UPSC Prelims 2014 · Question 86 of 100

UPSC Prelims 2014 question on Wetlands River Confluences

Consider the following pairs:

Wetlands : Confluence of rivers

1. Harike Wetlands : Confluence of Beas and Sutlej
2. Keoladeo Ghana National Park : Confluence of Banas and Chambal
3. Kolleru Lake : Confluence of Musi and Krishna

Which of the above pairs is/are correctly matched?

  1. 1 only
  2. 2 and 3 only
  3. 1 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer

Answer: A. 1 only

Verdict

The answer is 1 only. Harike is correctly placed at the Beas and Sutlej confluence, but the other two wetland pairings are wrong.

Analysis

Pair 1 is CORRECT. The Harike wetland in Punjab formed when a barrage was built across the confluence of the Beas and the Sutlej in 1952. Pair 2 is INCORRECT. Keoladeo Ghana National Park at Bharatpur is a man made wetland created by rulers of the princely state and fed by a canal from the Ajan bund; it is not at the confluence of the Banas and the Chambal. Pair 3 is INCORRECT. Kolleru Lake lies between the Krishna and Godavari deltas in Andhra Pradesh and is not at the Musi and Krishna confluence.

Source

Hindustan Times report on the Harike wetland conservation plan.

How to crack it

Check the geography of the rivers before checking the wetland. The Musi is a Deccan river passing Hyderabad and joining the Krishna far inland, while Kolleru sits on the coastal plain, so the pairing fails on distance alone. Keoladeo is famous as an artificially created duck shooting reserve, which is incompatible with being a natural confluence wetland. Testing whether the river pair and the site can even coexist geographically is quicker than recalling each site.

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