Impact of RLD Flashcards
Impact on people and environment
As the population grows there is a lowering of the fallow time to allow humus to increase and nutrients and soil moisture to build up. The land becomes over-cultivated resulting in crop failures and death of livestock leading to malnutrition and sometimes famine, for example, in Sudan and Ethiopia.
Education of children and general health care can be interrupted as the loss of income means families are unable to meet the costs required.
As people move to urban areas money is also moved from rural development programmes which accentuates the rural exodus and raises food insecurity.
The migration results in a demographic imbalance with young males being the most likely to migrate, leaving women, young children, and the elderly in the rural areas.
There may be large-scale migration into overcrowded urban areas,
causing more pressure and the growth of shanty towns.
Impact on the environment
The water table becomes lowered. In Burkina Faso the water table fell by 20m partly due to less rainfall but also from people sinking wells to access underground water as rainfall amounts fell and population levels rose.
The dry, bare grounds is more susceptible to gully erosion as the torrential rain becomes concentrated into one channel on a slope.
Inappropriate farming techniques, especially the continuous use of irrigation combined with high evaporation rates, causes salinisation of the soils which kills crops and contaminates the soils.
Conflict
Migration can also lead to conflict between ethnic groups as people move
for example Darfur, leading to the growth of large refugee
camps.
Desertification
The soil structure deteriorates as the wind blows it away causing the advance of the Sahara Desert - desertification.
debt
Countries are becoming increasingly reliant on international aid or paying back high interest loans.
