Environmental Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Edaphic factors relate to soils.

In biogeography and ecology, edaphic factors are the soil properties that influence organisms: texture, structure, moisture, pH, nutrient content, organic matter and soil organisms. Serpentine soils, for example, support distinctive plant communities because of their edaphic properties.

Physiographic (topographic) factors relate to landforms, and climatic factors to temperature and rainfall. Rocks influence vegetation through the soils formed from them, and 'plant habitat' is the combination of all these factors rather than one class of them.

Answer: D

The phenomenon is the urban heat island effect.

Cities are often several degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside, especially at night. Concrete and asphalt absorb and store heat, there is less vegetation and evaporation to cool the air, tall buildings trap radiation, and traffic, industry and air conditioning add waste heat. The warm core stands out on a temperature map like an island.

The lapse rate is the fall of temperature with height. The venturi effect is the speeding up of wind through a narrowing gap, such as between buildings. The urban canopy layer is the layer of air between the buildings, where the heat island is measured, not the name of the effect itself.

Answer: C

The complexity of a food web does not depend on the homogeneity of organisms in the system.

A food web becomes more complex when there are more kinds of organisms (diversity), longer food chains with more trophic levels, and more alternative food sources for consumers at different points, since each alternative adds links between chains.

Homogeneity, organisms being all of a kind, works against complexity rather than producing it: a uniform community has few species and few links. The other three options are genuine determinants of food web complexity, so they are not the answer.

Answer: A

India made the point at the U.N. Conference on Human Environment at Stockholm, 1972.

At the Stockholm Conference, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the only head of government other than the host to attend, argued that poverty and need are among the greatest polluters, and that the removal of poverty must be part of any environmental strategy for the world. Her speech framed the developing countries' position that environment and development cannot be separated.

The Vienna Convention of 1985 dealt with protection of the ozone layer, and the Geneva preparatory meetings of 1991 led up to the Earth Summit. The U.N. Conference on Environment and Development of 1992 was held in Rio de Janeiro, not Nairobi, and came twenty years after India first made the point.

Answer: B

The study of an individual species in relation to its environment is autecology.

Autecology (from the Greek autos, self) looks at a single species, or individuals of it, and how it responds to its environment: its tolerance of temperature, light, moisture and soil, its life history and its adaptations.

Synecology is the opposite, the study of groups of species living together. Community ecology is part of synecology and deals with interactions among the populations of a community, and population ecology deals with the size, growth and structure of populations rather than an individual species' relation to its surroundings.

Answer: D

The correct matching is a-2, b-3, c-1, d-4.

• Carbon dioxide: chiefly from burning fossil fuels.
• Methane: from waterlogged paddy fields, where anaerobic bacteria decompose organic matter, as well as from livestock and wetlands.
• Nitrous oxide: largely from nitrogen fertilizers applied to soils.
• CFCs: from liquid coolants in refrigerators and air conditioners, and from aerosol propellants.

Two options give carbon dioxide to paddy fields, and the remaining wrong option gives methane to fertilizers and nitrous oxide to paddy fields, swapping the two agricultural sources.

Answer: A

The Ramsar Convention is the convention on Wetlands of International importance.

Signed at Ramsar, Iran, in 1971, the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, especially as Waterfowl Habitat, is the intergovernmental treaty for the conservation and wise use of wetlands. Member countries designate sites for the List of Wetlands of International Importance, the Ramsar sites. India joined in 1982, with Chilika Lake and Keoladeo National Park among its first sites.

The law of the sea is governed by UNCLOS (1982), hazardous waste by the Basel Convention (1989), and there is no Ramsar convention on hill forests.

Answer: C

Deep ecology does not support enhancement of human consumption.

Deep ecology, the philosophy set out by Arne Naess in 1973, holds that all living beings have value in themselves, not only as resources for people. It calls for a substantial reduction in human consumption and population pressure, so increasing consumption runs against its principles.

The other options are things deep ecology does support: continuing inquiry into the appropriate role of humans on the planet, analysis of the root causes of unsustainable practices rather than treating symptoms, and the conservation and restoration of ecosystems.

Answer: C

The answer is (A) is true but (R) is false.

Assertion (A) is correct: under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, the Central Pollution Control Board coordinates the activities of the State Pollution Control Boards and resolves disputes among them, besides advising the central government on pollution.

Reason (R) is false. The CPCB is a national statutory body under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, with its head office in Delhi and zonal offices in different parts of India. It is not an international board and has no offices around the world.

Answer: B

The right term is secondary succession.

Secondary succession is the re-establishment of a community on ground that previously supported vegetation but was disturbed, by fire, flood, logging, ploughing or other human activity, while its soil remained. Because soil, seeds and roots are left, it proceeds much faster than primary succession.

Primary succession starts on bare surfaces without soil, such as fresh lava, rock exposed by a glacier or new sand dunes. 'Tertiary succession' is not a standard term, and bog succession is the particular sequence by which a lake or pond fills in.