Case Studies Flashcards
Population structure of an MEDC - aged dependant population
- tall pyramid shows large percentage of elderly people (16% in 2003) this is the aged dependant population who do not earn money and need to be supported by the working population.
- base of pyramid is getting narrower. This shows the birth rate is falling.
- wide section in the middle shows a large population currently of working age who will add to the elderly population over the next 30 years.
The govt gets money by taxing people on what they earn. This means people of working age are needed to provide tax money to pay for services like healthcare and education etc. This creates economic implications. There are also social implications.
Impacts Costs - adults giving up careers to care for elderly relatives (s) - expensive healthcare for the elderly (e) - meals on wheels and home helps (e) - pensions (e) - residential homes needed (e) - strain on carers (s) Benefits - elderly can provide wise advice (s)
Population structure of an LEDC - youth dependant population
- base of pyramid is getting wider. This shows the birth rate is high. This is the youth dependant population who do not earn money and need to be supported by the working population
- lots of people of childbearing age means the birth rate will stay high
- pyramid is relatively short which means death rate is still high.
The govt gets money by taxing people on what they earn. This means people of working age are needed to provide tax money to pay for services like healthcare and education etc. This creates economic implications. There are also social implications.
Impacts
Costs
- lack of school buildings and facilities (e)
- lack of teachers (s)
- large numbers of infant vaccinations needed (s)
- strain on primary schools - some operate 2 half-day sessions for different groups of pupils (s)
Benefits
- lots of young adults entering the labour market (e)
- relatives may be able to provide child care
Describe and explain growth, location and characteristics of shanty town areas.
Kolkata is India’s second largest city with a population of 17 million and is expected to rise to 30 million by 2040.
A shanty town is an unplanned settlement that is illegal and overcrowded. There are 5500 of these settlements in Kolkata.
Growth - shanty towns have existed for over 150 years. Now growing rapidly they increased by 32% from 1981-91. Now about four million people live in them. They house one third of the population.
Why? Pull factors include the job prospects in the city and push factors include the mechanisation in farming means people lose jobs in the countryside
Location - they are located on the worst, cheap land (because it is less likely to be bulldozed) on the banks of Hooghly river around the salt marshes to the east of the city around the jute mills along the Varanasi road to the north around busy city intersections like Howrah Bridge and the Sealdah train station. These are the sites of shanty towns because they are near the CBD and train stations for informal employment like delivering goods on bullock carts and hawking goods. The jute mills also provide employment to the shanty town dwellers and as the people walk everywhere they live along train tracks and roads serving these factories.
These shanty towns have been defined as ‘unfit for human habitation’. A ‘bustee’ is a registered slum, the people living in them have a right to be there. There will be a crowded water supply and poor sanitation shared between many households. The people here have average earnings of £7-24 per month which is below the poverty line. These low wages meant that people could not afford normal house so these where built quickly to meet urgent needs. There is no planning permission and electricity and water may only have been provided years after building.
Evaluate impacts of international migration in the uk
There are more immigrants into the UK than emigrants leaving. Population growth in the last 10 years is 1.5 million. Recent immigration from A8 Eastern European EU members e.g Poland 700,000 in 2004-8. Migration into the Uk is mostly from Asia and Africa 574,000 in 2005-6. Migration out of the U.K. Mostly to Australia and Spain 385,000 in 2005-6.
Impacts on services
Positive
- many immigrants work in low paid services uk born workers don’t want
Negative
- increased need for housing
- pressure on school places
- language barrier - interpreters needed
- 1999-2000 £28.8 billion spent on benefits and services for immigrants
Impacts on the economy
Positive
- work in factories and increase production
- 1999-2000 £31.2 billion paid to uk govt in taxes
- fill skills gap, doing jobs many uk born workers will not or cannot do
Negative
- send £10 million home each day from UK
- compete with UK-born workers for low-paid jobs
- push house prices up
Describe the sustainability of one inner city urban planning scheme in an MEDC city
In the 1800s Belfast boasted the worlds largest shipyard, Harland and Wolff, the famous Titanic was built here. However over the years the shipyard declined, by the 1990s much of the area was disused, derelict and polluted.
The Titanic quarter is a 75-hectare site in Belfast’s inner city where the shipyards were located. Titanic quarter ltd. aimed to create an exciting waterfront development through their urban planning scheme.
They planned to achieve this by transforming a brownsite into an area combining residences, education facilities e.g the Belfast metropolitan college, offices e.g Citigroup and Microsoft. There will also be restaurants, bars and hotels. Over 7500 apartments are planned and 900,000m* of space being set aside for other land uses. The project is estimated to cost £5 billion.
The project can achieve sustainability through building on a brownsite which reduces pressure on greenfield sites around the rural-urban fringe, reducing traffic congestion and pollution by providing residence for people to live close to where they work. TQ will be easily accessible by public transport and walkways. A tram may be introduced in future.
TQ is estimated to provide 15,000 jobs during construction and 20,000 jobs once established, over approximately 15 years.
Local communities will benefit from the stepping stone project which helps long-term unemployed people from east Belfast find work.
The scheme will be less sustainable if fewer jobs are created them the developers claim or most jobs created are taken by well qualified people who live in the suburbs and commute to work.
Describe one strategy attempting to reduce the development gap. Identify the organisations core aims and action taken.
ONE is a US advocacy organisation which mainly argues its case with politicians. It advocates an end to extreme poverty by achieving the internationally agreed MDGs.
It is different because it uses the Internet to make its case in a powerful way. In 2008 ONE formed ‘ONEvote08’ and used YouTube, Facebook etc to campaign to get global poverty and MDGs talked about by the politicians in the US presidential race between Barack Obama and John McCain. It campaigns for action against hunger
It claims to make poverty history. There are 2.4 million people involved and growing from all 50 states. It believes the US budget should go towards basic needs like health and education. It claims to fight against poverty, hunger, for debt cancellation and fair trade.
Since 2000 it has achieved the cancellation of some debts saving African countries $70 billion, targeted aid for education allowed 29 million more Africans to go to school, increased funding for health helped 3 million HIV positive people worldwide get life saving drugs and combating malaria, 59 million bed nets have been supplied.
The Internet allowed these impacts to happen, to spread ONEs message and to raise awareness about their cause worldwide. This is an example of globalisation.
How does globalisation help and hinder development in one LEDC or NIC
Since the 1990s entrepreneurs have been encouraged to set up businesses and lots of MNCs have invested in India. There are lots of workers wanting jobs who will accept low wages. Large numbers of people speak English and lots of people who emigrated from India to get work are returning with new skills.
Factors that help;
- life expectancy has gone up from 59 years in 1990 to 63 in 2004
- more people in India now have cars, TVs, washing machines and other consumer goods
- MNCs have created many new jobs in call centres and hi-tech industries
- adult literacy rates have increased from 50% in 1990 to 61% in 2004
- increased the number of enormous shopping centres
Factors that hinder development;
- half of children under 5 in India are malnourished
- more imported goods mean there are fewer jobs for those with little education
- western-style clothes and behaviour are considered shocking by some
- unrest in rural areas has led to guerrilla fighting
How does one sustainable development project in an LEDC aim to help with economic, environmental and social improvements. Evaluate the success of the project
Fishermen in Tamil Nadu, India were having problems. The solution was appropriate technology to help with economic, environmental and social improvements.
Their problems included
- traditional fishing boats - kattumarams were made of tree trunks. This was causing deforestation because there weren’t enough tree trunks.
- other fishing boats were taking lots of fish leaving the local people to get poorer.
Solutions
- designed a new fishing boat based on a traditional design using plywood and fibreglass which could carry engines
- uses local skills of boat building. Two-thirds of local fisherman changed to these boats
Impacts
Positive
- fishermen could continue to catch fish and increase their income
- fewer trees are cut down as new boat is made of fibre glass
- can being more fish to the shore than they could in old boats
- jobs created in boat building
- as fishermen make more money they can afford healthcare, better food and can and more of their children to school
Negative
- some materials have to be bought from elsewhere e.g fibreglass
- using engines contributes to global warming
- petrol is scarce and will not last forever.
Evaluate how successful measures of traffic management in one city in the EU has been in terms of sustainability
Freiburg is a historic city in southern Germany with a population of 200,000. In the early 1970s it had major traffic congestion in its narrow city centre streets caused by population growth.
Solutions;
- pedestrianised city centre
- improved public transport, very cheap fares on non-polluting trams
- park and ride facilities on edge of city for commuters
- 200 miles of cycle paths, cycle storage at tram stops so people can ‘bike and ride’
- no free car parking in city centre
- city is compact, 70% of people live 500m from a tram stop
Impacts
- 4000 fewer cars each day than in 1970
- 70% of local trips made by tram
- public transport use more than doubled since 1980
- all this reduces congestion, fuel use and pollution ensuring Freiburg’s transport system is becoming more sustainable
- people travelling in wider region still affected by policies that encourage car use
- even with all these policies people still use cars in Freiburg
Benefits
- better air quality
- car use dropped from 60% in 1976 to 46% in 1992
How does population growth and economic development in an LEDC increase demand for resources and how does this put pressure on people and the environment
Population growth
- China’s population is growing at one million per month in spite of the one child policy
- there are around 1.3 billion people in China
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Economic development
- China has developed factories and sells its goods all over the world
- the economy is growing at 9.5% each year. People have more money to spend. In 2006 average earnings were over five times as much as 1981.
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Increased demand for resources
- more people all wanting more thing such as washing machines, fridges, cars, food, clothes, TVs. These have to be made using metal, energy, cotton and other resources.
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This leads to pressure on people
- air pollution responsible for 750,000 deaths per year, some people wore masks for the Beijing Olympics
- traffic congestion, commuting to work in big cities like Beijing often takes 3 hours.
- water supplies polluted in 90% of cities
And also to pressure on the environment:
- serious air pollution in two thirds of cities studied
- waste, four million fridges thrown away each year which releases CFCs a greenhouse gas.
- deforestation, 10 million hectares lost in 5 years contributing to global warming
- tigers dying out
Evaluate benefits and problems of one renewable energy source solution to increasing demand for resources in an MEDC
Wind power is very important in Denmark. It produces 19% of the country’s electricity. The Danes plan to increase wind power to produce 50% of their electricity by 2025. Most wind farms are in the sea about 14km from shore. The island of Samsø has 11 onshore wind turbines and 10 offshore. Horns Rev, the largest wind farm generate enough electricity for 150,000 private homes or nearly 2% of Denmark’s total electricity.
Benefits
- no greenhouse gases to contribute to global warming
- wind speed will vary but will never run out
- electric cars could be charged at night when there is spare wind power and could store electricity.
- Denmark will have to import less fuel
Problems
- wind farms in the sea will damage the plants and animals on the sea bed
- wind turbines can be seen up to 45 km away and some people dislike them
- some birds seem to avoid areas with turbines so may lose their feeding grounds
- when wind speed drops no electricity is produced and it is difficult to store electricity
- tourists may stop visiting places near wind farms
Waste management case study
Belfast produces a large amount of waste, about 121,000 tonnes of household waste per year. Until recently most of this has gone to landfill. Now there is target to reduce landfill by 80% by 2020.
In 2006-7 24% was recycled or composted. This is increasing. Houses in Belfast now have blue bins or black boxes for paper, card, cans and plastic bottles. These are collected for recycling. Most also have brown bins for grass cuttings and other garden waste which are taken for composting. Subsidised home compost bins are also available.
There are still ‘superdumps’ or landfill sites such as one at Mallusk. This is unsustainable so the eastern region waste management group have plans to build a waste-to-energy plant (incinerator) which would heat 20,000 homes and a mechanical biological treatment facility which will help sort out material and compost where possible.
Asses the impact on local community and the environment for one sustainable tourism project in either an LEDC or an MEDC
Laos is an LEDC in South-east Asia with a population of 6.8 million. It is a wilderness area of mountains and deciduous forest. Nam Ha is a national protected area in the north of Laos. Wildlife here includes rare clouded leopards and tigers in danger of extinction, gibbons, Asian elephants and 288 bird species.
Ecotourism project organised by UNESCO where there is boating on Nam Ha river and trekking through forests. All trekking and boat trips must use Nam Ha Eco-guide service.
Impact on the local community includes the earnings of Nam Ha eco-guide service invested in small-scale development to benefit local people, the village income is increased, local people become guides instead of hunters so wildlife is conserved.
Impact on the environment includes that guides and Trekkers help to deter poachers so rare species are conserved, two proposed roads which would have led to logging and illegal trade in wildlife have not been allowed to go ahead. Local people become guides instead of hunters so wildlife is conserved.
