Give reasons for the following:
(i) The houses in Rajasthan have thick walls and flat roofs.
(ii) The houses in the Terai region and in Goa and Mangalore have sloping roofs.
The climate of Rajasthan is generally arid or semi-arid and features fairly hot temperature in summers and extreme cold during winters due to the quick cooling effect of sand.
The region also experiences dust storms as rainfall is very scanty. Here the thick walls of the houses insulate the people against the heat in the summer and extreme cold in winter due to the desert. As there is not much rainfall, thus flat roofs are constructed, so that water collects on the roof tops and can be stored for future use.
The houses in the Tarai region and in Goa and Mangalore have sloping roofs because they get heavy rainfall during the monsoon. When they have sloping roofs, the rain water can easily flow off towards the ground or to a receptive unit where water is collected instead of collecting on the roof top.
Sloping roofs in these regions allows the rain water to slip, so that the roofs don’t get damaged due to standing water.