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  3. Given that 8 percent of food crops grows faster on farms using groundwater than the aquifers are replenished, and many la

Given that 8 percent of food crops grows faster on farms using groundwater than the aquifers are replenished, and many la

admin2011-01-17  3
问题              Given that 8 percent of food crops grows faster on farms using groundwater
       than the aquifers are replenished, and many large rivers are so heavily diverted
       that they do not reach the sea for much of the year, researchers believe
Line    freshwater sources-underground aquifers and rivers-are stressed. Better
(5)     management of soil and water and creative cropping patterns can boost
       production from rainfall-watered cropland, but the heaviest burden will fall on
       irrigated land. At present, most farmers irrigate their crops by channeling
       water down their fields in parallel furrows.
            One alternative, drip systems, enables farmers to deliver water directly to
(10)    the plants’ roots drop by drop, nearly eliminating waste by distributing water at
       low pressure through a network of perforated plastic tubing installed on or
       below the surface of the soil, where it then emerges through small holes at a
       slow but steady pace. Because the plants enjoy an ideal moisture environment,
       drip irrigation usually offers the added bonus of higher crop yields. Another
(15)    alternative, sprinklers, can perform almost as well as drip methods when
       designed properly, but traditional high-pressure irrigation sprinklers spray
       water high into the air to cover as large a land area as possible, and the more
       time the water spends in the air, the more of it evaporates before use.
             Despite the payoffs, the higher costs of these technologies relative to
(20)    simple flooding methods have been a barrier to their spread, and so has the
       prevalence of national water policies that discourage rather than foster efficient
       water use. Many governments have set very low prices for publicly supplied
       irrigation, leaving farmers with little motivation to invest in ways to conserve
       water or to improve efficiency and most authorities have also failed to regulate
(25)    groundwater pumping,  even in regions where aquifers are over-tapped.
       Therefore, farmers might be inclined to conserve their own water supplies if
       they could profit from selling the surplus, but this practice is often discouraged.
           Efforts aside from irrigation technologies are also conducive to the
       reduction of agricultural demand for water; for instance, measurements of
(30)    climate factors such as temperature and precipitation can be fed into a computer
       that calculates how much water a typical plant is consuming, and farmers can
       use this figure to determine, quite accurately, when and how much to irrigate
       their particular crops throughout the growing season. But the most effective, if
       unlikely way, to do more with less water is to reconfigure our diets, especially
(35)    the typical North American diet, which, with its large share of animal products,
       requires twice as much water as diets common in many Asian and some
       European countries. Eating lower on the food chain could allow the same
       volume of water to feed two Americans instead of one, and despite the resultant
       loss of nutrition, this may be the only recourse for countries serious about
(40)    reducing their aquifer strain.
It can be inferred from the passage that low-pressure sprinklers would be more preferable to high-pressure models for which of the following reasons?
选项 A、The surplus generated by low-pressure systems can be sold, lessening overall water strain on a region.
B、Low-pressure systems deliver water directly to root systems, resulting in higher crop yields.
C、A lower cost is associated with low-pressure systems than with high-pressure systems, which are generally more expensive.
D、Lower-pressure systems deliver water in such a way that evaporation rates are diminished, resulting in greater efficiency.
E、Crops watered by lower-pressure systems generally contain higher nutrients, reducing overall food consumption levels.
答案D
解析
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