, war, high prices and failures of distribution.

Drought is a lack of rainfall and is one possible cause of famine, not the food shortage itself. Malnutrition is a condition of individuals, which a famine produces on a large scale. Inflation is a general rise in prices.

Answer: C

The major impact is the destruction of infrastructure and displacement of people.

Typhoons, the name for tropical cyclones in the western Pacific, bring very strong winds, torrential rain, flooding and storm surges. They destroy houses, roads, power lines and crops, and force large numbers of people to leave their homes, often causing heavy loss of life.

They do not reduce humidity (they bring intense rain), improve agricultural productivity (they flatten crops and flood fields with salt water) or stabilise atmospheric pressure; a typhoon is itself a centre of very low pressure.

Answer: B

The answer is soil erosion and desertification.

A prolonged drought kills vegetation and dries out the soil. Without plant roots to bind it and cover to shelter it, the topsoil is blown or washed away, and land in dry regions can degrade into desert-like conditions. This land degradation is called desertification.

Flooding is caused by too much water, not too little. Tsunamis are caused by undersea earthquakes or landslides, and volcanic eruptions by movements of magma; neither has anything to do with rainfall.

Answer: D

Plants (green plants, the producers) occupy the first trophic level in a food chain. They make food from sunlight by photosynthesis, and all other levels depend on them for energy.

Primary consumers (herbivores) occupy the second level and carnivores the third or higher levels. Bacteria are decomposers, which act on dead matter at every level and do not form the first level. So only plants fit.

Answer: D

The tropical rainforest is called the carbon sink of the globe, because its large and fast-growing biomass takes in large amounts of carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and stores the carbon in wood and soil. The Amazon and Congo basins are the best examples.

Antarctica is covered by ice and has little vegetation, the savanna has less biomass per hectare, and north-western Europe has temperate vegetation and a lower stock of carbon. So the key is the tropical rainforest.

Answer: B

The ecological niche is the functional role of an organism in the ecosystem: what it eats, how and when it feeds, and how it relates to other species and to its habitat. Habitat is the address of a species and the niche is its profession.

Interaction between man and environment and the interdependence of man and plants are matters of human ecology and not of a species' niche. Since option B gives the standard definition, 'none of the above' is wrong.