Goh Cheng Leong: Chapter 15 YouTube Lecture Handouts Geography

Get unlimited access to the best preparation resource for competitive exams : get questions, notes, tests, video lectures and more- for all subjects of your exam.

Get video tutorial on: Examrace YouTube Channel

Goh Cheng Leong Chapter 15: Hot, Wet Equatorial Climate (Physical and Human Geography)

Certificate Physical & Human Geography Goh Cheng Leong

Chapter 15: Hot, Wet Equatorial Climate

Illustration: Chapter 15: Hot, Wet Equatorial Climate

Equatorial Region

  • Congo, Amazon, Malaysia, East Indies
  • Trade Wind – Modified – Monsoonal influence
  • Temperature: Uniformity
  • How Temperature is moderated?
  • Precipitation: 60 - 100 inch – maximum after equinox & least in solistice

Rainfall

  • Convectional Rainfall – Afternoon (one afternoon is equal to entire year rainfall in desert)
  • Orographic or relief rainfall
  • Cyclonic rainfall – convergence of air in Doldrums

Vegetation

  • Variety: Evergreen hardwood like mahogany, ebony; small palm trees; climbing lianas – epiphytic or parasitic; ferns, orchids and lalangs
  • Distinct Layer: thick canopy, struggle for sunlight
  • Multiple Species: No pure strand; Malaysia – 200 species; commercial exploitation is hard; hardwood don՚t float on water and haulage expensive (so tropical nations are timber importers)
  • Forest Clearings: lumbering & shifting cultivation – belukar in Mayasia (secondary forest, less trees and dense undergrowth)

Life & Development

  • Amazon: Indian Tribes gather wild rubber
  • Congo: Pygmies gather nuts
  • Mayasia: Orang Asli – cane products

Factors Affecting Development

  • Climate: high heat & humidity; sun-stroke; perspire and lose energy; malaria & yellow fever
  • Bacteria & insect pests: injurious to crops, diseases; plague
  • Jungle hinders development: Lalang (tall grass) & thick undergrowth choke crops – maintain infrastructure at high cost, Congo and Borneo without modern communication lines
  • Deterioration of tropical soil:
  • Difficult lumbering & livestock farming:

✍ Manishika