Environmental Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Intergenerational equity means to minimise any adverse impact on resources and environment for future generation.

The Brundtland Report (1987) defined sustainable development as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Equity between generations requires that the present generation pass on resources and an environment no worse than it received.

Narrowing wealth gaps within and between nations is intragenerational equity, a healthy environment for the present generation leaves out the future, and developing carrying capacity is not what the term means.

Answer: C

The advantage is both: less waste to dispose and less land lost to mining.

Conserving geological resources means using minerals and rocks efficiently, recycling metals and materials, and substituting where possible. Recycled metal and reused construction material reduce the waste sent to dumps and landfills. At the same time, less fresh ore and aggregate has to be extracted, so less land is opened up for mines and quarries.

Each of the first two options names a real benefit, so choosing only one of them is incomplete, and 'neither' is wrong.

Answer: B

The boundary is called a bioclimatic frontier.

A species' potential range is limited by climate: each species tolerates only a certain range of temperature, moisture and related conditions. The geographic line where those conditions stop being suitable, marking the limit of where the species could live, is termed its bioclimatic frontier.

Speciation is the formation of new species. Geographic isolation is the separation of populations by a barrier, one route to speciation. Polyploidy is the possession of more than two sets of chromosomes, another route to new species, especially in plants. None of these is a boundary of distribution.

Answer: C

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

Fossil fuels are non-renewable: they formed over millions of years and are being used far faster than they form, so the period over which they can be used is limited (A).

(R) is wrong because fossil fuels were not formed only in the Carboniferous. Much of the world's coal dates from that period, which is named after it, but other coal seams, including India's Tertiary coals, are much younger, and most oil and natural gas formed in Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks.

Answer: A

The biome is the Mediterranean biome.

Mediterranean climates, on the western sides of continents around 30° to 40° latitude (the Mediterranean basin, California, central Chile, the Cape region and south-western Australia), have hot, dry summers under subtropical high pressure and mild, wet winters brought by westerly depressions. Their vegetation is evergreen scrub and woodland with hard, leathery leaves adapted to summer drought.

The savanna has a wet summer and dry winter, the reverse pattern. Boreal forests and temperate grasslands receive most of their precipitation in summer.

Answer: A

The key gives (A): both statements are true and the Reason supports the Assertion.

The Reason is sound: continued emission of greenhouse gases raises the concentration of heat-trapping gases and so strengthens the greenhouse effect and warming. The Assertion is a strong paraphrase of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, which finds that warming beyond about 1.5°C brings a risk of irreversible losses in ecosystems such as polar, mountain and coastal ones, with some already near their limits to adapt.

Note that the Assertion says the entire ecosystem will be forever lost, which is stronger than the report's wording of risk and irreversible impacts on some ecosystems. The key treats it as true and the rising temperature caused by the Reason as its basis, so (A) is the keyed choice. Options C and D declare one statement false, and B says the Reason does not account for the Assertion, which the key does not accept.

Answer: C

The incorrect statement is IPCC means 'Intergovernmental parties on climate change'.

IPCC stands for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is the United Nations body for assessing the science of climate change, set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme. So statements A and B are correct.

Statement D is also consistent with the Sixth Assessment Report, which found that finance for adaptation falls well short of what is needed and must be scaled up. 'Parties' is the term used for countries under the UNFCCC, not part of the IPCC's name.

Answer: C

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

A forest is stratified into layers from the top down. The tallest trees form the dominant layer or canopy (a-4). Below them is the shrub layer, the second layer (b-3), then the herb layer of grasses and herbaceous plants, the third layer (c-2), and finally the ground or moss layer of mosses and lichens, the fourth layer (d-1).

The other codes place the shrubs or herbs above the trees, or the mosses above the herbs, which reverses the vertical order.

Answer: B

Lightning plays an important role in the nitrogen cycle.

Atmospheric nitrogen (N₂) is held by a strong triple bond and cannot be used directly by most plants. The intense heat of a lightning flash splits N₂ and O₂, which combine to form nitrogen oxides. These dissolve in rain as nitrates, which reach the soil and are absorbed by plants. This atmospheric fixation supplements biological fixation by bacteria.

Lightning has no comparable role in the oxygen, carbon or phosphorus cycles. Phosphorus, in particular, has no significant gaseous phase.

Answer: A

The ascending order is Population - Community - Ecosystem - Biome.

A population is a group of individuals of one species in an area. A community is all the populations of different species living and interacting there. An ecosystem is the community together with its non-living environment. A biome is a large region of similar ecosystems defined by climate and dominant vegetation, such as the tropical rainforest or the tundra.

The other options place community below population, or biome below ecosystem, or reverse the whole sequence.