Environment, Wildlife & Disasters: previous-year questions

Answer: (D) Manas Biosphere Reserve

Manas is in Assam, along the Bhutan border: a National Park, Tiger Reserve, Biosphere Reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site (1985), known for the pygmy hog, golden langur and Bengal florican. The other three are in the hills and Dooars of North Bengal: Singalila National Park in Darjeeling district (Sandakphu, the highest point of West Bengal, and the red panda); Chapramari Wildlife Sanctuary in Jalpaiguri district near Gorumara; and Namthing Pokhari near Kurseong, a Biodiversity Heritage Site protecting the Himalayan salamander. West Bengal's only biosphere reserve is the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve (1989).

Answer: (B) Kerala

Silent Valley National Park lies in the Nilgiri hills of Palakkad district, Kerala, and protects tropical evergreen rainforest; a 1970s campaign stopped a hydel dam there. It adjoins Tamil Nadu's Nilgiris, which makes (A) tempting, but the park is in Kerala.

Answer: (D) Madhya Pradesh.

Sanjay–Dubri Tiger Reserve lies in Sidhi and Shahdol districts of Madhya Pradesh, adjoining Chhattisgarh's Guru Ghasidas park. Tamil Nadu and Assam have other tiger reserves, such as Mudumalai and Kaziranga, and Goa's Mhadei is a wildlife sanctuary.

Answer: (C) (3) (2) (4) (1)

Kanha is in Madhya Pradesh (3), Periyar in Kerala (2), Mudumalai in Tamil Nadu (4) and Manas in Assam (1), giving 3-2-4-1. Option (A) swaps Mudumalai and Manas, which is the tempting error.

Answer: (C) Jammu & Kashmir

Dachigam National Park near Srinagar in Jammu & Kashmir is known as the home of the hangul, the Kashmir stag. Himachal, Uttarakhand and Sikkim have other parks such as Great Himalayan, Corbett and Khangchendzonga.

Answer: (D) Paddy fields

Flooded paddy fields have waterlogged, oxygen-free soil in which methanogenic bacteria decompose organic matter and release methane ($CH_4$), also known as marsh gas. Flower gardens, orchards and tea gardens stand on well-drained soils and emit very little. India's other large methane sources are enteric fermentation in ruminant livestock (the biggest single source), landfills, coal mines and biomass burning. Methane is the main constituent of natural gas, CNG and biogas, and has about 28 times the warming effect of $CO_2$ over 100 years. Emissions from rice can be cut by alternate wetting and drying, direct seeding and the System of Rice Intensification.

Answer: (C) IRS

Land Use / Land Cover (LULC) mapping in India is done mainly with ISRO's Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites, beginning with IRS-1A in 1988, and later ones such as Resourcesat. LANDSAT is also used for land-cover mapping, but it is an American series (NASA/USGS, from 1972), not Indian. METEOSAT is a European weather satellite series. INSAT is India's geostationary series for communication, broadcasting and weather.

Answer: (C) Tropical dry forest

In the biogeographical classification used for India's protected areas and biosphere reserves, the deciduous sal and mixed forests of central India, including Kanha in Madhya Pradesh, fall in the tropical dry (deciduous) forest biome. Tropical monsoon forest is the tempting option, as the same biome includes monsoon forests. Tropical humid forests are the evergreen forests of the Western Ghats, the North-East and the Andamans. Kanha is famous for saving the hard-ground barasingha (swamp deer) from near extinction.

Answer: (A) 3 2 1 4

Gir in Gujarat is the last home of the Asiatic lion (I–3), Kaziranga in Assam is famous for the one-horned rhinoceros (III–1), and Bandipur is a tiger reserve in Karnataka next to Mudumalai and Nagarhole (IV–4). Only option (A) gives these three pairs, which leaves Dachigam with item 2. Dachigam is actually near Srinagar in Jammu & Kashmir, home of the hangul (Kashmir stag), not in Uttar Pradesh. As printed, no list entry gives Dachigam's true location, so the intended match is (A).

Answer: (D) Madhya Pradesh

Answer as of 2022 — this may have changed since.

Madhya Pradesh has the most tiger reserves of any state; Veerangana Durgavati, notified in September 2023, became its seventh, after Kanha, Pench, Bandhavgarh, Panna, Satpura and Sanjay-Dubri. It has since added Ratapani (2024) and Madhav (2025), taking the total to nine. Maharashtra has six, including Tadoba-Andhari and Melghat, which makes (C) the tempting option. Assam has Kaziranga, Manas, Nameri and Orang. West Bengal has two, the Sundarbans and Buxa.

Answer: (B) Alwar

Sariska Tiger Reserve lies in the Aravalli hills of Alwar district, Rajasthan; it lost all its tigers by 2004-05 and became the first reserve in the world where tigers were successfully relocated (from Ranthambore, 2008). Bharatpur has the Keoladeo Ghana bird sanctuary, a UNESCO World Heritage Site; Darrah near Kota is now part of the Mukundara Hills Tiger Reserve; Pushkar near Ajmer is known for its lake, Brahma temple and camel fair. Ranthambore is in Sawai Madhopur.

No option is correct as printed — this question is disputed. No answer is actually correct answer here. But we should follow the PSC answer.

The UN's actual International Day of the Tropics falls on 29 June, marking the 2014 launch of the first "State of the Tropics" report — a date that is not among the given options. PSC provided answer 26th June

Answer: (C) Richter scale

Popularly, earthquake strength is reported on the Richter scale (which technically measures magnitude, i.e., energy released); intensity — the felt effect at a location — is strictly measured by the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale, a nuance worth knowing for exams.

Answer: (A) False

NIDM traces its origin to 2003, when it was established as the National Centre for Disaster Management; it was renamed the National Institute of Disaster Management under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 (effective 2006) — so the bare claim that it was "established" in 2006 is not accurate.

Answer: (A) National Centre of Disaster Management

NIDM began in 2003 as the National Centre for Disaster Management before being renamed under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

Answer: (B) Gujarat

Vansda National Park is situated in Navsari district, Gujarat, and is notable for its moist deciduous forest cover, unusual for the otherwise dry state.

Answer: (C) mangrove forest

UNESCO inscribed the Sundarbans National Park (the Indian portion of the larger delta) as a World Heritage Site in 1987, recognising it as the world's largest contiguous mangrove forest ecosystem.

Answer: (D) Dachigam: Asiatic lions

Dachigam National Park in Jammu & Kashmir is famous for the endangered Hangul (Kashmir stag), not Asiatic lions — the world's only wild Asiatic lion population is found in Gir Forest, Gujarat, not Dachigam, making this the incorrectly matched pair.

Answer: (C) Pandurang Hegde of Sirsi

The Appiko movement began in September 1983 in the Salkani forest near Sirsi (Uttara Kannada, Karnataka) under Pandurang Hegde; 'appiko' means 'to hug' in Kannada, and it was inspired by the Chipko movement of Uttarakhand (1973; Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Gaura Devi, Sundarlal Bahuguna). Sarala Behn and Mira Behn were Gandhi's disciples who worked in the Kumaon-Garhwal hills, and Bahuguna is linked with Tehri, not with Appiko.

Answer: (A) 1972

Following the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm, India established the National Committee on Environmental Planning and Coordination that same year.