Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon (Geography) – August 7, 2020

About 71 per cent of the planetary water is found in the oceans. The remaining is held as freshwater in glaciers and icecaps, groundwater sources, lakes, soil moisture, atmosphere, streams and within life. Nearly 59 per cent of the water that falls on land returns to the atmosphere through evaporation from over the oceans as well as from other places. The remainder runs-off on the surface, infiltrates into the ground or a part of it becomes glacier.

The ocean floors can be divided into four major divisions:

• The Continental Shelf;
• The Continental Slope;
• The Deep Sea Plain;
• The Oceanic Deeps.

Besides, these divisions there are also major and minor relief features in the ocean floors like ridges, hills, sea mounts, guyots, trenches, canyons, etc.

Scientists estimate that 50-80% of the oxygen production on Earth comes from the ocean.

• The majority of this production is from oceanic plankton — drifting plants, algae, and some bacteria that can photosynthesize.
• One particular species, Prochlorococcus, is the smallest photosynthetic organism on Earth.
• But this little bacteria produces up to 20% of the oxygen in our entire biosphere.
• That’s a higher percentage than all of the tropical rainforests on land combined.
• It’s important to remember that although the ocean produces at least 50% of the oxygen on Earth, roughly the same amount is consumed by marine life.
• Like animals on land, marine animals use oxygen to breathe, and both plants and animals use oxygen for cellular respiration.
• Oxygen is also consumed when dead plants and animals decay in the ocean.

A massive “dead zone” in the Arabian Sea is the largest in the world, a new study reveals.

• Dead zones are oxygen-starved ocean regions where few organisms can survive.
• They emerge in ocean depths ranging from 650 to 2,600 feet (200 to 800 meters), when influxes of chemical nutrients — typically from human pollution — spur algae growth, which sucks up oxygen.
• A significant oxygen-deprived region has bloomed in the Gulf of Oman for decades, but it was last surveyed in the 1990s.
• The Gulf of Oman, which spans 70,000 square miles (181,000 square kilometers), connects the Arabian Sea to the Persian Gulf.
• It has long been off-limits to researchers because of the region’s political instability and the threat of ocean piracy.
• For eight months, these AUVs gathered data on oxygen levels, and then transmitted their readings to the scientists via satellite.
• Researchers then used computer models to visualize the ocean currents that circulated oxygen around the gulf from the Arabian Sea.
• They found that the oxygen-poor region had grown dramatically, and the scant oxygen formerly held in the depleted zone — based on data from the 1990s — had drained significantly, leaving bigger areas with no oxygen at all.

The Black Sea is a body of water and marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean between Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Western Asia. It is supplied by a number of major rivers, including the Danube, Dnieper, Southern Bug, Dniester, Don, and the Rioni.

The highest tides in the world occur in the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Canada.

• The tidal bulge is 15 – 16 m. Because there are two high tides and two low tides every day (roughly a 24 hour period); then a tide must come in within about a six hour period.
• As a rough estimate, the tide rises about 240 cm an hour (1,440 cm divided by 6 hours).

The Peninsular drainage system is older than the Himalayan one. This is evident from the broad, largely-graded shallow valleys, and the maturity of the rivers.

• The Western Ghats running close to the western coast act as the water divide between the major Peninsular Rivers, discharging their water in the Bay of Bengal and as small rivulets joining the Arabian Sea.
• Most of the major Peninsular Rivers except Narmada and Tapi flow from west to east. The Chambal, the Sind, the Betwa, the Ken, the Son, originating in the northern part of the Peninsula belong to the Ganga river system.
• The other major river systems of the peninsular drainage are – the Mahanadi the Godavari, the Krishna and the Kaveri. Peninsular rivers are characterised by fixed course, absence of meanders and non-perennial flow of water.
• The Narmada and the Tapi which flow through the rift valley are, however, exceptions.

In ancient India, cotton textiles were produced with hand spinning and handloom weaving techniques.

• After the 18th century, power-looms came into use. Our traditional industries suffered a setback during the colonial period because they could not compete with the mill-made cloth from England.
• The first successful textile mill was established in Mumbai in 1854. The two world wars were fought in Europe, India was a British colony.
• There was a demand for cloth in U.K. hence; they gave a boost to the development of the cotton textile industry.
• The first jute mill was set up near Kolkata in 1859 at Rishra.
• After Partition in 1947, the jute mills remained in India but three-fourth of the jute producing area went to Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan).

The Mitigation of Climate Change in Agriculture (MICCA) programme strengthens FAO’s longstanding work to address climate change in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors and supports countries participating in the climate change negotiation processes within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, announced a new global campaign calling on people all over the world to cover the distance travelled by refugees each year.

• The 2 Billion Kilometres to Safety campaign will encourage people to support refugees by championing individual acts of solidarity. These acts, when taken together, acknowledge the resilience and strength of refugees.
• UNHCR traced the journeys of refugees around the world and calculated that collectively, people forced to flee travel approximately two billion kilometres every year to reach the first point of safety.
• In 2016, Syrian refugees travelled more than 240 kilometres to reach Turkey. South Sudanese refugees travelled more than 640 kilometres to reach Kenya and Rohingya refugees in Myanmar travelled approximately 80 kilometres to reach Bangladesh.
• The 2 Billion Kilometres to Safety campaign invites people to act in solidarity and run, walk or cycle to achieve a cumulative total of two billion kilometres.