Environment & Biodiversity MCQs

Notes:
The Keoladeo National Park (KNP) is located in the Bharatpur district of Rajasthan. It is home to Nilgai, feral cattle, chital deer, wild boar, Indian porcupine, etc. The park is famous avifauna sanctuary that hosts thousands of birds, especially during the winter season. The reserve protects Bharatpur from frequent floods, provides grazing grounds for village cattle, and earlier was primarily used as a waterfowl hunting ground.

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The Sitanadi Wildlife Sanctuary (SWS) is located in Dhamtari District, Chhattisgarh and covers an area of 556 square kilometers. It is a famous tourist attraction which is frequented by wildlife enthusiasts throughout the year. It is named after Sitanadi River which originates from this sanctuary and joins Mahanadi River near Deokhut. Sitanadi Wildlife Sanctuary is known for its lush green flora and rich and unique and diverse fauna and has great potential to emerge as one of the finest wildlife destinations in Central India.

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Heavy rainfall will result in leaching of basic cations such as calcium, magnesium etc but only ions that are resistant to leaching (such as Aluminium, Iron) will be left. This will lead to formation of the acidic soil. Further, heavy rainfall also results in accumulation of salts, anaerobic conditions disastrous for soil microbes etc. Thus, overall, heavy rainfall results in decrease / fall in the fertility of the soil.

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GRIHA is a rating tool that enables people check the performance of their building against certain nationally acceptable guidelines. It provides a definitive standard for ‘green building’ by evaluating the environmental performance of a building.

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The United Nation Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre is an executive agency of UN Environment Programme, which is based in Cambridge (UK). It was previously managed by IUCN, UN Environment Programme and WWF.

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Global warming potential (GWP) is defined as the heat absorbed by the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, as a multiple of the heat that would be absorbed by the same mass of CO2. GWP is 1 for CO2. For other gases it depends on the gas and circumstances.

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An extremely cold region that lacks trees and has a permanently frozen subsurface soil. The permanently frozen soil layer is called permafrost.

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In troposphere vertical movement or convection of air generates clouds. There is no regular convection and associated turbulence in stratosphere. In Mesosphere, Noctilucent clouds are formed which are small ice crystals which requires a combination of very low temperatures, a source of water vapour, and nuclei on which ice can grow.

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A weather front is a boundary separating two masses of air of different densities.The wind rotates clockwise in the northern hemisphere in anticyclonic condition and counter clockwise in southern hemisphere. It has high pressure area in the central region with dry and bright conditions.

Notes:
Soil carbon refers to the carbon held within the soil, mainly as organic content. Soil carbon is the largest terrestrial pool of carbon (2,200 Giga tonnes). Soil carbon plays a key role in the carbon cycle and thus is important in global climate models. It has been shown that l kg of carbon released from the soil constitutes 3.64kg of Co2 in the atmosphere. The exchange of carbon between soils and the atmosphere is a significant part of the world carbon cycle, which is extensive both spatially and temporally. Carbon, as it relates to the organic matter of soils, is a major component of soil and catchment health. With reference to Carbon sequestration, the soil is one of the largest reservoirs, where carbon could be restored.