Environmental Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The correct matching is (2) (3) (4) (1).

A sere is the series of communities in an ecological succession, and its prefix names the starting substrate:

• Lithosere begins on bare rock (Greek lithos).
• Psammosere begins on sand (psammos), as on coastal dunes.
• Xerosere begins in a dry region (xeros).
• Hydrosere begins in water (hydor), such as a pond.

Option A pairs psammosere with dry region and xerosere with sand, the commonest slip; options B and C misplace lithosere.

Answer: A

The highest net primary production is in Estuaries (tidal).

Estuaries receive nutrients from rivers and from the sea, are shallow and well lit, and are flushed by tides that remove wastes. Their average net primary production, about 1500-2000 g of dry matter per square metre per year, is among the highest of any ecosystem, comparable to tropical rainforest.

Midlatitude (temperate) forests produce about 1200 g/m²/yr, midlatitude grasslands about 600, and lakes and streams only about 250, so they are lower.

Answer: B

Both statements are false, so the answer is Both (i) and (ii) are false.

The two statements have the facts reversed. Mineral nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon cycle: plants take them up, they pass along food chains, and decomposers return them to the soil and air in biogeochemical cycles.

Energy flows in one direction: it enters as sunlight, passes from one trophic level to the next with large losses as heat at each step, and cannot be recycled. Since both statements swap these, each option calling either one true is wrong.

Answer: A

The hazard is a landslide (printed 'Lanslide').

A landslide is the downslope mass movement of soil, rock and debris under gravity, often triggered by heavy rain, earthquakes, slope cutting or deforestation. It is a major hazard in the Himalaya and the Western Ghats.

Subduction is one tectonic plate sinking beneath another, and obduction is oceanic crust thrust up onto a continental margin. Both are slow plate processes, not slope failures. Snowfall is precipitation; the snow equivalent of a slide is an avalanche.

Answer: B

Eutrophication is the result of accumulation of plant nutrients in water bodies.

When nutrients, chiefly nitrogen and phosphorus from fertiliser run-off and sewage, build up in a lake or river, algae and water plants grow explosively (algal blooms). When they die, their decomposition uses up dissolved oxygen, fish die and the water quality falls.

So eutrophication worsens water quality rather than improving it. It is a natural or pollution-driven process, not a treatment technique, and it belongs to the nutrient cycles of nitrogen and phosphorus, not to a gas cycle.

Answer: D

The pair that is not correctly matched is Brazil - Steppes.

The steppes are the temperate grasslands of Eurasia, from Ukraine across Kazakhstan to Mongolia. The grasslands of Brazil are the tropical savanna called the campos.

The other pairs are the regional names of temperate grasslands: the velds of South Africa, the downs of Australia and the pampas of Argentina.

Answer: C

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

In the Arctic tundra, lichens such as reindeer moss are among the main producers, and in winter they are the staple food of caribou and reindeer. If lichen production failed, the herbivores would starve and the carnivores that prey on them would follow, so the whole food web would collapse. The assertion is true.

The reason is false because it says both herbivores and carnivores depend directly on lichens. Only the herbivores eat lichens; carnivores such as wolves and Arctic foxes depend on them indirectly, through their prey.

Answer: A

Autecology stands for the study of relationship of individual species to its environment.

Autecology looks at a single species or individual organism and how it responds to factors such as temperature, light, water and soil: its tolerance limits, life history and adaptations.

The study of the complex interrelationships of groups of organisms (communities) is synecology, its counterpart. The study of floral or faunal diversity is a branch of biodiversity or taxonomic study, not autecology.

Answer: B

The keyed answer is F.E. Clement, that is, Frederic E. Clements.

Clements, in Plant Succession (1916), studied vegetation through its origin and development: a community passes through a series of seral stages until it reaches a stable climax set by the climate, much as an organism grows to maturity. This developmental or genetic approach to the plant community is his contribution.

Charles Elton founded animal ecology and described food chains and the pyramid of numbers. Joseph Grinnell (spelt 'Grinel' in the paper) introduced the niche concept. A.G. Tansley coined the term ecosystem (1935), partly as a critique of Clements' view of the community as an organism.

Answer: B

The answer is 38.

A chart in a Centre for Science and Environment publication, citing the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change as of March 2018, shows 253 rivers in all, of which 38 were critically polluted. That is the figure the question quotes, so B matches. The Ministry's own document was not found, so this rests on that secondary source.

The other options, 78, 67 and 53, do not match that count. Do not confuse the figure with the Central Pollution Control Board's September 2018 report, which counted 351 polluted river stretches on 323 rivers. That is a different measure, and it is not what this question asks.