Urban populations interact with their environment. Urban people change their environment through their consumption of food, energy, water, and land. And in turn, the polluted urban environment affects the health and quality of life of the urban population. People who live in urban areas have very different consumption patterns than residents in rural areas. For example, urban populations consume much more food, energy, and durable goods than rural populations. In China during the 1970s, the urban populations consumed twice as much pork as the rural populations who were raising the pigs. With economic development, the difference in consumption declined as the rural populations ate better diets. But even a decade later, urban populations had 60 percent more pork in their diets than rural populations. The increasing consumption of meat is a sign of growing affluence in Beijing; in India where many urban residents are vegetarians, greater prosperity is seen in higher consumption of milk.
Urban populations not only consume more food, but they also consume more durable goods. In the early 1990s, Chinese households in urban areas were two times more likely to have a TV, eight times more likely to have a washing machine, and 25 times more likely to have a refrigerator than rural households. This increased consumption is a function of urban labor markets, wages, and household structure.
Urban consumption of energy helps create heat islands that can change local weather patterns and weather downwind from the heat islands. The heat island phenomenon is created because cities radiate heat back into the atmosphere at rate 15 percent to 30 percent less than rural areas. The combination of the increased energy consumption and difference in albedo (radiation) means that cities are warmer than rural areas (0.6 to 1.3 C). And these heat islands become traps for atmospheric pollutants. Cloudiness and fog occur with greater frequency. Precipitation is 5 percent to 10 percent higher in cities; thunderstorms and hailstorms are much more frequent, but snow days in cities are less common.
Urbanization also affects the broader regional environments. Regions downwind from large industrial complexes also see increases in the amount of precipitation, air pollution, and the number of days with thunderstorms. Urban areas affect not only the weather patterns, but also the runoff patterns for water. Urban areas generally generate more rain, but they reduce the infiltration of water and lower the water tables. This means that runoff occurs more rapidly with greater peak flows. Flood volumes increase, as do floods and water pollution downstream.
Many of the effects of urban areas on the environment are not necessarily linear. Bigger urban areas do not always create more environmental problems. And small urban areas can cause large problems. Much of what determines the extent of the environmental impacts is how the urban populations behave - their consumption and living patterns - not just how large they are.
(Source: https://www.prb.org)
Question 86: Which of the following is the main topic of the passage?
A. The consumption of urban populations
B. The environmental effects of urbanization
C. The benefits and drawbacks of urbanization
D. The interaction of humans with environment
Question 87: Which of the following is TRUE about the food consumption of Chinese urban inhabitants?
A. People in urban areas ate less than those in rural areas in the past.
B. Urban civilians prefer more milk in their diets than pork.
C. People breeding the pigs in the past often had less pork in their diets than those in urban areas.
D. The pork consumption in urban areas has experienced a downward trend.
Question 88: The word "their" in paragraph 2 refers to __________.
A. the urban residents' B. the rural populations'
C. pigs’ D. Chinese citizens’
Question 89: According to paragraph 3, the following are mentioned as examples of durable goods, EXCEPT __________.
A. televisions B. washing machines C. fridges D. generators
Question 90: What does the word "Precipitation" in paragraph 4 mean?
A. the amount of the rain fall B. the bad weather with strong wind and rain
C. the rain that contains harmful chemicals D. air pollution
Question 91: The word "infiltration" in paragraph 5 could be best replaced by __________.
A. penetration B. interruption C. conservation D. accumulation
Question 92: In which paragraph does the writer mention the temperature in urban areas is higher than that of rural ones?
A. Paragraph 3 B. Paragraph 4 C. Paragraph 5 D. Paragraph 6
Question 93: What can be inferred in the last paragraph?
A. Human activities have directly impacts on how the environment changes.
B. There larger the urban areas are, the more complicated the environmental problems become.
C. People should not expand urban areas in order to protect the environment.
D. Global warming is the main factor that affects the environment.
