Population And The Environment

Question 1

The environmental context

Answer 1

People + environment
Impact: pop growth - climate change, pollution, depletion of resources, ecosystem damage
Ability: support pop growth - basic resources e.f water and food
Hazards: e.g environmental variables + health

Question 2

Key physical elements: climate

Answer 2

Determines production distribution of farming types + quantities of food
Rainfall patterns
Levels + nature of disease e.g malaria
Low pop: arid, Vs high pop: tropical + temperate
Climate change - coastal farms flooding due to sea level rise, droughts + extreme rainfall (monsoon too) leading to falling levels of nutrition in LICs - trade + HICs

Question 3

Key physical enviro elements: soil

Answer 3

Soil fertility determines type + quant of food
Densely pop around fertile soils e.g alluvial soils of the Nile Delta or volcanic like Naples city
Fertilizers + chemicals improve food production but damaging consequences like pollution, eutrophication + ghg
Soil erosion can force emigration

Question 4

Key physical enviro element: Resource distributions

Answer 4

High resource availability - high pop no. + dist
Fresh water:
- rainfall distributions, arid vs temperate / tropical
- depletion of water stores - draining aquifers
- water scarcity - unsafe water drinking, food insecurity, health problems, diseases and death
- high evap prevents water reaching stores
Energy:
- enviro - e.g fossil fuels: gas in Russia, oil in M. East
- climatic - e.g wind, solar
Areas like rainforest where food + fuel naturally occurs - high pop concentration

Question 5

Population parameters

Answer 5

Population distribution - pattern of where
E.g uneven China: e (6%) vs w (94%)
Population density - av no per km^2
- global: high 20-60 Deg N, highest S+E Asia
(Total) population numbers - raw figure
(Percentage) population change - natural increase + net migration
Global:
- 1804: 1 bil as famine war disease etc killed
- 1950: 2.5 bil
- 2018: 7.6 bil
- 2050: 9 bil

Question 6

Development processes affecting pop change

Answer 6

Neolithic - 12,000 yrs ago, western Asia + Eastern China, hunting gathering to permanent agric - reliable + increasing food supply
Industrial revolution - 1750-1850, marchinery rise, Britian pop x 2 (death rate fall with more food & money for better diets), agric became labour intensive so moved to city work
Country general development trend: increase, then decrease while moving to urban cities