Environment & Ecology Mixed Quiz: Set 8

The correct answer is B, Namdapha National Park. Namdapha lies in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh, covers about 1,985 square kilometres and is the largest protected area in the Eastern Himalayan sub-region. It was declared a national park in 1983 and is also a tiger reserve. Its land climbs from about 200 metres on the Noa-Dihing river to more than 4,500 metres, so tropical rainforest, temperate forest and alpine meadow all lie inside one park; it is the only protected area known to hold four large cats — tiger, leopard, snow leopard and clouded leopard. Option A is wrong because Jim Corbett, in Uttarakhand, belongs to the Western Himalayan foothills. Option C is wrong because Keibul Lamjao in Manipur is the world's only floating national park and is very small. Option D is wrong because Bandipur is in Karnataka, in the Western Ghats, far from the Himalayas. Exam tip: Namdapha — Arunachal Pradesh, four big cats, the Noa-Dihing river and the hoolock gibbon.

The correct answer is C, methane and carbon dioxide. Biogas is produced when cattle dung, crop waste and sewage are broken down by bacteria in a closed tank without air, a process called anaerobic digestion. The gas that collects is about 55 to 70 per cent methane and most of the rest is carbon dioxide, with small traces of hydrogen sulphide and water vapour. Methane is the part that burns, which is why biogas gives a clean blue flame and is used for cooking and lighting in villages; the slurry left behind is a good manure. A gobar gas plant thus turns waste into fuel and fertiliser at the same time. A is wrong because hydrogen is not a major part of biogas. B is wrong because helium is an inert gas that no bacteria produce. D is wrong because nitrogen is present only in traces and does not burn. Exam tip: biogas is mainly methane with carbon dioxide, made by anaerobic digestion, and its slurry is used as manure.

The correct answer is B, Nilgiri. The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, spread across Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka in the Western Ghats, was designated in 1986 as the first biosphere reserve of India, and in 2000 it also became the first Indian reserve to be included in the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves. It contains well-known protected areas such as Mudumalai, Bandipur, Wayanad, Nagarhole and Silent Valley.

Option A, Nanda Devi in Uttarakhand, was designated in 1988 and lies in the Himalayas. Option C, the Sunderbans in West Bengal, was designated in 1989 and is famous for mangroves and the royal Bengal tiger. Option D, the Gulf of Mannar, was also designated in 1989 and is a marine reserve known for coral reefs and the dugong. The order to remember is Nilgiri 1986, then Nanda Devi and Nokrek in 1988, then four in 1989.

The correct answer is C, Polythene bag. Polythene is a synthetic plastic that bacteria and fungi cannot break down, so it is non-biodegradable. A plastic bag can stay in soil or water for hundreds of years. Biodegradable waste is anything that decomposers can break down into simple, harmless substances, and it usually comes from plants or animals. Plastic bags choke drains and cause waterlogging, are swallowed by cattle and sea animals, and give off toxic gases when burnt, which is why their use must be reduced and the bags reused and recycled rather than thrown away. Waste is best kept in two bins: wet (biodegradable) and dry (non-biodegradable). A is wrong because vegetable peels rot within days and make good compost. B is wrong because dead leaves decay into humus that enriches the soil. D is wrong because a rotting fruit is already being broken down by microbes. Exam tip: if microbes can eat it, it is biodegradable; plastic, glass, metal cans and DDT are not.

The correct answer is A, the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. The amending Act of 2006 inserted a new chapter into it, creating the National Tiger Conservation Authority and providing for tiger reserves with a critical tiger habitat and a buffer, as well as for the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau.

Option B, the Indian Forest Act, 1927, deals with reserved and protected forests and with forest produce, not with the Authority. Option C, the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, is the umbrella law passed after the Bhopal disaster and is the basis of rules on pollution and environmental clearance. Option D, the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, set up the National Biodiversity Authority and deals with access to biological resources and the sharing of benefits, and the similarity of the two names is the trap here.

The correct answer is C, It is a community based rain water harvesting system. A johad is a small crescent-shaped earthen dam that villagers build together to catch and store rainwater. It is used mainly in Rajasthan and Haryana, where rain is scarce and falls in only a few months of the year. The water held behind the bund is used for cattle and farming, and much of it soaks into the ground, refilling wells and raising the water table. In Alwar district of Rajasthan, villagers working with the Tarun Bharat Sangh built many johads, and the Arvari river, which had dried up, began to flow again. A is wrong because a johad does not pump groundwater; it helps to recharge it. B is wrong because it collects rainwater running off the land, not water drawn from rivers. D is wrong because a johad is a storage structure, not a water filter. Exam tip: johad, Rajasthan and Haryana; kul, western Himalayas; bamboo drip irrigation, Meghalaya; zing, Ladakh.

The correct answer is C, Loktak Lake. Loktak, in Manipur, is the largest freshwater lake of north-east India, and its surface carries phumdis, thick floating mats of vegetation, soil and organic matter that rise and fall with the water level. Keibul Lamjao National Park is established on such a mass rather than on solid ground, and it is the last natural home of the sangai or brow-antlered deer, the state animal of Manipur.

Option A, Wular in Jammu and Kashmir, is the largest freshwater lake in India and a Ramsar site, but it carries no floating park. Option B, Chilika in Odisha, is the largest brackish water lagoon in the country, known for migratory birds and the Irrawaddy dolphin. Option D, Kolleru in Andhra Pradesh, is a large freshwater lake between the Krishna and the Godavari deltas. Fix the chain Loktak, phumdi, Keibul Lamjao, sangai, since the same fact is asked from any of the four names.

The correct answer is B, Oxygen. A greenhouse gas is one whose molecules absorb the long-wave infrared radiation given off by the warm surface of the Earth and send part of it back, keeping the planet about 33 degrees Celsius warmer than it would otherwise be. Such absorption needs molecules made of three or more atoms, or of two different atoms, that can vibrate in the right way. Oxygen (O2) and nitrogen (N2), which together make up 99 percent of the air, are made of two identical atoms, do not absorb infrared radiation and therefore are not greenhouse gases, even though they are the most abundant gases. A, Water vapour, is the largest natural contributor to the greenhouse effect. C, Carbon dioxide, is the main greenhouse gas added by humans through burning coal, oil and gas, and it is the reference gas for global warming potential. D, Methane, traps about 28 times more heat than carbon dioxide over a century and comes from paddy fields, cattle and landfills. Exam tip: the main greenhouse gases are water vapour, CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone and CFCs; N2 and O2 are not.

The correct answer is B, 1992. Project Elephant was launched in February 1992 as a centrally sponsored scheme to help the states protect elephants, their habitats and their corridors, to reduce conflict between elephants and human beings and to improve the welfare of captive elephants.

Option A, 1973, belongs to Project Tiger, and the pair of years is the most commonly asked fact from this topic. Option C, 2010, is the year in which the elephant was declared the National Heritage Animal of India, a different event that is often mixed up with the launch of the project. Option D, 1986, is the year of the Environment (Protection) Act and of the Ganga Action Plan, neither of which concerns elephants. A simple way to keep the two projects apart is that the tiger came first, with the law of 1972 behind it, and the elephant followed nearly twenty years later.

The correct answer is B, greenhouse gases emission. The Kyoto Protocol, adopted at Kyoto, Japan on 11 December 1997 under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, was the first treaty to set binding targets for cutting emissions. It came into force on 16 February 2005 and asked industrialised countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of about 5 per cent below 1990 levels during 2008 to 2012. It covered six gases, including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, and created market tools such as the Clean Development Mechanism, which let projects in countries like India earn carbon credits. India ratified it in 2002 but, as a developing country, had no binding target. A is wrong, because cutting poverty is the aim of goals such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals, not Kyoto. C is wrong, because nuclear arms are dealt with by treaties like the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968. D is wrong, because farm subsidies fall under the WTO's Agreement on Agriculture. Exam tip: Kyoto 1997, in force 2005, binding cuts for rich nations; Paris 2015, pledges from all nations.

The correct answer is A, UNESCO. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization launched the Man and the Biosphere Programme in 1971 as an intergovernmental scientific programme to improve the relationship between people and their environment, and the sites recognised under it form the World Network of Biosphere Reserves.

Option B, the United Nations Environment Programme, was set up in 1972 after the Stockholm Conference and is the United Nations body for environmental matters, but the biosphere reserve network is not its programme. Option C, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is the body that publishes the Red List of threatened species and the protected area categories. Option D, the World Wide Fund for Nature, is a non-governmental conservation organisation. Note that UNESCO also runs the World Heritage programme, so the same organisation answers two different questions.

The correct answer is C, 1986. Parliament passed the Environment (Protection) Act in 1986 and it came into force on 19 November 1986. It was enacted soon after the Bhopal gas tragedy of December 1984, when the country needed one general law to fill the gaps left by the earlier pollution laws. Parliament used Article 253, which allows it to legislate to carry out international agreements, so the Act gives effect to the decisions of the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. It is called an umbrella law because it gives the Central Government wide powers to fix standards, inspect and shut polluting units and frame rules, and most later environmental rules are made under it. A is wrong because no such central environment Act was passed in 1990. B is wrong because 1991 is the year of the Public Liability Insurance Act. D is wrong because 1988 only brought amendments to the Water Act. Exam tip: Water Act 1974, Air Act 1981, Environment (Protection) Act 1986.

The correct answer is A, 2010. The declaration followed the report of a task force on elephants and was meant to raise the status of the animal in policy and to strengthen the protection of its habitats and corridors.

Option B, 1992, is the year of the launch of Project Elephant itself, not of the declaration, and the two are the standard pair of distractors. Option C, 2005, is associated with the Sariska episode and the Tiger Task Force. Option D, 1973, is the year of Project Tiger and of the tiger becoming the national animal. Note the difference in terms: the tiger is the national animal, while the elephant is the national heritage animal, and an examiner will often set the two against each other in the same question.

The correct answer is D, air pollution. Lichens are used as bio-indicators of air quality because they are extremely sensitive to sulphur dioxide and other gases in the air. A lichen is a partnership of a fungus and an alga (or cyanobacterium) living together; it has no roots and takes water and minerals straight from the air, so pollutants build up in it quickly. That is why lichens grow well on trees and rocks in clean hill areas but disappear from the centres of polluted cities, and scientists map their presence to judge how clean the air is. A is wrong because gas pollution is not a separate category; the gases concerned are part of air pollution. B is wrong because water pollution is judged with indicators such as coliform bacteria, BOD and algal blooms. C is wrong because soil pollution is tracked through earthworms and soil tests, not lichens. Exam tip: lichen equals sulphur dioxide equals air pollution indicator.

The correct answer is B, Chilika Lake and Keoladeo National Park. Both were placed on the Ramsar list in 1981 and were the first Indian wetlands to be so recognised. Chilika in Odisha is the largest brackish water lagoon in India and shelters migratory birds and the Irrawaddy dolphin, while Keoladeo at Bharatpur in Rajasthan is a man-made wetland, once a duck shooting reserve, famous for its heronry and its winter bird population.

Option A names two genuine Ramsar sites, Wular in Jammu and Kashmir and Harike in Punjab, but both were designated later. Option C pairs Loktak in Manipur with Sambhar in Rajasthan, the largest inland saline wetland of the country, and again both came later. Option D names Bhitarkanika in Odisha and Point Calimere in Tamil Nadu, also later designations. The year to fix is 1981 and the two names that go with it.

The correct answer is B, Cadmium pollution. Itai-itai disease is long-term cadmium poisoning, first noticed around 1912 in the Toyama region of Japan, where mines upstream released cadmium into the Jinzu river and it built up in the rice and water used by villagers. Cadmium damages the kidneys and makes bones soft and brittle, so patients suffered repeated fractures and severe pain in the spine and joints; the name means it hurts, it hurts in Japanese. It became one of the four big pollution diseases of Japan. Option A is wrong because mercury pollution causes Minamata disease, also from Japan, which spread through eating fish from a bay polluted with methylmercury. Option C is wrong because arsenic in groundwater causes arsenicosis, with skin lesions and cancers, as seen in West Bengal and Bangladesh. Option D is wrong because too much nitrate in drinking water causes blue baby syndrome, or methaemoglobinaemia, in infants. Exam tip: cadmium–itai-itai, mercury–Minamata, nitrate–blue baby, fluoride–fluorosis.

The correct answer is A, monitoring the illegal killing of elephants. MIKE was set up under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. At selected sites, officials record every elephant carcass found and the cause of death in a standard form, so that the share of deaths due to poaching can be tracked and compared between countries and over time. Sites in South Asia, including several in India, have been covered since 2003.

Option B describes the all India tiger estimation carried out by the National Tiger Conservation Authority with the Wildlife Institute of India, which is a different exercise altogether. Option C and option D belong to climate and pollution monitoring and have nothing to do with the programme. The expansion of the name is itself the answer, which is why it is worth memorising.

The correct answer is C, Core zone. The core zone is the innermost and the only strictly protected part of a biosphere reserve, usually already notified as a national park or a wildlife sanctuary. No human activity is permitted there except non-destructive research and monitoring, so that species, genetic resources and natural ecological processes remain undisturbed.

Option A, the buffer zone, surrounds the core and permits research, environmental education, training, restoration work and regulated eco-tourism, all of which are activities that would not be allowed in the core. Options B and D name the same outermost zone, called the transition or manipulation zone, where settlements, cropping, forestry, grazing and recreation are permitted under sustainable management. That the outer zones allow people is exactly what makes a biosphere reserve different from a national park, and it is a standard statement question.

The correct answer is A, Nagarjunsagar Srisailam, which spreads over the Nallamala hills in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and is the largest tiger reserve in the country by area.

Option B, the Sunderbans in West Bengal, is the only mangrove tiger habitat in India and one of the nine original reserves, but it is smaller. Option C, Corbett in Uttarakhand, is the park from which Project Tiger was launched and is among the best known reserves, yet size is not its distinction. Option D, Kanha in Madhya Pradesh, is another of the original nine and is famous as the home of the hard ground barasingha. Each of these three is the right answer to some other question about tiger reserves, which is exactly why they appear here.

The correct answer is B, Gulf of Kachchh Biosphere Reserve. Designated in 2008 in Gujarat, it covers the largest area of any biosphere reserve in India, taking in the marine national park and sanctuary of the gulf together with its islands, coral reefs, mangroves and mudflats, which support corals, dugongs, dolphins and large numbers of migratory shorebirds.

Option A, the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, is the oldest in India, designated in 1986, but it is smaller in area than the Kachchh reserve. Option C, the Sunderbans Biosphere Reserve in West Bengal, designated in 1989, holds the largest mangrove forest of the country and the royal Bengal tiger, but again it is not the largest by area. Option D, the Cold Desert Biosphere Reserve of Himachal Pradesh, designated in 2009, covers the high Himalayan cold desert and is known for the snow leopard. Note that first and largest are different questions.