Unit 4-Land and Water Use Study Guide Name_________________________
AP Environmental Science Date__________________________
What’s on the test?
The unit 4 test will be structured in the same manner as the AP Exam but reduced in length and time by approximately 50%. The unit 4 test has 35 multiple choice questions, worth 1.7 points each, and a choice of free response questions. Your answer to the free response question will be worth 40 points. The test is worth 100 points total. All tests/quizzes combined are worth 30% of your grade.
What can I use on the test?
The real AP Exam does not allow notes or calculators so they will not be allowed on our unit test.
What part of the textbook should I read for the test? Useful Chapters: 3, 10, 12, 13, 16
Pages with details: 5-6, 33-34, 57-60, 64-67, 70-74, 78-79, 92-93, 109, 160, 244-245, 250-252, 264-289, 329-330, 342-350, 328-348 , 357-377, 414-415, 430, 457-467, 649, 673-675
What vocabulary should I know for the test?
acid drainage, antibiotics, aquaculture, arable land, Australia, biological (pest) control, Brazil, CAFOs, calorie, clear cutting, coal mining, coal reserves, compaction, corn, cyanide, DDT, desertification, drift net, drip irrigation, eradication, erosion, even aged forest, farm raised salmon, floodplain, gill net, gold, green revolution, groundwater recharge, Indonesia, integrated pest management, legislation, logging, long line fishing, maximum sustainable yield, metals, mining, mitigation, monoculture, mountaintop removal, National Forest, National Parks, National Wildlife Refuge, NEPA, nitrates, nutrient, old growth forest, organic agriculture, overburden, overfishing, overgrazing, persistent organic pesticide, pesticide, pesticide resistance,
pesticide treadmill, pheromones, phytoremediation, preservation, reserves, rainforest, reclamation, remediation, restoration, rice, salinization, selective cutting, shelter-wood cutting, slash and burn, spoil heaps, soil salinization, sustainable forestry, tailings, tragedy of the commons, trawling, UN Conference on the Human Environment, uneven aged forest, urbanization, wheat, Wilderness Act yield,
What questions should I answer to prepare for the multiple choice section of the test? 1. Where are the most reserves for metals and coal found?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. Where are most of the worlds forest, old-growth forests, and rain forests found? (Regions and Countries)
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. What is integrated pest management, its methods, and its goals? How does that compare to biological control?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. What are the most commonly consumed foods in the world? By developing countries? Developed countries?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 5. What is the pesticide treadmill, the process of pesticide resistant pests, and the effects?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 6. What has happened to most of the world’s commercial fisheries since industrialized fishing? What are its methods?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 7. What are the methods and effects of logging?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 8. What is a persistent organic pesticide?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 9. What are the causes, effects, and solutions to overgrazing?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 10. What is desertification, its causes, effects, and locations?
11. What was the green revolution? What methods of agriculture were used during this time?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 12. What are the various types of land conservation?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 13. What is urbanization and its environmental effects?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 14. What is soil salinization, its effects, causes, and solutions?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 15. What is a floodplain and why do humans settle and farm there?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 16. What were the various land use legislations and their significance (NEPA, UN Conference on the Human Environment,
Magnuson Fisheries Act)?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 17. What is the tragedy of the commons, examples of it, and solutions to it?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 18. What are the various types of mining, the effects, and the restoration process?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 19. Compare and contrast the various types of agriculture (sustainable, CAFOs, organic, aquaculture).
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 20. How are lands managed in National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges, National Forests, and Wilderness areas?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Practice Free Response Questions
1. (2005 Released Exam FRQ #2) Between 1950 and 2000, global meat production increased from 52 billion kilograms to 240 billion kilograms. During this period, the global human population increased from 2.6 billion to 6.0 billion.
a. Calculate the per capita meat production in 1950 and in 2000.
b. Use the values from part a to calculate the change in global per capita meat production during this 50 year period as a percentage of the 1950 value.
c. Discuss why it is more efficient to produce grain for human consumption than to produce meat for human consumption. In your answer, consider both land use and energy.
d. Describe two environmental consequences of the increase in the production of meat for human consumption. e. Identify and explain one potential advantage and disadvantage for human health of a diet that contains very little
meat.
2. (2008 Released Exam FRQ #3) For decades, forest fires in the United States have been suppressed. In 2003 legislation was passed under the Healthy Forests Initiative (HFI) in response to the record-breaking wildfires that had occurred in the early 2000s. Some environmental and conservation groups fear that negative impacts could result if timber companies are encouraged to harvest medium- and large-size trees in federally owned forests while clearing away the smaller trees and underbrush.
a. Identify TWO characteristics of forests that develop when fires are suppressed, and explain why the practice of fire suppression does not reduce, but actually increases, the risk of intense and extensive forest fires.
b. The effects of the HFI are expected to extend beyond fire reduction. Excluding fire reduction, describe ONE positive and ONE negative effect likely to result from the implementation of the provisions of the HFI.
c. Describe TWO ecosystem services provided for humans by forests. Explain how clear-cutting would affect each ecosystem service you describe.
d. Identify a specific type of plant community or biome (other than a forest) that is naturally maintained by fire. Explain how the fire maintains the community or biome.
3. (1999 Released Exam FRQ #2) The development of plans for long term resource management depends on understanding the patterns and consequences of resource use.
a. Describe what makes a resource renewable or nonrenewable. Give a specific example of a renewable resource and of a nonrenewable resource.
d. Economic policies and practices affect society’s progress toward achieving sustainable resource use. Discuss one policy or practice that facilitates this progress, and one that impedes it.
4. (2005 Released Exam FRQ #2) Most of the coal mined in the United States today comes from surface (strip) mines. In surface mining, the vegetation, soil, and rock covering the coal (referred to as overburden) are removed and set aside. After the coal has been hauled away, good conservation practices require that the overburden be replaced and the surface be restored to its original condition. Land restoration may be difficult in some regions due to factors such as the local climate, the thickness of the coal seam, the extent of the overburden, and the sulfur content of the coal.
a. Describe the steps that should be taken to restore the land after the overburden has been replaced.
b. Explain why restoration of the land would likely be more difficult in an arid climate (one with less than 10 inches of precipitation per year).
c. Describe one environmental impact that the sulfur content of the remaining coal and the tailings would have on the reclamation process and suggest a possible remedy.
d. Other than mining reclamation, describe two environmental impacts of using coal for energy e. Explain why per capita coal consumption in the United States is likely to increase.
5. (2009 Released Exam FRQ #4) The major issues in modern agriculture include the use of genetically modified (GM) crops and the implementation of sustainable agricultural practices. The following graph shows the increase in the use of GM crops in both developing and industrialized countries from 1995 to 2004.
a. Reply to the following questions based on the data in the graph above.
i. Calculate the increase in the area of land used for growing GM crops in developing countries from 1999 to 2003. Express your answer as a percentage of the 1999 value. ii. Calculate the
annual rate of increase in land area used for growing GM crops in industrialized countries from 1997 to 1999. iii. Using the rate you calculated in part (ii), project the area of land that would
have been expected to be used for GM crops in industrialized countries in 2004.
iv. Identify one likely cause for the difference between the projected land area for GM crops in industrialized countries in 2004 and the actual land area for GM crops in industrialized countries in 2004.
b. Describe one environmental advantage and one environmental disadvantage of using GM crops.
d. A healthy soil ecosystem is of primary importance in sustainable agriculture. Describe TWO viable agricultural practices that farmers can use to maintain or improve soil quality.
e. Identify and describe one environmental advantage and one economic advantage of consuming locally grown produce.
6. (2011 Released Exam FRQ #1) Read the following article from the Fremont Inquirer and answer the questions that follow.
a. As mentioned in the article, there are several possible explanations for the increase in mountain pine beetles.
i. Provide one reason why fire-suppression policies lead to increased beetle activity.
ii. Reduced winter mortality of beetle larvae is likely a consequence of global climate change. Describe TWO ways that the activities of the beetles might enhance climate change.
b. The widespread death of trees leads to a series of changes in a forest ecosystem. Identify TWO physical changes that occur in the forest ecosystem as the result of the death of mature trees. For each physical change you identify, describe an impact of that change on the forest ecosystem.
c. As the article states, the number of managed honeybee colonies has dropped significantly over the past few decades. Describe TWO specific economic consequences of the collapse of the managed honeybee colonies.
7. (2011 Released Exam FRQ #4) As the world’s population increases and availability of new arable land decreases, providing sufficient food for the world’s human population is
becoming increasingly difficult. The table below shows the area of land needed to feed the world’s population from 1900 projected to the year 2060.
a. On the graph below, plot the data from the table above and draw a smooth curve.
b. Assume that the maximum arable land area on Earth is 4.00 billion hectares. Using the smooth curve that you created above, determine the year in which the human population is likely to run out of arable land for agriculture.
c. Soil quality is a critical factor in agriculture. Identify TWO physical and/or chemical properties of soils and describe the role of each property in determining soil quality. d. Describe TWO viable strategies for reducing the amount of land needed for
agriculture.
e. One problem that can result from agriculture is soil salinization. i. Describe how salinization occurs.
