GATE — Environmental Science and Engineering (ES) · India · IITs and IISc on rotation (2026: IIT Guwahati)
Original practice questions written to the published syllabus · not past papersWhat 'sustainable' means and how the idea developed: from Malthus and Silent Spring to Brundtland, the SDGs, planetary boundaries and doughnut economics; weak and strong sustainability; the three pillars and their critics. It sets up the frameworks that later reporting, carbon and EIA subjects apply.
In the exams: GATE ES Section 9 (sustainable development, SDGs, hurdles); UGC NET Environmental Sciences Unit 10; UPSC CSE environment; SEA (GBCI) core concepts
GATE — Environmental Science and Engineering (ES), Section 9
Definitions of sustainable development, SDGs and their structure, hurdles to sustainability (rebound, lock-in, trade-offs), planetary boundaries, weak and strong sustainability; short numericals on discounting, rebound percentages and index normalisation.
How our questions for GATE spread across the units of Sustainability Science: Concepts, History & Ethics. Difficulty: 8 easy, 14 medium, 4 hard.
| Hurdles to sustainability: rebound effects, lock-in, trade-offs | 8 | |
| Brundtland definition and the Stockholm, Rio and Johannesburg conferences | 3 | |
| Weak versus strong sustainability and natural capital | 3 | |
| Planetary boundaries and the Anthropocene | 3 | |
| Sustainability indicators and composite indices | 3 | |
| History of environmental thought: Malthus, Leopold, Carson, Limits to Growth | 2 | |
| Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals | 2 | |
| Environmental justice and intergenerational equity | 2 |
Choose an answer, then open the working. Each explanation says why the right answer is right and why the others are not.
The Limits to Growth (1972) was commissioned by which organisation?
D. The Club of Rome
Meadows and colleagues at MIT wrote it for the Club of Rome, using the World3 model.
Further reading: Meadows et al. 1972
Which report defined sustainable development in 1987?
B. Our Common Future
The Brundtland Commission's Our Common Future (1987). Agenda 21 is from Rio 1992; The Future We Want from Rio+20 (2012).
Further reading: WCED 1987
Which two key concepts did the Brundtland report highlight within its definition?
A. Needs and limitations
The report stressed the concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, and limitations imposed by technology and social organisation.
Further reading: WCED 1987
Which rule holds that investing the rents from exhaustible resources in reproducible capital can keep consumption constant?
D. The Hartwick rule
Hartwick's rule underpins weak sustainability. Hotelling's rule concerns the rising price of exhaustible resources; Pareto efficiency and Coase concern welfare and externality bargaining.
Further reading: Hartwick 1977
Gross savings are 20 % of national income, depreciation 10 %, education spending 4 %, resource depletion 6 % and pollution damage 2 %. What are adjusted net savings?
C. 6 %
ANS = 20 − 10 + 4 − 6 − 2 = 6 %. 14 % omits education and pollution; 18 % omits depletion and depreciation's sign; 42 % adds everything.
Further reading: World Bank ANS
What is the present value of 1000 received in 100 years at a 5 % discount rate?
D. 7.6
PV = 1000/1.05^100 = 1000/131.5 = 7.6. 950 discounts one year; 50 is simply 5 % of 1000; 369.7 is the 1 % result.
Which index combines health, education and income?
D. Human Development Index
UNDP's HDI (1990) combines life expectancy, schooling and income. The EPI ranks environmental performance; the footprint measures demand on nature; the LPI tracks vertebrate populations.
Further reading: UNDP
An efficiency measure was expected to save 100 units of energy but actually saved 70. What is the rebound effect?
D. 30 %
Rebound = 1 − 70/100 = 30 %. 70 % is the realised saving; 130 % adds; 0 % assumes full savings.
Why did more efficient irrigation fail to reduce water use in some regions?
B. Farmers expanded irrigated area or grew thirstier crops
Saved water was often used to expand area or intensify, a rebound effect; caps on allocation are needed alongside efficiency.
Further reading: Irrigation efficiency literature
If rebound exceeds 100 %, what is the outcome called?
C. Backfire
Rebound above 100 % means consumption rises more than the efficiency saving — backfire, the Jevons paradox.
Further reading: Rebound literature
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