UK Environmental Challenges

What UK Environmental Challenges covers

UK Environmental Challenges is examined in Component 01, Living in the UK Today. It covers air masses, the North Atlantic Drift and the UK’s extreme weather, A UK flood event: causes, effects and responses, how people use, modify and change UK ecosystems, the UK’s renewable and non-renewable energy sources, changing UK energy supply and demand, and sustainable use, renewables in the UK, and the future of fossil fuels and what shapes the UK’s energy choices.

The 7 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Air masses, the North Atlantic Drift and the UK’s extreme weatherAir masses, the tropical maritime, polar maritime, polar continental and tropical continental air that reach Britain, the North Atlantic Drift and Britain's mild winters, continentality, and how depressions, Arctic air and the jet stream bring damaging winds, heavy snow and prolonged rain.Open →
• A UK flood event: causes, effects and responsesThe weather and human causes of a UK flood, from saturated soil and snowmelt to building and woodland clearance, its primary and secondary effects on people and the environment, immediate and long-term responses at local and national scale, the Environment Agency, hard and soft engineering, warning systems, and the Somerset Levels floods of 2014.Open →
• How people use, modify and change UK ecosystemsThe mechanisation of farming and the loss of hedgerows, commercial fishing, bottom trawling and limits on overfishing, wind farms and objections to them, fracking and why it is opposed, upland reservoirs, and water transfer schemes and why Britain needs them.Open →
• The UK’s renewable and non-renewable energy sourcesWhat makes a source renewable or non-renewable, the fuels Britain relies on, its renewable options, why nuclear and biomass are classed as they are, the biggest shares of electricity, and why Britain imports energy.Open →
• Changing UK energy supply and demand, and sustainable useCoal in the 1950s, North Sea oil and gas, the dash for gas and the collapse of coal mining, falling energy demand, how government and agreements such as the Paris Agreement steer supply, sustainable energy use by households, councils and the nation, smart meters, and why cutting demand beats building new generation.Open →
• Renewables in the UK, and the future of fossil fuelsThe rapid growth of offshore wind, the benefits of renewable schemes and the objections and environmental harm they bring, the limits of hydroelectric power, intermittent wind and solar, the case for gas-fired stations and against burning more fossil fuel, and the arguments for and against more nuclear power.Open →
• What shapes the UK’s energy choicesThe economic, political and environmental factors behind Britain's energy mix, cost, the world gas price, energy security, war overseas, the planning system, the net zero pledge, landscape and waste concerns, and public opinion.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take UK Environmental Challenges further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Tropical maritime air vs Polar maritime air

  Tropical maritime air: a warm, moist and often cloudy flow arriving in Britain from the south-west. Polar maritime air: a cool, bright and showery flow arriving from the north-west across the cold Atlantic.

• Hard engineering vs Soft engineering

  Hard engineering: building structures such as walls and embankments to hold flood water back. Soft engineering: working with natural processes, restoring floodplains and planting trees.

• Primary effects vs Secondary effects

  Primary effects: impacts happening as flood water arrives, such as drowning and wrecked property. Secondary effects: impacts following later, such as disease, lost trade and homelessness.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is an air mass?

   Model answer

   A very large body of air whose temperature and humidity are fairly uniform, taking its character from the surface it formed over.

2. 2

   Which air mass brings warm, moist and often cloudy conditions to Britain from the south-west?

   Model answer

   Tropical maritime air, which has crossed the warm Atlantic Ocean and picked up moisture on the way.

3. 3

   How do polar maritime and polar continental air differ in the weather they bring to Britain?

   Model answer

   Polar maritime air crosses the cold northern Atlantic and arrives from the north-west cool, bright and showery; polar continental air crosses frozen Eurasia and arrives from the east bitterly cold and dry.

4. 4

   What is the North Atlantic Drift?

   Model answer

   A warm ocean current that carries surface water from the Gulf of Mexico north-eastwards across the Atlantic towards north-west Europe.

5. 5

   Why is Britain milder in winter than most places at the same latitude?

   Model answer

   Because warm water carried north by the North Atlantic Drift heats the prevailing westerly winds before they reach land.

6. 6

   What does continentality mean, and why does eastern Britain have a greater annual temperature range than the west?

   Model answer

   Continentality is the effect of distance from the sea; the east is further from the moderating Atlantic, so it has colder winters and hotter summers.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

UK Environmental Challenges revision questions

What does UK Environmental Challenges cover in OCR GCSE Geography A?

7 subtopics: air masses, the north atlantic drift and the uk’s extreme weather, a uk flood event: causes, effects and responses, how people use, modify and change uk ecosystems, the uk’s renewable and non-renewable energy sources, changing uk energy supply and demand, and sustainable use, renewables in the uk, and the future of fossil fuels and what shapes the uk’s energy choices. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is UK Environmental Challenges organised?

By the OCR J383 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.