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Environmental Management flashcards

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Topic 1: Natural resources

Igneous rock: Forms when magma or lava cools and crystallises. Granite cools slowly underground (large crystals); basalt cools quickly at the surface (small crystals).
Sedimentary rock: Forms when layers are deposited, then compacted and cemented. Examples: limestone, sandstone and shale.
Metamorphic rock: Existing rock changed by heat and/or pressure, without melting. Marble comes from limestone and slate from shale.
Name the eight processes of the rock cycle: Weathering, erosion, transportation, deposition, sedimentation, compaction, cementation and crystallisation.
Is shale permeable? Explain.: No. Although it is sedimentary, shale is impermeable: water cannot pass through its pore spaces. Limestone and sandstone are permeable; igneous and metamorphic rocks are impermeable.
Define an ore: Rock containing minerals and metals.
Surface vs subsurface extraction: Surface: material is removed from near the surface by opencast, open-pit, open-cut or strip mining. Subsurface: deep or shaft mining reaches deposits far underground.
What are the two forms of biological extraction?: Phytomining (plants take up metal compounds, are burned, and the metal is recovered from the ash) and bioleaching (bacteria release metal compounds from low-grade ore into solution).
What impacts can extraction have?: Loss of habitat and biodiversity; air, land, noise, visual and water pollution; water use; waste; and changes to jobs, local and national economies, and facilities and infrastructure.
Land restoration: Returning extraction sites towards their earlier state: replacing overburden, improving soil, bioremediation and tree planting.
Repurposing land: Giving old extraction sites a new use: landfill, lakes, recreation or nature reserves.
Why are mineral ores called finite resources?: They are used up faster than they are replaced by natural processes.
Define sustainable management of resources: The use of strategies that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
List seven strategies for sustainable use of rocks and minerals: Reduce and reuse; recycling; more efficient extraction; avoiding resource depletion; legislation; enforcement; alternative materials.
Why does legislation alone not protect mineral resources?: Laws set rules but only work if they are enforced, and enforcement needs money and staff.
Coal formation: Swamp plants partly decay in waterlogged, low-oxygen conditions, are buried, and are changed by heat and pressure over millions of years.
Describe the formation of petroleum and natural gas: Marine organisms die and settle in sea-bed mud, are buried without oxygen, and are changed by heat and pressure over millions of years. The fuels collect beneath impermeable rock.
Classify nuclear power, tidal power, biogas and natural gas: Renewable: tidal power, biogas. Non-renewable: nuclear power (uses uranium), natural gas (a fossil fuel).
How do hydro-electric, tidal and wave power generate electricity?: Moving water turns a turbine, which drives a generator.
Give one benefit and one limitation of wind power: Benefit: no emissions during generation. Limitation: output depends on the wind, so supply is intermittent.
How do wealth and climate affect energy demand?: Richer people and countries use more energy for transport, appliances and industry. Very hot or very cold climates raise demand for cooling or heating.
List eight ways of managing energy resources: Reducing consumption; insulation; energy-efficient devices and vehicles, including electric vehicles; exploiting existing resources; education; transport policies; battery storage; developing new energy resources.
Where does blue hydrogen come from, and where does green hydrogen come from?: Blue hydrogen: produced from natural gas. Green hydrogen: produced using renewable resources.
Ground source vs air source heat pumps: Ground source: transfer heat from the ground to heat a building. Air source: transfer heat from the air to heat a building.
Why are insulation and electric vehicles said to save energy "over time"?: They reduce energy use for years, but they cost more at the start than behaviour changes such as switching off devices.
Define fracking: The extraction of natural gas or petroleum from shale rock by hydraulic fracturing.
Describe how hydraulic fracturing works: Water, sand and chemicals are pumped down a well at high pressure to crack the impermeable shale, so the gas or oil can escape through the cracks to the well.
Give two benefits of fracking for a country: A larger national gas and oil supply with fewer imports, and jobs and tax income. Gas also emits less carbon dioxide than coal when generating electricity.
Give two environmental limitations of fracking: It uses large amounts of water and risks contaminating ground water. It can also trigger small earthquakes and leak methane, and it is still a fossil fuel.

Topic 2: Land

Name the four components of soil: Mineral particles (sand, silt and clay), organic matter, air and water.
What makes loam the best soil for farming?: A balanced mix of particles and pore spaces, so it holds moisture but drains well, has organic and mineral nutrients, and is easy to cultivate.
What do nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium do for crops?: Nitrogen (as nitrate) supports leaf growth and protein; phosphorus (as phosphate) supports roots; potassium supports flowering, fruiting and disease resistance.
Why does soil pH matter for crops?: It affects which nutrients plants can absorb. Most crops grow best in soil that is close to neutral, so acidic soils are often limed.
Arable vs pastoral vs mixed farming: Arable: growing crops. Pastoral: rearing livestock. Mixed: both on the same farm.
Intensive farming vs monoculture: Intensive: high inputs of labour, capital, fertiliser or machinery to get a high yield from a small area. Monoculture: growing a single crop over a large area.
How do crop rotation and intercropping help yields?: Rotation changes the crop each season so nutrients are not exhausted and pests do not build up. Intercropping grows different crops together so they use space and nutrients efficiently.
What are hydroponics and aeroponics?: Growing plants without soil in controlled environments: hydroponics with roots in nutrient solution, aeroponics with roots misted by nutrient solution.
How can growing cash crops or biofuels cause food shortages?: Land that could grow food for local people is used for crops sold abroad or turned into fuel.
Why does deforestation lead to soil erosion?: Without roots to bind the soil and leaves to intercept rain, rain and wind remove the exposed topsoil.
How can soil erosion lead to famine and migration?: Loss of fertile topsoil lowers crop yields and can lead to desertification, causing malnutrition, famine and the displacement of people.
What are bunds, and how do they reduce erosion?: Low walls of earth or stones built along the contour of a slope. They slow run-off, trap soil and help water soak in.
How does adding organic matter reduce soil erosion?: It improves soil structure, binding particles together and helping the soil hold water, so it is less easily washed or blown away.

Topic 3: Water

Infiltration vs surface run-off vs through-flow: Infiltration: water soaking into the soil. Surface run-off: water flowing over the ground surface. Through-flow: water moving sideways through the soil.
Where can fresh water be obtained?: From the atmosphere (rain), surface water (lakes and rivers), ground water (wells and aquifers) and desalinated sea water.
Put the water treatment stages in order and give the purpose of each: Screening removes large objects; sedimentation lets particles settle; filtration through sand and gravel removes fine particles; chlorination kills microorganisms. The result is potable (drinkable) water.
How does reverse osmosis desalinate water?: Pressure forces sea water through a membrane that holds back the salt. It usually uses less energy than distillation, but the membranes need maintenance.
Give two benefits and two limitations of a multipurpose dam: Benefits: hydro-electric power, flood control, irrigation water, storage, recreation. Limitations: high cost, people and habitats displaced, silt trapped, river ecosystems downstream disrupted.
Explain how fertiliser run-off can kill fish in a lake: Nutrients cause an algal bloom, which blocks light so plants die. Bacteria decomposing the dead material use up the oxygen, and fish suffocate. This is eutrophication.
Why do top predators have the highest levels of some toxins?: Biomagnification: the toxin builds up in each organism (bioaccumulation) and its concentration increases at each step up the food chain.
Which diseases are linked to sewage in water?: Infectious waterborne diseases such as cholera, spread when untreated sewage contaminates drinking water.
How can acid rain pollute fresh water?: Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from the air dissolve in rain, which lowers the pH of lakes and rivers and harms aquatic organisms.
Malaria vs cholera: how is each spread?: Malaria: vector-borne, spread by the bite of an infected female Anopheles mosquito. Cholera: waterborne, spread by drinking water or eating food contaminated with the bacterium.
Why do insecticide-treated bed nets reduce malaria?: Anopheles mosquitoes bite mainly at night, so nets protect sleepers, and the insecticide kills mosquitoes that land on them.
Why does draining standing water help control malaria?: Mosquitoes lay their eggs in standing water, so removing it reduces the number of vectors.
Give a limitation of vaccination as a way to control cholera: Vaccines may not reach everyone at risk, especially in poor or disaster-hit areas, and they do not replace the need for clean water and sanitation.
Define marine aquaculture: Farming marine species, such as fish, crustaceans and seaweeds, in captivity.
Overfishing vs overharvesting: Overfishing: catching fish faster than stocks can reproduce. Overharvesting: taking any wild species, such as shellfish or seaweed, faster than it can recover.
Give two problems marine aquaculture can cause: Farmed animals can escape and spread disease to wild stocks, and waste and uneaten feed cause nutrient enrichment. Wild fish may also be caught to feed farmed species.
How do mesh sizes, quotas and closed seasons protect fish stocks?: Larger mesh lets young fish escape to breed; quotas limit the total catch; closed seasons stop fishing while fish breed.
Name sources of oil pollution at sea: Off-shore oil extraction, pipelines, shipping and tanker accidents, cleaning tanks at sea, and refineries on shore.
Why is oil so harmful to seabirds?: It coats their feathers, which then lose their insulation and waterproofing, and birds swallow it while preening.
What is MARPOL?: The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, which sets international rules to prevent pollution, including oil discharges, from ships.
Prevention vs minimising the impact of oil spills: Prevention: MARPOL, double-hulled tankers, risk assessments, regular maintenance. Minimising impact: improved navigation, booms, sorbents, skimmers, detergent sprays, controlled burning.
Does a bioplastic always biodegrade?: No. Bioplastics are made fully or partly from biological material, but some are not biodegradable.
Define microplastics: Plastic pieces smaller than 5 mm, formed when larger plastic items break down.
How do plastics harm marine animals?: Animals become entangled, or mistake plastic for food, and plastics and their chemicals build up in organisms and food chains.
Suggest ways to reduce plastic pollution: Use alternative packaging, avoid single-use plastics, dispose of waste safely, recycle, and pass and enforce laws.

Topic 4: The atmosphere and human activities

Give the approximate percentages of the main gases in dry air: Nitrogen about 78%, oxygen about 21%, argon just under 1%, carbon dioxide about 0.04%.
Which atmospheric layer contains the ozone layer, and which holds our weather?: The ozone layer is in the stratosphere. Weather happens in the troposphere, the lowest layer.
Why is the natural greenhouse effect necessary for life?: Greenhouse gases trap some of the heat radiated from the Earth’s surface, keeping it warm enough for liquid water.
Name four greenhouse gases: Carbon dioxide, methane, water vapour and nitrous oxide.
Natural vs enhanced greenhouse effect: Natural: keeps the Earth warm enough for life. Enhanced: extra warming caused by greenhouse gases added by human activities.
Name human activities that release methane: Rice paddies, cattle farming, landfill sites and leaks from gas extraction.
Why does global warming make sea level rise?: Seawater expands as it warms (thermal expansion), and melting land ice adds water to the oceans.
Is a sea wall mitigation or adaptation? Is tree planting?: A sea wall is adaptation: it copes with the effects. Tree planting is mitigation: it reduces the cause by absorbing carbon dioxide.
Which gases cause acid rain, and where do they come from?: Sulfur dioxide, from burning sulfur-containing fossil fuels and smelting ores, and nitrogen oxides, from vehicle engines and power stations.
What is the pH of normal rain, and why is it slightly acidic?: About 5.6, because carbon dioxide dissolves in it. Acid rain has a lower pH.
How does acid rain damage forests?: It washes nutrients out of the soil, releases aluminium that damages tree roots, and damages leaves directly.
Scrubbers vs catalytic converters: Scrubbers (flue-gas desulfurisation) remove sulfur dioxide from power station emissions. Catalytic converters reduce nitrogen oxides from vehicle exhausts.
Which chemicals destroy stratospheric ozone?: Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), formerly used in aerosols, refrigerators and foam. Ultraviolet light releases chlorine from them, which breaks down ozone.
Why does a thinner ozone layer harm health?: More ultraviolet radiation reaches the ground, increasing skin cancer and cataracts.
Why is the Montreal Protocol (1987) seen as a success?: Countries agreed to phase out CFCs and similar chemicals, replacements were introduced, and the ozone layer is slowly recovering.
How do ozone depletion and climate change differ?: Ozone depletion is caused mainly by CFCs and lets in more ultraviolet radiation. Climate change is caused mainly by extra greenhouse gases trapping heat.

Topic 5: Ecosystems, biodiversity and fieldwork

Define an ecosystem: A community of organisms interacting with each other and with the non-living environment in an area.
Food chain vs food web: A food chain shows one feeding pathway. A food web shows how many food chains link together.
What is a trophic level?: A feeding position in a food chain: producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers and so on.
Why can eating plants feed more people per hectare than eating animals?: About 90% of energy is lost at each trophic level, so eating producers directly uses far more of the energy captured by crops.
Describe the climate of a tropical rainforest: High rainfall and steady warm temperatures all year, which support very high biodiversity.
Where are most nutrients stored in a tropical rainforest?: In the living vegetation and leaf litter, not the soil, which is often thin.
Give four causes of deforestation: Clearance for farmland and plantations such as palm oil, commercial logging, mining and road building, and fuelwood collection.
How does deforestation contribute to climate change?: Fewer trees absorb carbon dioxide, and burning cleared trees releases more of it.
What are selective logging and agroforestry?: Selective logging: removing only some trees, with replanting, so the forest survives. Agroforestry: growing crops among trees.
Define biodiversity: The variety of living things in an area, including the number of species and the genetic variety within each species.
Why is high biodiversity valuable?: Ecosystems with more species are usually more resilient, and species provide food, medicines and materials. Many people also value nature for its own sake.
Give one strength and one limitation of captive breeding: Strength: can save very rare species from extinction. Limitation: expensive, and released animals need a surviving habitat.
Why do community schemes help conservation?: When local people share the benefits, such as ecotourism jobs, they support conservation in the long term, though results are slow.
What is a quadrat used for?: Counting organisms or estimating plant cover in a known area of ground, so samples can be compared.
When should a transect be used instead of random quadrats?: When conditions change gradually along a line, such as inland from a shore or away from a footpath.
What are the stages of a fieldwork investigation?: State an aim or hypothesis, plan the method, collect data, present it, analyse it and evaluate it.
Why may one field visit give unreliable results?: Populations and conditions change with season and time of day, so a single visit can miss this variation.
Six quadrats contain 2, 6, 4, 3, 5 and 4 limpets. What is the mean?: Total = 24. Mean = 24 ÷ 6 = 4 limpets per quadrat.

Topic 6: Natural hazards

Why do explosive volcanoes form at destructive plate boundaries?: One plate is forced beneath another and melts, producing magma that rises to the surface.
Why are there no volcanoes at conservative boundaries?: The plates slide past each other, so no plate is destroyed and no magma is produced. Stress is released as earthquakes.
Magnitude vs intensity of an earthquake: Magnitude: the energy released, measured on the Richter or moment magnitude scale. Intensity: how strongly shaking is felt at a place, measured on the Mercalli scale.
How much larger is the ground motion of a magnitude 7 earthquake than a magnitude 5?: 100 times: each whole step on the scale is a tenfold increase in ground motion, and 10 × 10 = 100.
How can volcanic eruptions be predicted?: By monitoring with seismometers for small earthquakes, gas sensors for changing emissions, and measurements of ground swelling.
What are tropical cyclones called in different regions?: Hurricanes, typhoons or cyclones, depending on the region.
Why do tropical cyclones not form on the equator?: The Earth’s rotation is needed to make the system spin, and its effect is too weak at the equator.
What powers a tropical cyclone?: Warm, moist air rises over the ocean, condenses and releases heat, which drives the storm.
How do mangroves protect coasts from cyclones?: Their dense roots and trees absorb wave energy and reduce the force of storm surges.
Why does urbanisation increase flood risk?: Impermeable surfaces such as concrete and drains send rainwater quickly to rivers, shortening lag time and raising peak discharge.
Give a benefit of flooding: Floods deposit fertile silt on floodplains, improving farmland.
Give one advantage and one disadvantage of building a flood embankment: Advantage: protects the area behind it effectively. Disadvantage: costly, and it can move the flood problem further downstream.
What is floodplain zoning?: A soft engineering approach that restricts building on land most at risk of flooding, keeping it for uses such as farmland or parks.
Define drought: A long period of below-average rainfall that leads to a shortage of water.
How can human activity make drought worse?: Overusing water and poor land management, such as overgrazing and deforestation, increase water shortage and soil damage.
Give two drought management methods suited to a low-income farming community: Rainwater harvesting and drought-resistant crops. Drip irrigation and small storage reservoirs are also suitable.
Why can drought lead to conflict and migration?: Crop failure, livestock deaths and water shortages force people to move or compete for scarce resources.

Topic 7: Human population

A country has 12 million people and an area of 300,000 km². What is its population density?: 12,000,000 ÷ 300,000 = 40 people per km².
Population density vs population distribution: Density: the average number of people per unit area. Distribution: where people live, the pattern of their spread across an area.
What does a population pyramid with a narrow base and wide top show?: An ageing population with a low birth rate and long life expectancy.
Which age groups count as dependants in the dependency ratio?: People under 15 and over 64, compared with the working-age population aged 15 to 64.
Define birth rate and death rate: Birth rate: live births per 1,000 people per year. Death rate: deaths per 1,000 people per year.
How do you calculate net migration?: Immigration − emigration.
Why do death rates fall before birth rates in the demographic transition?: Healthcare, food, clean water and sanitation improve quickly, while attitudes to family size change more slowly.
Birth rate 30, death rate 10 per 1,000. What is natural increase as a percentage, and the doubling time?: Natural increase = 20 per 1,000 = 2.0%. Doubling time ≈ 70 ÷ 2 = 35 years.
Give three anti-natalist measures: Family planning clinics and free contraception, education for girls and raising the status of women, and financial incentives for small families.
Give three pro-natalist measures: Child benefit payments, tax breaks for families, and paid parental leave and childcare.
Give one advantage and one disadvantage of a strict one-child policy: Advantage: slows population growth. Disadvantage: can cause a gender imbalance and an ageing population, and raises ethical concerns.
Why might a government encourage skilled migration?: To add working-age people who pay taxes and fill jobs, easing the pressure of an ageing population.

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Written for Cambridge O Level Environmental Management (5014), syllabus 5014 (2027-2029).

Cards by Marlbridge Academic Team; 6 restate definitions from the 5014 revision notes. This deck has not yet been reviewed as a whole by a subject teacher. Report an error.

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