One of the following regions has the world’s largest tropical peatland, which holds about three years worth of global carbon emissions from fossil fuels; and the possible destruction of which can exert detrimental effect on the global climate.
Which one of the following denotes that region?
- Amazon Basin
- Congo Basin
- Kikori Basin
- Rio de la Plata Basin
Explanation
Option (b) is correct
- The Congo Basin is home to the world’s largest tropical peatlands, along with Brazil and Indonesia. The peat swamp forest of the Congo Basin stores around 29 billion tons of carbon – approximately equivalent to three years’ worth of global greenhouse gas emissions – while the Basin as a whole absorbs nearly 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year.
Additional Information
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Option (a) is incorrect
- The Amazon Basin is the largest ecosystem and tropical forest on the Earth.
- It covers 9 countries: Brazil (60% of the Amazon rainforest), Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, French Guiana, Suriname, and the Republic of Guyana.
- The Amazon River is the largest drainage system in the world in terms of the volume of its flow and the area of its basin.
- Located in South America, it is the second-longest river in the world.
- It originates in the Peruvian Andes and drains into the Atlantic Ocean.
- It produces about 20% of the world’s freshwater flow into the oceans.
Option (c) is incorrect
- The Kikori Basin stretches for over almost 23,300 km2 in Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) Southern Province.
- The Kikori River is 445 km in length and is Papua New Guinea’s fifth largest river.
Option (d) is incorrect
- The Río de la Plata drainage basin is one of the five greatest drainage basins in the world with special particularities to be recognized and admired.
- It is formed by the discharge of waters from five countries — Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia and Paraguay — extending over some 3,100,000 km2.
