Geography Mock Exam

• Trees in layers - emergements, canopy, understory, groud layer (lush/dense)
• Near equator between tropics - warm
• Warm, moist, rising air making it rainy
• Average Temp. = 26*C
• 2500mm of rainfall - providing good growing condititions

Soil: 

• Mainly thin and poor
• Nutrients washed out by leaching
• nutrients gained via nutrient cycle
• nutrients come from decomposing dead leaf litter

Plants:

• Butress Roots - big roots supporting tall tree trunks
• Thick, waxy leaves with drip tips - channel water to run off, water weight doesn't damage plant
• Emergements - only have branches at the top where most light reaches them
• Large leaves - to allow as much light to be absorbed as possible
• Climbing Plants - use tree trunks to climb higher to be closer to sunlight

Animals:

• Strong, long limbs - to climb and leap - howler monkey
• Flaps of skin - allowing them to glide between trees - flying squirrels
• Suction cups - to climb - red-eyed tree frogs
• Camoflauged - to hide from predetors - leaf tailed geckos
• Nocturnal - the night is cooler, save energy - sloths

Causes:

• Logging for timber and pulp 
• Commercial Farming - Crops (palm oil and soya beans), cattle ranching
• Substinance Farming - areas cleared by burning, area farmed for fruits, soil loses fertility
• Mining and Mineral extraction - coal, copper and diamond found, 70% of Peruvian Rainforest
• Hydro-electric Power - large dams are flooding area, more planned for Brazil 
• Settlements - used for building plots
• Road Building 
• Natural causes - forest fires, volcanoes, tropical storms

Impacts

• LED Income - sale of resoures increases  income
• Climate Change - drier climate dirupting water cycle
• River Pollution - kills fish, gold mining 
• Decline of indigneous tribes - forced out by construction of ranches, roads and mines - only 240 tribes left, lost knowledge, adapt to different lifestyle
• Conflicts - between loggers and indigneous people
• Economic Development - companies pay tax to government, cheaper energy - pollution of water, dead plants due to higher temperatures
• Loss of biodiversity - loss of habitat, 50,000 species lost per year, endangered
• Soil Errosion - roots and trees bind soil 
• Global Warming - higher CO2, reduced oxygen

• Coltan is mined for - used in phone batteries
• The Democratic Republic of Congo is located in Centeral Africa

• Local People of DRC - workers in mines are mistreated, rebel groups have killed 3.2 million
• Eastern Lowland Gorillas - hunted and eaten as bush meat, lack of biodiversity and tourism
• Rebels of DRC - civil war vs government, sell coltan to buy military weapons 
• Environment - Deforestation clears the land, pollutes water supplies, impacts tourism

• Ecuador, S America
• 6002 USD GDP

• Palm oil plantations built
• Logging of mahogony
• machinery from mining releases gases 
• Mercury can pollute rivers and poison fish
• Loss of habitat for spectacled bear and jaguar

• An area recieving less that 250mm of rainfall per year.
• Found in a belt across the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn at 30 degrees
• Dry continential exteriors
• Wide spread areas within landmass
• Atacoma, S America anomaly - long coastal location
• Air rises, condenses and sinks over the tropics
• Cloud cover
• Not enough wind to blow clouds in land - dry climate
• infertile soil - lack of water and vegetation

Doha Desert

• High diurnal range 26*C - 40*C in the same month 
• Fluctuating night temp. due to no cloud cover 
• Dry seasons - no rainfall

• High evaporation rates
• little organic matter in soil 
• very hot dry day temp.
• lack of water and food
• little shade
• hot ground
• high diurnal range 

• Bat eared fox - large ears, allow quicker cooling and a greater surface area maximising heat loss
• Peringuey adder - camoflauged - slithers sideways to minimise contact with sand
• Cottontail rabbit - nocturnal, camoflauged, sleeps underground - cooler 
• Camel - hump stores fat, double eyelashes, tough lips
• Acacia Trees - long tap roots reaching to soil
• Cacti - few or no leaves - lower SA

• Agriculture - oasis provide underground water sources, dates and figs are grown, irrigation brings money to commercial farming
• Energy - Israel, Algeria and S Africa have been involved with solar energy, high levels of solar energy 
• Mineral extraction - iron ore from Australia, Diamonds from S Africa and Silver from USA
• Tourism - Beaches of Dubai are popular, desert tools popular, luxury resorts Burj Al Arab Dubai 

• Extreme temperatures - 50*C, working outside is hot, melting tarmac, plants cannot grow
• Lack of drinking water - limited rainfall, living without water isn't possible, building isn't safe
• Accessibility - workers cannot get there, materials cannot be transported

• Arabian penninsula, East of Saudi Arabia
• GNI per head $91742

• Pearl Fishing 
• Oil and gas - sales increasing income, 50 years worth of oil left
• Tourism - Quatar continues to develop tourism, sand dune trips and camel rides

• No surface water - largest consumers, high evaporation rates
• Reliance on desalination plants - expensive
• Little Farming - agriculture supports 0.1% of GNI
• Falling price of oil 

• Building mega-resevoirs in Doha
• Irrigation

• Marginal Lands - areas with good conditions, eg. rainfall
• Over cultivation - excessive use of farmland
• Desertification - A reduction in the biological productivity of the land, leading to deserts
• Monoculture - the farming of a single crop 
• Cash Crops - growing crops that will make money