Environment & Ecology Previous Year Questions (PYQ) with Answers – Page 3

The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve spreads across Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. Set up in 1986, Nilgiri was India's first biosphere reserve, and in 2000 it became the first Indian reserve on UNESCO's World Network of Biosphere Reserves.

The EPA names the burning of fossil fuels by power plants and other industrial facilities as the largest source of sulphur dioxide.

Global dimming is the drop in sunlight reaching the ground, and the cooling that follows, caused by particles in the air.

The mission's thematic area is Urban Planning, Green Cover and Biodiversity, because the mission is about cities, not villages.

Bacteria and fungi cannot break down most plastics, so plastic waste stays in soil and water for hundreds of years.

The ozone hole is a sharp seasonal thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer over Antarctica, caused mainly by chlorine from chlorofluorocarbons.

A membrane bioreactor treats sewage or industrial effluent by combining biological breakdown of waste with filtration through fine membranes. In a membrane bioreactor (MBR), microorganisms in an aerated tank digest the organic matter in wastewater, as in the conventional activated sludge process.

Pumped-storage hydropower stores surplus electricity by pumping water uphill and gives it back when the water flows down through turbines.

Battery storage, biomass generators, fuel cells and rooftop solar units are all small, local sources that generate or store power close to where it is used, which is what Distributed Energy Resources are.

Lions breed at any time of year and cheetahs cannot roar, but male leopards do mark their territory with scent.

The World Toilet Organization is a non-profit body, not a UN agency, and it works through advocacy and training rather than by giving grants to countries.

All three animals have been placed in the wrong country: the indri lives in Madagascar, the elk in the northern forests of Eurasia and North America, and the bonobo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A large part of the energy is lost at every trophic level, so after four or five links too little is left to support another level.

Chewing gum pollutes because its gum base is largely made of synthetic plastic polymers that do not break down. Gum was once made from chicle, a natural latex from the sapodilla tree.

All three statements are correct about PFAS, the so-called 'forever chemicals'. PFAS are a large family of man-made chemicals built on very strong carbon-fluorine bonds.

Halophytes are plants adapted to grow in soil or water with a high salt content. The word comes from the Greek 'halos', meaning salt.

The number after PM gives the upper size limit of the particles in micrometres. Particulate matter is classed by aerodynamic diameter: PM10 is 10 micrometres or less, PM2.5 is 2.5 micrometres or less, and PM1 is 1 micrometre or less, about one-seventieth of a human hair's width.

Sunlight reaching a glasshouse is mostly visible light and short-wavelength (near) infrared, which glass transmits easily. The plants and soil inside absorb it, warm up and re-radiate the energy as long-wavelength infrared, because cooler bodies emit at longer wavelengths.

Hubbardia heptaneuron, known as Hubbard's grass or the Jog Falls grass, is a species of grass that grew only in the spray zone of the Jog Falls on the Sharavathi river in Karnataka.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development sets 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and these are broken into 169 targets.