3.2.3.8 Sustainable urban development Quiz: AQA Geography, Unit 2

The 20 questions

1. The ecological footprint of an urban area measures:

   • The total area covered by buildings in the city
   • The land and water area needed to supply the resources a population uses and absorb its wastes
   • The number of parks per square kilometre
   • The average height of structures in the city centre

2. Which four dimensions are typically used to describe urban sustainability?

   • Demographic, climatic, geological and biological
   • Natural, physical, social and economic
   • Technological, military, agricultural and transport
   • Political, cultural, historical and religious

3. The concept of liveability in urban geography refers to:

   • The distance a person travels to work each day only
   • The number of residents who live in a single house
   • The quality of life in a place, shaped by environment, services, safety and access to opportunities
   • The total amount of rainfall a city receives each year

4. Which feature is most typical of a sustainable city?

   • Dispersed low-density development with heavy car dependence
   • Compact development with public transport, green space and efficient resource use
   • High energy use with little recycling or renewable supply
   • Extensive greenfield development on the urban fringe

5. A city's ecological footprint is calculated at 4.0 hectares per person, while its own land area supports 0.5 hectares per person. What is the implication?

   • The city is fully self-sufficient in resources
   • The city draws resources from a much larger area than its own land
   • The footprint measure shows no link to resource use
   • The city has a surplus of biocapacity to export

6. Which policy would most reduce the ecological footprint of an urban area?

   • Building more low-density housing on greenfield land
   • Increasing the proportion of single-occupancy vehicles
   • Expanding motorway capacity to accommodate more cars
   • Improving public transport and energy efficiency in buildings

7. Which challenge is most often cited in developing more sustainable cities?

   • Removing all cars from the city within one year, with a single abrupt ban that replaces every private vehicle with bicycles and walking
   • Stopping all economic activity in the city centre, removing jobs and services from the core and leaving the district without businesses
   • Balancing rapid growth and housing demand with environmental protection and social equity
   • Eliminating all urban populations to reduce pressure, by relocating every resident to the countryside so that cities can be left to recover

8. Which strategy most directly promotes a more sustainable urban water system?

   • Sustainable drainage systems that store and infiltrate runoff
   • Removing all green space to speed up drainage, which clears the surface of plants so that water runs off faster into the nearest channel
   • Piping all runoff directly to the sea without treatment, moving water away quickly but carrying pollutants into coastal waters
   • Increasing impermeable paving across the city, covering more of the surface with sealed material that channels rain into drains

9. Which statement about the impact of urban areas on global environments is most accurate?

   • Cities produce no greenhouse gases because they are built on land, which keeps all emissions in the surrounding countryside instead
   • Cities have negligible effects on global resource use, because their consumption is small compared with rural production across the world
   • Cities consume large amounts of resources and emit most greenhouse gases, while occupying a small share of land
   • Cities occupy most of the world's land surface, so their footprint is spread across nearly every region of the planet and beyond

10. A city wants to increase its sustainability score on liveability. Which combination of changes would most likely help?

    • Greater traffic congestion and fewer public spaces, which lengthens journeys and removes the places where residents meet and rest
    • Higher pollution and lower access to health care, with more emissions in the air and fewer clinics in each neighbourhood across the city
    • More green space, cleaner air and safer streets with better access to services
    • More industrial land and fewer pedestrian routes, which increases freight movements and makes streets less safe for people on foot each day

11. Which measure would best allow comparison of the sustainability of two urban areas?

    • A set of indicators covering energy use, transport, air quality, housing and social well-being
    • The number of statues in each city centre, counted to show how much public art each city has commissioned over the last century
    • The total number of tourists visiting each city in a single month, counted from hotel records and ticket sales in that one period
    • The average height of the tallest building in each city, measured from street level to the top of the highest structure in the core

12. Which factor is most likely to increase an urban area's ecological footprint over time?

    • Greater use of public transport across the city, which carries more people per vehicle and so lowers the energy used per trip
    • Falling numbers of cars and vehicle journeys, which reduce the energy used for transport and so lower the footprint each year
    • Rising per capita consumption of energy, food and goods
    • Greater energy efficiency in new housing, since homes built to high standards use less energy and reduce the footprint over time

13. Which argument best evaluates the claim that compact cities are always more sustainable?

    • Compaction can reduce land take and travel, but high density without green space and services can reduce liveability
    • Compact cities always increase car use and land take, because higher density forces residents to drive further to reach open space
    • Density has no relationship with resource use or travel, since people in dense districts travel the same distances as those in sprawl
    • Sustainability depends only on the colour of building materials, so the layout and density of the city have no bearing on outcomes

14. A strategy to create a more sustainable city involves a green belt around the urban area. What is the main intended effect?

    • Increasing the amount of car-based commuting, since the green belt pushes new homes out beyond the boundary and lengthens every journey
    • Limiting outward sprawl and protecting open land near the city
    • Expanding the built-up area into the countryside, which spreads housing across farmland and so increases commuting distances each year
    • Replacing all rural land with industrial estates, which converts farmland and woodland into business parks around the edge of the city

15. Which combination of measures best reduces the environmental impact of an urban area's energy use?

    • Increased fossil-fuel generation and fewer efficiency standards, which lock in high energy use for decades across the building stock
    • Energy-efficient buildings and a shift to renewable and low-carbon energy sources
    • Removing all renewable energy schemes from city planning, so that new developments rely entirely on existing grid supply and coal
    • Greater use of single-glazed windows in all buildings, since thinner glass suits the warm climate of most cities and cuts heating costs

16. Which argument best supports the view that sustainable urban development must consider social as well as environmental factors?

    • Sustainability is solely a measure of building height, so the highest structures in each city give the clearest guide to its progress
    • Without social equity and cohesion, environmental policies can fail or deepen inequality
    • Environmental policies work equally well regardless of social conditions, because rules and technology apply the same way in every district
    • Social factors have no influence on how cities use resources, since consumption patterns are set by technology rather than by people

17. A city's population is 500,000 and its total annual energy use is 3,000 GWh. What is the average energy use per person, in kWh per year?

    • 6,000 kWh per person
    • 600 kWh per person
    • 60,000 kWh per person
    • 6 kWh per person

18. Which factor is most likely to improve the liveability of a dense inner-city neighbourhood?

    • Removing street lighting to save energy, since darker streets cost less to run and make no measurable difference to residents' safety
    • Investment in parks, safe pedestrian routes and affordable housing
    • Increasing traffic speeds on residential streets, which shortens journeys for drivers passing through the neighbourhood each morning
    • Closing local schools to reduce public spending, which saves money in the short term but leaves families without nearby education

19. A city's emissions per person fall from 6 tonnes to 4.5 tonnes of CO2 over ten years. What is the percentage reduction?

    • 25%
    • 75%
    • 33%
    • 1.5%

20. Which feature would most reduce the need for car travel within a city?

    • Mixed-use neighbourhoods where homes, jobs and services are within walking distance
    • Wide arterial roads linking separated retail centres, which carry through traffic quickly but divide neighbourhoods from their shops
    • Single-use business parks located on the urban fringe, which concentrate employment in one location and send staff by car each day
    • Dispersed housing estates with no local shops, so that residents must travel by car to every daily service they need each week

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