NCERT Solutions for Class 9th Social Science Chapter 2 End-of-chapter exercise — Questions and activities

Book page 37–38 Updated on2026-09-08

Q1.

What are the sources of energy that are required to cause movements associated with the internal forces of the Earth?

Answer

The energy comes from the heat stored inside the Earth — what Fig. 2.2 labels the total interior heat flow. As that heat escapes outward it stirs the mantle, and the stirring mantle moves the plates.

Where the heat comes from. Fig. 2.2 divides the total interior heat flow between the layers:

Crust 24%
Upper mantle 22%
Lower mantle 32%
Core 22%
24 + 22 + 32 + 22 = 100%

Read that carefully, because it corrects a common idea. The core supplies only about a fifth of the heat; the crust and mantle together supply 24 + 22 + 32 = 78%. So the Earth's engine is not just a hot ball at the centre warming everything above it — heat is being produced through the crust and mantle themselves as well.

How that heat is carried outward. Fig. 2.2 names three mechanisms:

Conduction — heat passing through solid rock from hot to cold, without the rock moving. Shown by the straight red arrows through the crust.
Convection — the important one for plate movement. Hot material in the mantle expands, becomes lighter and rises; cooler material near the top is denser and sinks. The loops drawn in Fig. 2.2 are these convection cells, and page 15 says plainly that they "push and pull the tectonic plates, causing them to move in different directions".
Advection — heat carried along by material actually moving from place to place, as when magma rises into the magma zones marked in red just below the crust.

Why heat can move a continent: a temperature difference makes a density difference, and a density difference in a layer that can flow makes it circulate — the same reason hot water rises in a pan and cool water sinks. The asthenosphere is partially molten, so it can flow. The rigid plates sit on top of that flow and are dragged along with it. Gravity helps: once the edge of a cold, dense plate starts to sink into the mantle, its own weight keeps pulling the rest of the plate after it.

Tip for the exam: answer in two parts — the source (the Earth's interior heat, with Fig. 2.2's shares) and the mechanism (convection currents in the mantle, aided by conduction and advection). A one-word answer, "heat", misses half the question.

Q2.

Relate various physiographic divisions you have studied in the earlier grades with various endogenic forces responsible for their origin.

Answer

Endogenic forces are the internal forces of the Earth — plate movement, folding, faulting, earthquakes and volcanic activity. Every major physiographic division of India can be traced back to one of them.

Physiographic division	Endogenic force responsible	How it worked
The Himalaya and the northern mountains	Plate collision and folding at a convergent boundary	The Indo-Australian plate moved north into the Eurasian plate. Neither could sink, so the sediments and rock between them were squeezed and crumpled upward into fold mountains. Fig. 2.3 shows the arrows still pointing north — which is why the range is still rising and still shaking.
The Northern Plains	Plate collision (indirectly), then deposition	The same collision left a deep trough between the rising Himalaya and the old peninsular block. The Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra have been filling that trough with alluvium ever since. The basin is endogenic; the filling is exogenic.
The Peninsular Plateau	Ancient crustal movement, faulting and volcanic activity	It is one of the oldest and most stable blocks of crust in the world. Later, block faulting raised ranges such as the Satpura and dropped the Narmada and Tapi valleys between them, and huge lava flows spread over the north-west of the plateau to form the Deccan trap country.
The Western and Eastern Ghats	Faulting and uplift of the plateau edge	The steep, straight western edge is a faulted margin, which is why the Western Ghats drop sharply to the coast while the Eastern Ghats are lower and broken by rivers.
The Coastal Plains	Uplift and subsidence of the continental margin	Vertical movements of the crust raised parts of the sea floor and drowned others; rivers then built deltas on top — the Sundarbans of Fig. 2.13 among them.
The Indian Desert (Thar)	Uplift of the crust; then wind action	Its rock floor is an extension of the peninsular block. The dunes and deflation hollows on top of it are the work of wind — again, endogenic base, exogenic surface.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands	Convergent plate boundary and volcanic activity	They are the tops of a submarine ridge raised where plates converge — the same arc that continues into Indonesia, which is why Fig. 2.4 shows the belt of earthquakes and volcanoes passing straight through them. The mud volcano at Baratang, described on page 19, lies in this island group.

The general rule: endogenic forces supply the relief — they decide where the land is high and where it is low. Exogenic agents then supply the detail — the valleys, plains, deltas and dunes cut into and laid over that relief. Almost every division above is a partnership of the two, and naming which force did which part is exactly what this question asks for.

Q3.

Why and where do earthquakes occur frequently? Is it possible to predict earthquakes?

Answer

Why they occur. Tectonic plates are moving all the time, but their edges are rough and are locked together by friction. The plates keep pushing, and strain builds up in the locked rock. When the strain finally exceeds the strength of the rock, the two sides slip suddenly. The stored energy is released as vibrations that travel outward — and the ground shakes. That is an earthquake.

Where they occur frequently — along plate boundaries. Fig. 2.4 shows it directly: the earthquake origins form narrow belts, and every belt lies on a boundary in Fig. 2.3.

Belt	Boundary type	Character of the earthquakes
The Ring of Fire around the Pacific	Convergent — oceanic plates sinking beneath continental plates	The most numerous and the most violent; volcanoes here too
Mediterranean – Himalaya – Indonesia	Convergent — African and Indo-Australian plates pressing into Eurasia	Large, destructive; this is India's belt
The mid-ocean ridges, e.g. the Mid-Atlantic	Divergent	Frequent but generally smaller and mostly under the sea
The San Andreas Fault, USA	Transform	Frequent, shallow and damaging; few volcanoes, because no magma is supplied

Plate interiors — peninsular India, central Siberia, the Sahara, inland Australia — are comparatively quiet, because the crust there is neither being squeezed nor pulled nor sheared.

Is it possible to predict earthquakes? No — not in the exact sense the word "predict" usually means. Nobody can say that an earthquake of a given size will strike a given place on a given day. There are two reasons: the rock that will break lies many kilometres underground where we cannot watch it directly, and the exact moment of failure depends on tiny details of the rock and the friction on the fault.

But a great deal is possible, and it saves lives:

Long-term forecasting. We know where earthquakes will happen, because we know where the boundaries are. India's seismic zoning map divides the country by expected shaking so that buildings can be designed for it.
Early warning of seconds. The first, faster waves from an earthquake can be detected and an alert sent electronically before the slower, more destructive waves arrive — enough to stop trains and shut gas lines.
Preparedness — earthquake-resistant construction, drills, and public awareness. This is the only defence that reliably works.

Why "where" is easy but "when" is not: the where is fixed by geography — plate boundaries do not move about. The when depends on the moment a rough patch of rock finally gives way, and that is like asking exactly when a stretched rubber band will snap. You know it will; you cannot say on which second.

Did you know? Page 18 notes that earthquakes were studied in India long ago as bhūkampa, "the shaking of the Earth". In the Bṛihatsaṁhitā, Varāhamihira devoted a section to them, noting that changes in wind, rain, clouds, animal behaviour and planetary alignments might signal them, and attributing them to four elemental forces — Vāyu (wind), Agni (fire), Indra (heaven/thunder) and Varuṇa (water). It was an early attempt to look for observable warning signs — the same instinct that drives earthquake research today.

Q4.

“Plate movements are responsible for the distribution of earthquakes and volcanoes.” Explain.

Answer

The statement is correct, and Figs. 2.3 and 2.4 together are the proof. If earthquakes and volcanoes had some other cause, they would be scattered across the globe. They are not — they lie in narrow belts, and those belts are the plate boundaries.

Step 1 — the evidence. Put the two maps side by side. Every dense band of red dots and black triangles in Fig. 2.4 falls on a line where two plates meet in Fig. 2.3: right round the rim of the Pacific, along the Mediterranean–Himalaya–Indonesia line, down the middle of the Atlantic, and along East Africa. The interiors of the plates are nearly empty. A match that close cannot be coincidence.

Step 2 — the mechanism, boundary by boundary.

The three plate boundaries (with convergence shown in its two forms). Panels 1–3 are cross-sections; panel 4 is a view from above. What each boundary produces follows from the direction the plates move.

Convergent, continent against continent. Neither slab is dense enough to sink, so the crust between them is squeezed, crumpled and thickened into fold mountains — the Himalaya. The rocks jam and slip repeatedly, so this belt has severe earthquakes. There is little melting, so few volcanoes.
Convergent, ocean against continent. Oceanic crust is thin and heavy (5 km, against 30 km for continental crust, Fig. 2.1), so it sinks beneath the continental plate. The descending slab supplies molten material, which rises to the surface — so this boundary makes both volcanoes and earthquakes. This is why the Pacific rim is called the Ring of Fire.
Divergent. The plates pull apart, magma rises into the gap and forms new crust, building mid-ocean ridges such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The cracking crust gives frequent but mostly moderate earthquakes, and the eruptions happen under the sea — which is exactly why Fig. 2.4 shows a line of red dots down the Atlantic with few triangles beside it.
Transform. The plates slide past each other, so no crust is created or destroyed and there is no magma. The result is earthquakes without volcanoes, as along the San Andreas Fault.

Step 3 — the conclusion. Each type of movement produces a different combination of earthquakes and volcanoes, and each type occurs at a known place on the map. Therefore the pattern of plate movement is the pattern of earthquakes and volcanoes. That is why page 16 says the theory is important for identifying earthquake- and volcano-prone regions and managing the disasters that arise there.

Q5.

Draw and label a diagram of a meander and a delta.

Answer

Draw each one in plan view — as seen from above — and label the parts the chapter names. Use the labels of Fig. 2.11 for the meander and Fig. 2.12 for the delta.

(a) Meander — a winding curve or bend in the middle or lower course of a river, formed by lateral erosion and deposition of sediments.

A meander in plan and in section. The river swings to the outside of every bend, so it erodes there and deposits on the inside — and the loop grows sideways year after year until its neck is cut through and an oxbow lake is left behind.

Why a river bends at all, and why the bend deepens: water flowing round a curve is thrown to the outside, so the current is fastest and the channel deepest against the outer bank. Fast water erodes — the bank is undercut and becomes steep. On the inner bank the water is slow and shallow, so it drops the sediment it was carrying and builds a bar. Erosion on one side and deposition on the other means the whole loop migrates outward, exactly as page 24 says.

(b) Delta — the landform built at the mouth of a river where it enters a sea, ocean or lake and deposits the sediment it has carried from upstream, until the deposits form a fan-shaped or triangular area of land.

A delta in plan view, labelled as in Fig. 2.12. One channel arrives from the left and splits into distributaries that wander between low islands and bars of freshly deposited sediment before reaching the sea.

Why a delta forms where it does: a river carries sediment only as long as it is moving fast. At the mouth it meets standing water, loses its speed almost at once, and has to drop its load. The deposit blocks its own channel, so the river splits round the obstacle into distributaries — and repeats the process at each new mouth. That is how the fan grows outward into the sea.

When you draw these in your book: use the numbered labels from Figs. 2.11 and 2.12 — meander: 1 Oxbow lake, 2 Steep bank, 3 River, 4 Bar; delta: 1 River, 2 Distributary, 3 Islands/Bars, 4 Sea. Mark the direction of flow with an arrow, and add a red arrow on the outer bank and a green one on the inner bank of the meander to show erosion and deposition.

Q6.

How are deforestation and erosion associated with each other? Explain.

Answer

They are linked as cause and effect: deforestation removes the protection that keeps soil in place, and erosion is what follows. Page 33 names deforestation among the human activities that "disturb the natural balance of slopes", and page 36 names sparse vegetation cover due to deforestation as a cause of dust storms.

What a forest actually does for the soil — four separate jobs:

The canopy breaks the fall of rain. A raindrop striking bare soil hits it hard enough to knock the particles loose. Leaves intercept the drops, so the water reaches the ground gently.
Roots bind the soil. A network of roots holds the particles together and anchors the whole layer to the rock beneath it.
Litter on the forest floor slows the run-off. Slower water carries less material, and more of it soaks in instead of racing downhill.
Trees slow the wind at ground level, so fine dry particles are not lifted away.

Remove the trees and all four fail at once:

Deforestation
→ bare soil exposed to raindrops and wind
→ no roots to bind the particles, no litter to slow the flow
→ run-off increases, soaks in less, and concentrates into rills
→ rills deepen into gullies (Fig. 2.9a); fine soil is blown away by wind (Fig. 2.9b)
→ fertile topsoil lost, slopes destabilised

And the damage does not stop at the soil. The chapter traces the chain further:

Water that no longer soaks in seeps into loose rock instead, adding weight and reducing friction — one of the main causes of landslides (page 33).
The eroded material is carried into rivers and reservoirs, silting them up and adding to flooding downstream.
In dry regions, the bare, exposed land loses its fine particles to the wind, feeding dust storms and leading towards desertification (page 36).
Farmers lose topsoil and yields fall; land near rivers and coasts is washed away (page 21).

Why the relationship also runs backwards: erosion makes deforestation harder to reverse. Once the topsoil has gone, there is little for a seedling to root in, so the forest does not come back on its own. This is why the mitigation lists in this chapter always pair afforestation with physical works — bunds, terraces and check dams — that hold the soil long enough for the new trees to take hold. Page 21 gives India's own examples: contouring, bunding, terracing, dams and canals described in the Vedas, the Kṛiṣhiparāśhara, Kauṭilya's Arthaśhāstra and the Vṛikṣhāyurveda, and the Zabo system of Nagaland with its earthen bunds on hill slopes and check dams across small streams.

Q7.

Develop a plan to protect the land in your local area from erosion.

Answer

Method. A plan has to fit the land it is written for, so build it in four steps: (1) survey — find where soil is actually being lost; (2) diagnose — decide whether the agent is water or wind; (3) choose measures that match; (4) say who will do what, and how you will check whether it worked.

What a good plan must contain: the name of your area and its terrain; the evidence of erosion you have seen with your own eyes; the agent responsible; at least three measures with a reason for each; the people or bodies who must act (school, gram panchayat, farmers, forest department, municipality); and a way to measure success.

Sample answer:

Step 1 — Survey. Walk the area after a heavy shower and mark on a rough sketch map: bare slopes, rills and gullies, spots where roots are exposed above the soil, gullies at the ends of drains, muddy water in the local stream, and any field where sand is drifting.

Step 2 — Diagnose. Muddy run-off, rills and gullies, and exposed roots mean water erosion. Drifting sand, dust in the air and coarse grit left on the surface mean wind erosion. Most places have some of both.

Step 3 — The measures.

Measure	Where to use it	Why it works
Afforestation and grass cover	Bare slopes, gully heads, stream banks, the school compound	Canopy softens the rain, roots bind the soil, litter slows the run-off
Contour bunding and contour trenches (CCT)	Cultivated hill slopes	Earthen embankments and trenches along the contour hold rainwater where it falls, so it soaks in instead of running down — page 21
Terracing	Steeper cultivated slopes	Level or gently sloping steps cut the slope length, so water never gathers speed
Check dams across small streams	Gullies and seasonal nullahs	Slow the water, trap sediment behind the wall and recharge groundwater — the Zabo idea from Nagaland
Shelter belts and windbreaks	Field edges in dry, open country	Rows of trees cut the wind speed near the ground so fine soil is not lifted
Cover crops and stubble mulching	Fields between harvest and sowing	Never leave the soil bare — bare soil is the one thing every kind of erosion needs
Controlled grazing; no construction on steep slopes	Common land and hillsides	Removes the human causes listed on pages 33 and 36 before they act
Proper drains along roads	Road cuttings and built-up areas	Concentrated run-off from a road is a common starter of gullies

Step 4 — Who does what, and how we check. The school Eco Club plants and waters saplings on the bare slope and keeps the drains clear; the gram panchayat or municipal ward takes up the bunds, check dams and road drains; farmers try contour ploughing and a cover crop on one plot each as a demonstration. To check the results, photograph the same three spots at the start and end of each monsoon, measure the depth of one gully with a scale every month, and note whether the stream water runs clearer after rain than it did last year.

The principle behind every item on the list: erosion needs three things — bare soil, an agent (moving water or wind) and a slope or a distance for the material to travel down. Break any one of the three and erosion stops. Cover crops remove the first; windbreaks and bunds weaken the second; terraces and check dams cut the third.

Q8.

Which disasters do you think you might experience in your region? Discuss a mitigation plan in your classroom.

Answer

Method. Do not guess. Work it out from the land you live on, because — as the chapter shows on pages 33–36 — each disaster needs a particular landform. Answer in three steps: name your region's terrain, list the hazards that terrain allows, then write the mitigation plan for the most likely one.

What a good answer needs: your region and its landform; two or three hazards that genuinely apply, with the reason each is possible there; a mitigation plan divided into before / during / after; and the names of the people and bodies who would have to act.

Match your region to its hazards:

If you live in …	Likely disasters	Because
The Himalayan or north-eastern hills	Landslides, earthquakes, avalanches, GLOFs, flash floods	Steep young fold mountains on an active convergent boundary, with glaciers above
The Northern Plains	River floods; strong earthquake shaking; pre-monsoon dust storms in the west	Flat land, large rivers, thick soft alluvium close to the Himalayan source
Rajasthan and the dry west	Dust storms, drought, desertification	Loose dry soil, sparse vegetation, strong summer winds
The coasts and deltas	Cyclones, storm surges, coastal erosion, tsunami on the east coast	Low flat land at sea level, exposed to waves and currents
The Western Ghats and Nilgiris	Landslides and flash floods in the monsoon	Steep faulted slopes with very heavy rainfall
The peninsular plateau	Drought; local flooding; mild earthquakes	Old stable crust, but uneven rainfall
Kachchh, Gujarat	Earthquakes (Fig. 2.5, 2001), cyclones on the coast	An active fault zone within the plate

Sample answer (for a town in the Himalayan foothills): My region is hilly, with steep slopes cut by a road and by streams that swell in the monsoon, so the disasters most likely here are landslides and earthquakes, with the risk of a flash flood in the valley.

Our classroom mitigation plan for landslides:

Before — plant and protect trees on the bare slopes above the school; keep drains and weep holes open so water does not build up inside the slope; do not allow building on steep slopes or in the path of the nullah; learn the warning signs (new cracks in walls or ground, tilting trees and poles, suddenly muddy stream water, unusual sounds from the hillside) and report them to the tehsil office; keep a family emergency kit and an agreed meeting point.
During — stay calm and ignore rumours; stay together with your companions; move away quickly from the landslip path and out of the valley below it; inform the nearest tehsil or district headquarters.
After — do not touch or walk over loose material, fallen electrical wires or poles; check for injured and trapped people; do not move an injured person without first aid unless they are in immediate danger; do not drink water directly from rivers, springs or wells, which may be contaminated.

Who acts: the school (drills, tree planting, awareness posters), the gram panchayat or municipal ward (drainage, retaining walls, building rules), the district disaster management authority (warning and rescue), and every family (kit, meeting point, knowing the signs).

How to run the classroom discussion: divide the class into four groups — hazard mapping, prevention, warning and response, and after-care. Each group presents for five minutes, then combine the four into one page and put it on the school notice board. A plan nobody has read is not a plan.

Q9.

Prepare a model of landforms created by underground water.

Answer

What you are modelling. The landforms of underground water are together called Karst topography (page 31). They form where the rock is limestone or another soluble rock, and where slightly acidic rainwater seeps through it, dissolving the rock from within. Your model must show both halves of the process — the hollows dissolved out and the dripstone built back up.

The landforms to include, from page 31:

Landform	What it is	Made by
Cave	A hollow space formed as acidic water dissolves the rock	Solution — rock removed
Stalactite	An icicle-shaped formation hanging from the ceiling of a cave	Deposition — rock added, drop by drop
Stalagmite	A formation rising from the floor of a cave	Deposition, from the same drips landing below
Pillar	Formed where a stalactite and a stalagmite meet and join (Fig. 2.24)	Deposition, over a very long time
Sinkhole (doline)	A depression formed when the ground collapses into an underground cavity	Collapse, after solution has hollowed out the roof
Underground river	A river flowing through the cave system	Solution and erosion together

The karst landforms of page 31 in one section: rainwater sinks through the limestone, dissolves out a cave, and the water dripping inside slowly rebuilds rock as stalactites, stalagmites and pillars. Where the roof over a cavity gives way, a sinkhole opens at the surface.

How to make the model (materials you already have):

The block of rock. Take a shoebox or a tray. Build up a solid mass of clay, plaster of Paris or papier-mâché to about three-quarters of the height. Colour the outside pale grey and label it limestone.
The cave. Before it sets, press a crumpled ball of newspaper or a small plastic bottle into the middle to make a chamber, then remove it once the material has hardened. Cut away one end of the box so the cave can be seen in section, and leave a cave mouth on that face.
Stalactites and stalagmites. Roll thin cones of clay. Glue the pointed ones to the ceiling (stalactites) and the blunt ones to the floor (stalagmites) directly below them. Join one pair to make a pillar. A trick that looks very real: dribble thin plaster from a spoon onto the ceiling and let it hang as it sets.
The sinkhole. On the top surface, press a rounded hollow above one end of the cave and colour its inside like bare rock, with green paper grass around the rim.
The underground river. Lay a strip of blue paper or foil along the cave floor and out through the mouth.
Label everything with pins and paper flags: limestone, sinkhole, cave, stalactite, stalagmite, pillar, underground river, cave mouth — the labels of Figs. 2.24 and 2.25.

The science to write on the model card: rainwater takes in gases from the air and the soil and becomes slightly acidic. As it seeps down through joints in the limestone it dissolves the rock, widening the cracks into passages and then chambers. Inside the cave the water hangs as a drop from the ceiling; some of the dissolved rock is left behind when the drop evaporates, so the ceiling grows downward as a stalactite, and the rest is deposited where the drop lands, so the floor grows upward as a stalagmite. Given long enough, the two meet and become a pillar. Underground water therefore does both jobs at once — it removes rock in one place and rebuilds it a few centimetres away.

Try this demonstration: put a piece of chalk (which is a form of limestone) in a glass of water and another in a glass of lemon juice or vinegar. The one in the acid fizzes and wears away far faster. That is Karst topography happening in a glass — and it is why the chapter files caves under chemical weathering and erosion.

Q10.

What precautionary measures will you take if you are staying in an earthquake-prone region?

Answer

Take them in three stages, because an earthquake gives no warning — everything useful has to be done before it happens.

Before the earthquake

Build or retrofit to resist shaking. This is the single most important measure, because Fig. 2.5 shows what kills people — collapsing buildings, not the ground itself. Follow earthquake-resistant building codes; use reinforced columns and beams and tied brickwork; avoid heavy stone or concrete roofs on weak walls; and do not add unauthorised extra floors.
Make the inside of the house safe. Fasten cupboards, shelves, mirrors and water heaters to the wall; keep heavy objects on low shelves; do not place a bed under a heavy hanging object or a window.
Know the safe spots in every room — under a strong table, against an inner wall, away from windows and glass. Fix the location of the main switch and the gas valve in your mind.
Keep an emergency kit ready — drinking water, dry food, torch, spare batteries, a whistle, first-aid box, essential medicines, some cash, and copies of important documents in one bag near the door.
Agree a family plan — a meeting point outside the building, an out-of-town contact number, and who will fetch the youngest child.
Practise drills at home and at school, and learn basic first aid.

During the earthquake

Drop, cover and hold on. Get under a strong table or desk, protect your head and neck, and hold on until the shaking stops.
If there is no table, crouch against an inner wall, away from windows, glass and heavy furniture.
If you are already outdoors, move to an open space away from buildings, trees, walls and electric poles, and stay there.
Do not use lifts, and do not run down staircases while the ground is shaking.
If you are in a vehicle, stop in the open, away from bridges and flyovers, and stay inside.

After the earthquake

Expect aftershocks; leave a damaged building calmly by the stairs as soon as the shaking stops and do not go back in.
Switch off the electricity and the gas; do not light a match if you smell gas.
Check yourself and others for injuries and give first aid; do not move a seriously injured person unless they are in immediate danger.
Keep away from damaged walls, loose parapets and fallen electric wires.
Listen to the radio or official channels for instructions, and ignore rumours. Use the phone only for real emergencies so the network stays free.
Do not drink water from a source that may be contaminated.

Why preparation matters more than prediction: as Q3 explains, we can say where earthquakes will happen but not when. So the only defence that works is to assume it will happen without warning and make sure that when it does, the building stands and the family knows what to do. Every one of the measures above is designed for a situation in which you get no notice at all.

Q11.

Prepare a map showing landform-associated disasters that happened in the current calendar year.

Answer

Method. This is a data-collection and mapping exercise, and it is judged on accuracy and clarity, not decoration. Work through it in five steps.

Collect. Keep a notebook for a few weeks and record every disaster report you find in newspapers, on official bulletins or in the news. For each one write down: the disaster, the exact place, the district and state, the date, and the source. Never enter an event you cannot date and source.
Sort by type, using the chapter's own four categories plus earthquakes: landslide, avalanche, GLOF, dust storm, earthquake. Add flood and cyclone if your region needs them.
Choose the base map. An outline political map of India with state boundaries works best; add a world outline map on the same sheet if you are collecting global events too.
Design the symbols before you start plotting. One symbol per disaster type, a different colour for each, all of the same size — for example a brown triangle for a landslide, a white star for an avalanche, a blue circle for a GLOF, a yellow square for a dust storm, a red star for an earthquake. Put them in a legend in the corner.
Plot and finish. Place each symbol at the correct location, number it, and give a numbered table below the map with date, place and a one-line description. Add a title, the legend, a north arrow and the scale.

What a good map will show — and what you should write underneath it. Once your symbols are on the sheet, they will not be scattered evenly. Look for the pattern and write two or three sentences about it, because that is the real point of the exercise:

Expect to find	Because
Landslides clustered along the Himalaya, the north-east and the Western Ghats	Steep slopes plus heavy monsoon rainfall
Avalanches and GLOFs only in the high Himalaya	They need snow and glacial lakes, which exist nowhere else in India
Dust storms in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab and Delhi, mostly in the hot months	Dry loose soil, sparse vegetation and strong pre-monsoon winds
Earthquakes along the Himalayan arc, in Kachchh and in the Andaman Islands	The convergent plate boundary of Figs. 2.3 and 2.4
Cyclone damage on the east coast, floods in the plains	Low, flat coastal land and large rivers

The conclusion your map will demonstrate: disasters are not distributed randomly — they follow landforms. Your finished map should look like a physical map of India seen through its hazards, which is exactly what the chapter claims on page 32 and what the plate maps in Figs. 2.3 and 2.4 show at world scale.

Tip: mark the month next to each symbol. You will discover a seasonal pattern too — landslides and floods in the monsoon, avalanches in winter, dust storms in the pre-monsoon heat.

Q12.

Create a poster showing landforms that are considered to be sacred or important in your region, and add the folk stories associated with them.

Answer

Method. Start from the land, not from the internet. Walk or think through your own district and list the natural features people treat with respect — a hill, a river confluence, a spring, a cave, a waterfall, a grove, a rock. Then find the story attached to each by asking older people in your family and neighbourhood, and note who told you.

What a good poster must contain:

A title and the name of your region.
Four to six landforms, each with a picture or a careful sketch.
For each one: its name, the type of landform in the chapter's vocabulary (hill, cave, waterfall, river confluence, spring, sea cliff, sacred grove), the folk story or belief in two or three sentences, and who told you or where you read it.
A closing line on why it matters — what these beliefs do for the landform itself.
A small map of your district with the sites marked.

Sample answer (adapt it to your own region):

Landform	Type	Why it is held sacred or important
The hill above our town	Residual hill	A shrine stands on the summit and a fair is held there every year. Elders say the hill "watches over" the town, and no tree on it may be cut.
The confluence of the two streams	River confluence	People bathe here on festival days. The story is that the two streams are sisters who meet once and travel on together — which is why the spot is used for family rituals.
The spring at the foot of the ridge	Spring — groundwater	Said never to have dried up even in the worst drought. Villagers keep the area around it clean and do not wash clothes there.
The cave in the limestone hill	Cave — Karst	Stalactites inside are described in local stories as a stone forest. A lamp is lit at the mouth on one day each year.
The old grove near the fields	Sacred grove	Nothing may be taken from it, not even a fallen branch. It is the last patch of original forest left in the area.

Closing line for the poster: "These stories are not only beliefs — they are rules. A hill that may not be cleared does not slide; a grove that may not be cut holds its soil; a spring that must be kept clean keeps giving water. Our folk stories have been protecting our landforms for generations."

Why this activity belongs in this chapter: page 22 makes the point that landforms have shaped human history — rivers and plains produced early cities, mountains acted as barriers and protectors, deserts pushed people onto trade routes, coasts opened trade with distant lands. Sacred landforms are the same relationship seen from the other side: the culture that a landform produced, turned back into care for the landform. Recording these stories is a way of recording that link before it is lost.

Tip: write down the name and age of everyone you interview and the date. That turns your poster from a collection of stories into a piece of documentation your school can keep.

Q13.

Document a case of a disaster that hit your region in the past, highlighting its effects on various human activities.

Answer

Method. Documenting is different from describing. You need sources — newspaper reports from the time, official records, photographs, and interviews with people who lived through it — and you must say where each fact came from.

Structure your report under these headings:

The event — what happened, exactly where, and on what date.
The landform setting — the terrain that made this disaster possible, in the chapter's terms (a steep slope, a floodplain, a low coast, a fault zone).
The causes — natural and human, using the cause lists on pages 33–36.
The effects on human activities — the heart of the report, set out activity by activity.
The response — rescue, relief, rebuilding; what worked and what did not.
Lessons and what has changed since.
Sources — newspapers with dates, and the names of people you interviewed.

Use this grid for section 4, so nothing is missed:

Human activity	What to record
Agriculture	Crops lost, fields buried under sand or debris, livestock killed, irrigation channels broken
Housing and settlement	Houses damaged or destroyed, families displaced, how long they stayed in relief camps
Transport and communication	Roads, bridges, railway lines and phone links cut; villages left unreachable and for how many days
Trade and industry	Shops and markets shut, workdays lost, small businesses that never reopened
Tourism	Visitors cancelled, hotels and guides without work in the season that followed
Water, power and health	Water sources contaminated, power lines down, hospitals overloaded, disease afterwards
Education	Schools damaged or used as relief camps, days of teaching lost
Environment	Forest and soil lost, river course changed, wildlife affected

Sample answer (an outline you can follow, using the chapter's own case): The Chamoli flood of February 2021 struck the valleys of the Rishiganga and Dhauliganga in Uttarakhand. Landform setting: steep, glaciated Himalayan valleys in a young fold mountain range, where a narrow valley concentrates any flood into a wall of water. Causes: a mass of rock and ice fell from a high slope, mixed with melting ice and debris, and surged down the valley — a winter event with no rainfall to warn of it. Effects on human activities: as the THINK ABOUT IT box on page 29 records, many people and livestock lost their lives; buildings, roads and bridges were severely damaged; hydel projects were destroyed, with workers trapped in the tunnels; and connectivity to villages was adversely affected, so relief could not reach them and daily trade, schooling and medical care stopped for days. Response: rescue teams worked at the tunnel sites; helicopters supplied cut-off villages; temporary bridges restored access. Lessons: the need for monitoring of high glacial slopes and lakes, for early-warning sirens downstream, and for caution in siting hydel projects and roads on the valley floor of a young, fragile mountain range.

Tip: when you interview someone, ask them one question that no record can answer — "What did you do first?" The answer tells you more about preparedness than any statistic.

Q14.

Translate the given poster on landslide into your native language and display it in your home.

Answer

What the poster says. Before translating, read the English poster on page 38 carefully. Its title is “LANDSLIDE — Ready Now to stay secure”, it carries the motto “Be Smart, Be Prepared”, and it is divided into three columns:

Before	During	After
Grow more trees that can hold the soil together; listen to radio, watch TV and read the newspaper for any alerts; keep drains clean and keep holes open; watch out for warning signs such as subsidence of a building, cracks on rocks and muddy river water; do NOT construct near steep slopes and near a drainage path.	Stay calm, do NOT panic, ignore rumours; stay together with your companions; if you notice warning signs such as unusual sounds like trees cracking or boulders knocking together — move away from the landslip path or downstream valley quickly, and inform the nearest Tehsil or District HQ.	Do NOT touch or walk over loose material and electrical wires or poles; move away from the landslip path and downstream valley quickly; check for injured and trapped persons; do NOT move an injured person without rendering first aid unless he or she is in immediate danger; do NOT drink contaminated water directly from rivers, springs, wells etc.

Method for the translation:

Translate meaning, not words. A safety poster has to be understood at a glance by someone who is frightened, so use the simplest everyday words of your language, not formal or literary ones.
Keep the three-column layout, the picture and the colour coding. The layout is part of the message.
Keep every “do NOT” as a clear negative instruction, and make it stand out — these are the lines that prevent deaths.
Keep proper nouns and official terms recognisable — Tehsil, District HQ — since people must be able to repeat them to an official.
Check your draft with an adult who speaks the language well, then write it large and neatly, and display it where the family passes daily.

Sample answer — the poster in Hindi (students of other languages should follow the same pattern in theirs):

भूस्खलन — सुरक्षित रहने के लिए अभी तैयार रहें। समझदार बनें, तैयार रहें।

पहले	दौरान	बाद में
ऐसे अधिक पेड़ लगाएँ जो मिट्टी को बाँधकर रखें; रेडियो सुनें, टी.वी. देखें और समाचार-पत्र पढ़ें ताकि किसी चेतावनी की जानकारी मिले; नालियाँ साफ़ रखें और छेद खुले रखें; चेतावनी के संकेतों पर ध्यान दें — जैसे भवन का धँसना, चट्टानों में दरारें, नदी के पानी का गँदला होना; खड़ी ढलानों के पास और पानी के बहाव के रास्ते पर निर्माण न करें।	शांत रहें, घबराएँ नहीं, अफ़वाहों पर ध्यान न दें; अपने साथियों के साथ रहें; यदि कोई असामान्य आवाज़ सुनाई दे — जैसे पेड़ों के चटकने या पत्थरों के टकराने की — तो भूस्खलन के रास्ते और नीचे की घाटी से तुरंत दूर हट जाएँ, और निकटतम तहसील या ज़िला मुख्यालय को सूचित करें।	ढीली मिट्टी-मलबे तथा बिजली के तारों या खंभों को न छुएँ और न उन पर चलें; भूस्खलन के रास्ते और नीचे की घाटी से तुरंत दूर हटें; घायल और फँसे हुए लोगों की तलाश करें; घायल व्यक्ति को प्राथमिक उपचार दिए बिना न हिलाएँ, जब तक कि उसे तुरंत ख़तरा न हो; नदी, झरने या कुएँ का दूषित पानी सीधे न पिएँ।

Why translating it is the point of the activity: a warning works only in the language people think in. Most of the people most at risk from landslides live in hill villages and read their own language first. Turning the poster into that language — and putting it on a wall at home — is a small piece of real disaster mitigation, not just a classroom exercise.

Q15.

Divide the class into three groups. Each group will work on one project (water, wind, and glacier). The project should highlight the causes, impact on human life and the environment, and mitigation measures.

Answer

Method. All three groups should use the same four headings, so that the projects can be compared side by side when they are presented: (1) the agent and how it works, (2) the landforms it creates, (3) its impact on human life and the environment — both good and bad, (4) mitigation measures. Give each group a wall chart, one map and one model or photograph set.

Group 1 — WATER

How it works: running water erodes, transports and deposits. Steep upper course — downward erosion; gentler middle course — lateral erosion and the start of deposition; almost flat lower course — deposition only.
Landforms: V-shaped valleys, waterfalls, rapids; meanders, oxbow lakes, floodplains; deltas, levees, alluvial fans. Add coastal water too — sea cliffs, shore platforms, caves, arches, stacks, beaches and sand bars.
Impact — the good: the most fertile land on Earth. Deltas grow rice and jute; meander banks support farming and settlement; rivers give irrigation (the Grand Anicut, Kallanai, in Tamil Nadu) and navigation; waterfalls give hydroelectricity and tourism; beaches support fishing and tourism and shield the coast from waves.
Impact — the harm: loss of fertile topsoil and falling yields; gullied land that cannot be farmed; land, houses and roads washed away along rivers and coasts; silting of canals and reservoirs; floods in deltas and plains; landslides where water saturates a slope.
Mitigation: afforestation; contour bunding and contour trenches; terracing; check dams (the Zabo system of Nagaland); embankments and proper drainage; keeping construction out of drainage paths; mangrove protection on deltaic coasts.

Group 2 — WIND

How it works: strong winds pick up and carry loose particles of sand and soil in dry regions, wearing rock down by sandblasting and dropping the sand where the wind slows.
Landforms: erosional — yardangs (streamlined rock ridges), ventifacts (rocks polished by sandblasting), deflation hollows or blowouts, desert pavements. Depositional — dunes: barchan (crescent-shaped, limited sand, one wind direction), longitudinal (long ridges parallel to the wind), star (many arms, winds from several directions) and parabolic (U-shaped, often held in place by vegetation).
Impact — the good: dunes act as natural barriers against desertification and wind erosion; they protect coastal settlements from sea winds and waves; they support tourism and adventure sports; dune sand is used in construction; yardangs and ventifacts attract tourists and geologists.
Impact — the harm: fertile fine soil blown away; crops buried or sand-blasted; dust storms that stop road, rail and air traffic and harm breathing; oases and settlements encroached by moving dunes; desertification.
Mitigation: shelter belts and windbreaks of trees; stabilising dunes with grasses and shrubs; keeping a cover crop or stubble on the soil; controlling overgrazing; contour ploughing across the wind; sand fences; dust-storm warnings.

Group 3 — GLACIER

How it works: a glacier moves slowly over the land, scraping and carrying huge amounts of material and dropping it (as till) where the ice melts.
Landforms: erosional — U-shaped valleys, cirques (bowl-shaped hollows at the head of a glacier), aretes (sharp ridges between valleys), hanging valleys (where a smaller glacier met a larger one), fjords (deep narrow inlets where the sea has flooded a glacial valley). Depositional — moraines: lateral along the sides, terminal at the end marking the furthest advance, and medial where two glaciers join and their lateral moraines meet in the middle.
Impact — the good: glaciers are crucial sources of fresh water, feeding the rivers that sustain populations downstream; U-shaped valleys and cirques support trekking, skiing and mountaineering; fjords make harbours and fishing grounds; fertile glacial soil in some valleys supports agriculture; moraines give fertile soil and form natural dams and lakes used for water supply, irrigation and hydroelectric power.
Impact — the harm: avalanches on steep snow slopes; GLOFs when a moraine or ice dam collapses; the Chamoli disaster of February 2021 as the case study; and, as glaciers retreat with rising temperatures, a long-term threat to the rivers that depend on them.
Mitigation: satellite monitoring of glacial lakes; lowering dangerous lakes by siphoning or a controlled channel; strengthening moraine dams; automatic water-level sensors and sirens downstream; keeping settlements, roads and hydel projects out of the flood path; avalanche barriers and bulletins; and reducing the emissions that are warming the glaciers.

What the three projects together should show: the same three-part story runs through all of them — an agent erodes in one place, transports, and deposits in another. The eroded area loses soil and becomes hazardous; the area of deposition gains fertile land. Human beings benefit from the second and suffer from the first, and every mitigation measure in all three lists is an attempt to slow the agent down at the point where it is doing the damage.

Tip for the presentation: end with a single comparison table on the board — agent | how it carries material | erosional landform | depositional landform | main hazard | key mitigation. Filling that table in together is the best revision of the whole chapter.

Was this helpful? Report an error