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© Copyright AGCAS & Graduate Prospects Ltd

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What can I do with a geography degree? | Prospects.ac.uk

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Find out what you can do with your geography degree including job options, work experience, further study and skills.

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What careers will geography help you with?

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What careers will geography help you with?

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Career opportunities after a geography degree | Geography and Environmental Science | University of Southampton

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This section looks at some of the careers chosen by Geographers and gives you some information about what future jobs or further study can involve.

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Geography graduates are very employable, with the skills, knowledge and understanding gained during a geography degree held in high regard by employers. The nature of working lives is changing. It is less likely that you will spend all of your working life in one organisation or even in the same sector. If your career path is to be varied, you will need transferable skills and flexibility. Geography provides you with these.

Transferable skills

Employers seek a mixture of skills, qualifications and experience when they recruit for a post. As a graduate you will be in demand for your transferable skills, such as:

Being a good communicator with strong presentation skills

Being competent with ICT

Being able to carry out research

Being used to working effectively in a team and taking a variety of roles in a team

Being able to manage your time by juggling commitments, meeting deadlines and managing stress

Being good at combining information from a variety of sources with excellent writing skills

Specific skills geography helps to develop

You will also be in demand for the specific skills and understanding that being a geographer helps you to develop, including:

Scientific and lab skills

Producing and interpreting maps

Research and interpretation of data, including GIS skills

Debate and enquiry

Environmental and social awareness

Team-based project work

Fieldwork techniques

Reports on employability

Find out more by reading the Society's report about the demand for geography (PDF).

Reports from other sources also examine the employability of geographers:

The following reports look at how employers value the skills of university graduates; many of the skills can be developed through a degree in geography:

Some reports look at destinations of graduates in closely related subject areas, including:

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Royal Geographical Society - Why you should study geography: Employability

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Geography graduates are very employable, with the skills, knowledge and understanding gained during a geography degree held in high regard by employers. The nature of working lives is changing. It is less likely that you will spend all of your working life in one organisation or even in the same sector.

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A page of resources to help with AQA’s GCSE Challenge of Resource management unit

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The Futuristic Farms That Will Feed the World | Freethink | Future of Food

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Planet SOS: Iceland pioneering sustainable food production

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The potential for Sustainable Food Production

Local food sourcing - A method of food production and distribution that is local, rather than national and/or international. Food is grown (or raised) and harvested close to consumers' homes, then distributed over much shorter distances.

Organic produce -Food which is produced using environmentally and animal friendly farming methods on organic farms. Artificial fertilisers are banned and farmers develop fertile soil by rotating crops and using compost, manure and clover. It must be free of synthetic additives like pesticides and dyes.

Permaculture - A system of agricultural and social design principles based upon or directly using patterns and features observed in natural ecosystems.

Sustainable food supply - Food that is produced in ways that avoid damaging natural resources, provide social benefits such as good quality food and safe and healthy products, and contribute to local economies.

Urban farming - The growing of fruits, herbs, and vegetables and raising animals in towns and cities, a process that is accompanied by many other activities such as processing and distributing food, collecting and reusing food waste.

The case of Almeria and many other modern farming methods show that although we can produce enough food for places to be food secure and keep people fed, many of our methods are unsustainable and have a negative impact on the environment.

Many people are now concerned about having sustainable food supplies and limiting their impact on the environment. This links to the idea of sustainable development - development that meets the needs of the present without limiting the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This means that sustainable food supplies are those that are produced in ways that avoid damaging natural resources , provide social benefits such as good quality food and safe and healthy products, and contribute to local economies. Some of the ways we can do this are discussed below.

Permaculture
These ideas tie in with the idea of developing a permaculture. The word permaculture refers to permanent agriculture, or agriculture that we can use for ever. Permaculture involves developing agricultural systems that co-operate with nature rather than working against it. An agriculture that respects the plants and animals that are produced. Examples of permaculture include using organic farming, farming in the urban environment, making fish and meat supplies sustainable, eating seasonally and reducing food wastes.

1. Organic farming

The UK's organic farming sector is worth £1.95 billion (Soil Association, 2016). Perhaps organic agriculture is the way forward to reducing chemical and crude oil use and making our farming more sustainable. Organic farming is a much more sustainable method of producing food because;

* It reduces the intensification of food production allowing the land to "rest"
* It encourages a more local approach
* Artificial fertilisers are largely banned
* Farmers develop fertile soil by rotating crops and using compost, manure and clover.
* Strict regulations, known as 'standards', define what organic farmers can and cannot do - and place a strong emphasis on the protection of wildlife and the environment.
* It uses biological pest control rather than pesticides. This is where natural predators are used to kill insects that damage crops, a ladybird can eat more than 5000 aphids in its lifetime for example.

2. Urban farming initiatives

Growing food in the UK is nothing new. People have been farming in UK cities for hundreds of years and were encouraged to do so in WW2 when food was short. Urban farming can be very productive, with some estimates saying it can be 15 times more effective than large scale farming. Urban farming is small scale in its nature, with people being allocated small plots of land on which to produce food. Food can also be produced on rooftops (known as green roofs, this can include bee keeping, on trees in parks, in people's back gardens and allotments of land. This type of farming is healthier for people, is local so cuts food miles, saves people money and encourages people to think about where their food comes from.

The northern UK town of Middlesbrough launched an urban farming scheme which encouraged many sectors of the community including school children to grow their own food. All of this in one of the UK's most industrial cities. The US city of Seattle is establishing the Beacon Hill Food Forest which will be full of edible plants and fruit trees.

The photograph shows a 1.5-acre urban farm in Chicago. It is provided rent-free, to this non-profit initiative. It shows how it is possible to grow lots of food even in a small space.

Figure 37 - An urban Farm in Chicago, By Linda from Chicago, USA (New crops) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

3. Fish and meat from sustainable sources

Producing both fish and meat for human consumption can have big impacts on the environment and is viewed by many as unsustainable. The meat industry is unsustainable in many ways. Feeding animals grain consumes a lot of resources, animals can be kept in very poor conditions in enclosed spaces, and keeping animals at such high numbers produces a lot of methane and CO2. Grazing livestock outside in the UK can be a good way of keeping this sustainable as the land can only support so many animals and it also maintains things like moorland landscapes. The more sustainable way forward is to use free range methods where the animals are more free to roam around fields within the farm. We have developed labelling systems too where people know how their food has been produced.

Fishing can have a really big impact on our marine environment. The fish themselves, sensitive habitats, endangered species and the marine food chain need to be maintained to keep the oceans healthy and productive. To have sustainable fisheries means that fish populations should be able to recover their numbers in the long term allowing fishing activity to be at a level which ensures it can continue indefinitely. This can be done by;

a) Ensuring sustainable fish stocks by using data in the form of catch records and stock surveys. This data collection and research must be ongoing to ensure that the fishery can respond to declines in fish populations by reducing the level of fishing.
b) Minimising environmental impacts of fishing - for example, drag net fishing or trawling for shell fish destroys the entire sea bed ecosystem, encouraging diving is much more sustainable. Dolphin friendly nets have been encouraged in tuna fishing too.
c) Stopping Illegal fishing - This is where people fish in areas they are not supposed to and ignore limits or quotas put on fish catches. The illegal fishing industry is estimated to be worth US$10-23.5 billion annually, this illegal fishing threatens the sustainability of fish stocks, the health of marine ecosystems and the livelihoods of those who fish legitimately.
d) Managing fishing practices - here local authorities can work with the fishing industry to encourage ways of fishing that ensure long term stocks.

4. Seasonal food consumption

There is a growing movement in the UK for people to eat seasonal vegetables and fruit wherever possible, in order to reduce the food miles. Seasonal food involves producing food locally without the need for expensive heated greenhouses or imports of food from thousands of miles away. This would mean not eating strawberries at Christmas time that have been produced in Morocco for example.

Local food sourcing is also becoming more and more popular. The red tractor logo appears on lots of food stuffs now to show that the food is produced in the United Kingdom. Red Tractor Assurance exists to maintain, develop and promote standards throughout the whole food industry.

5. Reduced waste and losses

In many HICs a huge amount of food is wasted. If you look at the graph opposite the food waste part of the graph relating to consumption shows a huge contrast between Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. In Europe most of waste is related to consumption, where people have bought their food and either allow it to go to waste in storage or throw out food. This is an issue with education and management of food by consumers. This section is larger than production, handling and storage, processing and distribution and market combined! In the LICs as found in Sub-Saharan Africa, most of the food loss is through production and handling/storage, representing an issue for the way food is grown and then handled.

According to lovefoodhatewaste.com in the UK;

* We throw away 7 million tonnes of food and drink from our homes every year in the UK, and more than half of this is food and drink we could have eaten.
* Wasting this food costs the average household £470 a year, rising to £700 for a family with children, the equivalent of around £60 a month.
* If we all stop wasting food that could have been eaten, the benefit to the planet would be the equivalent of taking 1 in 4 cars off the road.

42.4 kg of avoidable food waste found in New Zealand household rubbish bins in 2014 By Love Food Hate Waste NZ (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

This food waste is also a problem because it contributes to the filling up of our landfill sites where we store our waste.
We can reduce the amount of food waste and loss in many ways;

1. Plan your weekly shop - by planning what you will cook throughout the week before you go shopping reduces impulse buys and unnecessary purchases which leads to less waste
2. Reduce portion sizes - this means that people don't overeat and also that there is no waste left on the plate that will go directly into the bin. Taking smaller portions several times can also reduce this waste.
3. Buy "ugly" fruit and vegetables - these are fruit and vegetables that do not pass supermarket "norms" for appearance, a knobbly carrot for example, but are perfectly edible. This stops this food getting landfilled
4. Store food correctly - using your fridge and cupboard space correctly to prevent food going off. For example, most fruit and vegetables are actually preserved better outside of the fridge
5. Keep the fridge clutter free - use the "first in, first out" principle: After you buy new food, move the older products to the front so you consume them first.
6. Treat expiration and sell-by dates as guidelines - many foods are perfectly edible after the sell by date, use your senses of sight and smell to judge if a food can be eaten or not.
7. Use leftovers the next meal or day rather than throwing them away
8. Compost waste so you can reuse the compost in your garden - this reduces waste going to landfill.

Food loss can also be reduced. In many LICs issues relating to the farming are largely technical and can be resolved. Many problems arise after the food has been harvested, including loss of food due to poor pest control, lack of adequate storage facilities, poor access to refrigeration and "cold chain" storage and poor marketing. These all result in food loss in areas that are often food insecure. If we invested in these areas more food would reach consumers and GDP for these countries would rise.

NEXT TOPIC - Food - Sustainable supplies of food in Bangladesh

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Coolgeography - GCSE - Food- sustainable food

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Local food sourcing - A method of food production and distribution that is local, rather than national and/or international. Food is grown (or raised) and harvested close to consumers' homes, then distributed over much shorter distances.

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Almeria Spain: an example of a large scale agricultural development

When we first started growing food what we could grow was controlled by natural factors. However, as technology advances we are capable of growing food in ways and places that we couldn't before.

One place where this happens in on the Costa Del Sol on the South Coast of Spain. In Almeria, the landscape is dramatic and unforgiving. It has desert scrub plants, and very dry soils. It is one of the driest parts of Europe (the total annual rainfall is only 228mm) but has become the site of an agricultural revolution. Millions of tons of vegetables are exported to other European countries and other parts of the world each year.

A huge number of greenhouses, made mainly of polythene and plastic, are found 30 km southwest of the city of Almería in southern Spain.

It is estimated that there are 40,000 hectares of greenhouses producing over 2.7 million tonnes of produce each year. This creates over €1.2 billion in economic activity.

In the 1950s any plants the farmers planted were simply blown down by the wind. However, they put up plastic sheeting on poles to stop the wind damaging their plants. They then realised that this had a secondary benefit, it helped their plants ripen earlier. Protecting crops meant that farmers could make the barren landscape fertile with the added bonus of a long extended growing season. This was the start of an amazing transformation. The farmers saw the chance to turn the area into a massive market garden using enormous greenhouses. There are greenhouses with over a ¼ million kilos of tomatoes (including the Angel tomato), and nature is taking a back seat. The plants are grown under cover, but also not in soil but using a system of hydroponics. Here, the plants are grown without soil! They grow in grow bags with what is effectively loft insulation with a mix of water and nutrients to avoid contamination from the ground. The water/nutrient solution is fed into the base of the plants via water pipes with small holes in called irrigation tubes.

This is an industrial way of growing crops and can grow 2 entire crops a year. The whole area contains the largest concentration of greenhouses in the world. A ¼ of all of those tomatoes come to the UK. Londoners eat over ½ a million tonnes of fruit and veg a year, enough to fill Trafalgar Square half way to the top of Nelson's column!

There are many advantages to this style of farming. The area produces relatively cheap fresh fruit and vegetables for people all year round. Indeed, plants can be grown outside of their normal growing season, increasing the variety of diet for people throughout the year.

The Spanish Government and EU offered support through infrastructure, technical advice and sources of funding. There are also large amounts of cheap temporary labour available to help in the farming. Many migrants come from Eastern Europe and North Africa. The fruit and vegetables also need packing, and this creates extra jobs. There are factories that produce the necessary plastic and also recycle it. This has created a secondary industry and extra jobs. Many agribusinesses have located in the area providing high quality R&D jobs. Especially in the Almeria Agribusiness cluster.

In addition to this, hydroponic growing techniques have helped to save on soil and resources and boost harvests. Hydroponics also mean that the plants only get the nutrients they need via the drip hoses, so there is less waste. Less water is used due to the use of drip hose irrigation, and greenhouses limit evaporation losses. The area also has the Bajo Almanzora desalinisation plant, which is helping to provide freshwater to the region. The year round warm temperatures help to cut energy costs. Finally, strict EU rules on quality have helped cut chemical use and raise the standards of production.

However, this large scale agriculture is controversial and has lots of critics. This is because there are negatives to this type of farming. The immigrant labour force is paid very low wages and they live in poor conditions for example. Some of the immigrants are from North Africa and work illegally in Spain, this raises tensions in the region. There are many environmental impacts, the plastic used has badly damaged local ecosystems and the environment. Waste plastic is often burnt and this is toxic and hazardous to human health. The greenhouses often use pesticides to protect the crops from pests, these increase health risks for people working there and have been proven to cause some cancers. Large amounts of litter have been left in the area including containers used for chemicals and plastic sheeting. Local riverbeds have been blocked up, there are fears that these could break and cause catastrophic flooding during intense rainstorms in this part of Spain. Despite efforts to limit water use the farming has put a strain on local water sources despite the use of desalinised sea water. Natural underground aquifers are drying up. The greenhouses even cool the local area by reflecting sunlight back out into the atmosphere!

NEXT TOPIC - Food - sustainable food supplies

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When we first started growing food what we could grow was controlled by natural factors. However, as technology advances we are capable of growing food in ways and places that we couldn't before. One place where this happens in on the Costa Del Sol on the South Coast of Spain.

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Increasing food supply - AQA GCSE Geography - Unit 2C - food management.

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Different strategies can be used to increase food supply

Key words

Aeroponics - Growing plants in an air or mist environment without the use of soil

Biotechnology - The manipulation (through genetic engineering) of living organisms to produce useful commercial products (such as pest resistant crops and new bacterial strains).
Hydroponics - A method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil.

Irrigation - Applying water to land in order to supply crops and other plants with necessary water.

The new green revolution - A combination of modern technology, traditional knowledge and an emphasis on farming, social and agro-ecological systems as well as yields, especially in poorer countries.

We have seen that there are many problems that face the human race in terms of providing enough food for everyone to avoid undernutrition, malnourishment and famine. However, we can feed everyone across the planet and many scientists think we are capable of producing enough food using modern methods of agriculture and science. The main issues are in LICs, but there are simple and low cost technologies that can be used to increase food supply there. There are also more high technology approaches, and both could help us to increase global food supply and reduce food insecurity.

Overview of strategies to increase food supply:

Irrigation is the application of water to land in order to supply crops and other plants with necessary water. This is used to maintain plant productivity when water supply is low. This can be seasonal as in the UK, when many plants need irrigation in summer months, or it could be applied to a dry region to allow food production to take place there. Irrigation is crucial to the world's food supplies. Irrigated land made up about one-fifth of the total arable area in developing countries but produced two-fifths of all crops and close to three-fifths of cereal production. These systems increase food supply but can cause a lot of damage. They reduce water tables in the ground and affect downstream river flow. They also increase evaporation losses of water and increase the salinity of soils.

Irrigated Blueberries - Image taken by Pollinator, released under GFDL

Irrigation in Bangladesh, By Mohammed Tawsif Salam (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Aeroponics and hydroponics

Aeroponics involves growing plants in an air or mist environment without the use of soil. This involves growing plants suspended in greenhouses (which reduces and controls the amounts of pests) with their root systems exposed. The roots are then sprayed with a mist that contains nutrients every few minutes to provide the plant with what it needs, in the absence of soil. As the roots are exposed to more oxygen the plants tend to grow faster. This system is good as the farmer needs to use less nutrients and water as they go directly onto the roots of the plant and are not lost into the soil. Also, the plants can be easily moved around and it takes less space as plants can be stacked on shelves, one on top of another. The quicker growth increases the number of yields and it is easy to maintain the plants as they are in a controlled environment (so less pests) and can be elevated to a good height for farm workers to access. However, it is very expensive so is less of an option for LICs, and the nutrient mixing and spraying system is essential so if this breaks down the whole crop is lost. Also it requires specialist knowledge especially for the nutrient mix of the plants and it requires a lot of maintenance of the plants and equipment.

Hydroponics is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil. The plants have their roots dangling into a nutrient solution which provides for their needs, many of the advantages are the same as for Aeroponics as well as the additional advantage that the plants can even be transported in a nutrient base, allowing for extra freshness in the shops.

The new green revolution and use of biotechnology

The original green revolution involved changing farm practices in many parts of LICs between 1940 and the 1960s. This revolution sought to get rid of famine in many nations and massively increase food production, by effectively ending subsistence agriculture and replacing it with commercial agriculture. The idea was to take many of the systems, ideas and technology of European and USA farming into (mainly) Asian agriculture, whilst researching and utilising the resources Asian countries had. New High Yielding Varieties (HYVs) were introduced yields of wheat, rice and maize rose by as much as 40%. This worked well in many areas, but also led to an increase in debt for farmers in poorer countries and damaged the natural environment because of the increasing use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Groundwater became polluted and over use of water led to water shortages and increasing salinity of the soil.

The new green revolution is more focussed in Africa rather than Asia, and mainly involves the use of biotechnology to overcome the environmental issues faced there. It involves a combination of modern technology, traditional knowledge and an emphasis on farming especially in poorer countries. At the same time, it emphasizes alternative approaches and improved farm management and information systems in order to minimise environmental damage from external inputs and benefit poor farmers and marginal areas bypassed by the original green revolution.
Some examples include;
* breeding of crop varieties that can withstand adverse conditions, such as salt-tolerant rice or more drought-resistant sorghums and millets;
* soil nutrient cycling, through crop rotation and biomass recycling;
* reliance on genetic pest and disease resistance to replace or reduce chemical and mechanical pest control;
* integrated crop management strategies to control pests and diseases and maintain soil fertility.

Biotechnology
Biotechnology is the application of science towards food supply. It involves the manipulation (through genetic engineering) of living organisms to produce useful commercial products (such as pest resistant crops and new bacterial strains). This is useful as it produces plants and animals that have certain characteristics to help them cope and thrive in different environments. This is nothing new, and we have selected the best grains to plant the next year or mated the best animal species to produce better crops and animals for many millennia. However, it is now a very scientific process. For example, a species of corn has been developed with the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis added to it as a genetic modification. This has dropped pesticide use on corn crops by 90 percent as the bacterium in its genes helps it ward off corn borers and other pests.
Other useful modifications include;
1. producing insect repellent crops which reduces pesticide use
2. Producing crops which resist disease
3. Producing foods which take longer to "go off" or perish
4. Crops that increase the number of vitamins or proteins in them, such as rice or potatoes. It is even thought that crops could be produce to carry certain medicines.
5. Drought resistant crops that can grow in poor conditions
6. Meat has even been "grown" in a laboratory, this would reduce the need for large stocks of animals.

Appropriate technology
Appropriate technology is a method used to improve farming methods in LICs that is lower tech. It was founded by Dr E.F. Schumacher as an alternative path for development for poorer people. He founded his Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) in 1966 and published his ideas in a book "small is beautiful" in 1973. His argument centred around the old proverb
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for life"
Appropriate/intermediate technology is usually;

A) Labour intensive - utilising and creating employment for local labour.
B) Using sustainable technology and tools/knowledge of local people.
C) Uses newly developed technology that are low cost and local which local people can manage and control rather than IMPORTED techniques and technologies.
D) In harmony with the local environment.

For example, Appropriate Technology Asia have invented a greenhouse that can cheaply installed in mountainous areas of Asia to prolong the growing season. They call this solar agriculture and it allows them to provide a source of fresh vegetables that are currently unavailable in many remote areas during the winter months. They can even be used above 2,700m!

A solar greenhouse, source - http://www.atasia.org.uk/

NEXT TOPIC - Food - Almeria Spain

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Key words Aeroponics - Growing plants in an air or mist environment without the use of soil Biotechnology - The manipulation (through genetic engineering) of living organisms to produce useful commercial products (such as pest resistant crops and new bacterial strains). Hydroponics - A method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil.

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The Impacts of food insecurity

Food insecurity is a major concern for many countries, and as we have seen in particular countries with lower incomes such as those found in Asia and parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Food insecurity has major impacts on people personally and on the ability of a country to lift itself out of poverty. Some of the impacts of food insecurity include famine, undernutrition, soil erosion, rising prices, and social unrest.

Famine and undernutrition

Undernutrition occurs when people do not eat enough calories or get enough nutrients to cover their needs for energy and growth, or to maintain a healthy immune system. This is a direct result of food insecurity in many countries and regions. Hunger is chronic or severe undernourishment. The hungry of the world have enough food to survive, but not enough food for good health, on a continuing basis. The FAO describes hunger in this way:

"People who are chronically hungry are undernourished. They don't eat enough to get the energy they need to lead active lives. Their undernourishment makes it hard to study, work or otherwise perform physical activities. Undernourishment is particularly harmful for women and children. Undernourished children do not grow as quickly as healthy children. Mentally, they may develop more slowly. Constant hunger weakens the immune system and makes them more vulnerable to diseases and infections. Mothers living with constant hunger often give birth to underweight and weak babies, and are themselves facing increased risk of death. Every day, millions of people around the world eat only the bare minimum of food to keep themselves alive."

Famine is a different problem. People affected by famine do not have enough food to survive. Famine is a widespread, serious, shortage of food. In the worst cases it can lead to starvation and even death.

Figure 26 The difference between over nourishment and famine

Soil erosion is the removal of topsoil faster than the soil forming processes can replace it, due to natural, animal, and human activity. Often it is a complex mix of all 3 activities. During times of food insecurity farmers can cause soil erosion by breeding and rearing too many cattle or by trying to grow too many crops.

There are 3 common human causes of soil erosion;

1. Overgrazing - keeping animal stocks at numbers higher than the environment can support can cause soil erosion. The animals not only eat the vegetation which allows more soil to be washed away by rain or blown away by the wind, but they also compact the soil limiting new plant growth.
2. Deforestation or removal of natural vegetation - trees and shrubs act as a protective layer against falling rain or the wind. Taking this protective layer away allows the soil to get washed away.
3. Over cultivation - Trying to grow too many plants, and never letting the soil rest removes vital nutrients from the soil. This means less plants grow, so more soil is exposed and is more likely to get eroded away.

The price of food like many commodities is controlled by the laws of supply and demand. If there is a lot of demand for a product that is in short supply the cost goes up. If there is more than enough supply of the food item compared to the demand the price goes down. The chart below shows that food prices have gone up globally. This has major consequences for poorer countries that may already be food insecure as they cannot afford these higher prices.

Graph about food prices

In 2012 food prices went up because of a number of reasons such as rising demand from developing China and India, poor harvests of vegetables in Russia, Australia and South America and even the impact of the Japanese tsunami of that year on fish stocks!

When food is in short supply it can result in social unrest both regionally and internationally. During 2007-2008, a rise in global food prices led to riots in various countries. Prices of food went up because of the use of farmland for biofuel, increased petrol/fuel prices, unfair global competition, increasing population and failed harvests of some food stuffs. In Burkina Faso on 22 February rioting broke out in the country's second and third largest cities over soaring food prices (up to a 65 percent increase). Over 100 people were arrested in one of the towns. The capital, Ouagadougou, was saved because of a high number of soldiers on the streets. The government promised to lower taxes on food and to release food stocks but food riots returned in 2014. Social unrest could continue into the future because of food security as climate change, increased population and more competition for food supplies put pressure on resources and increase prices.

NEXT TOPIC - Food - strategies to increase food supply

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Food insecurity is a major concern for many countries, and as we have seen in particular countries with lower incomes such as those found in Asia and parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Food insecurity has major impacts on people personally and on the ability of a country to lift itself out of poverty.

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Can we create the "perfect" farm? - Brent Loken

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Why is There Uneven Access to Food? Crash Course Geography #42

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Factors affecting food supply

There are many factors which can affect whether a country has a food surplus or a food deficit. In many LICs there is a large portion of the population who live in rural areas and who suffer from undernourishment. In most HICs undernourishment is much lower and in many cases limited to few people in society. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO);

* About 795 million people of the 7.3 billion people in the world, or one in nine, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2014-2016.
* Almost all the hungry people, 780 million, live in developing countries, representing 12.9 percent, or one in eight, of the population of LICs.

What affects the amount of food available?

Climate

Having the right climate is essential for crop growth and having good conditions for rearing animals. Temperature is critical for plant growth as all crops have a minimum temperature in which they will grow and a minimum growing season. In Britain, wheat and Barley will only grow when the average temperature is above 6°C. You also need a decent amount of - few crops can grow where there is less than 250mm of rainfall a year (the classification of a desert) and grasses will predominate above these figure. Trees and fruits require greater amounts. In many LICs droughts are suffered which can result in food shortages. In the Horn of Africa in countries such as Ethiopia and Somalia there have been many droughts that can last for years (such as between 2011 and 2012). Drought can also result in desertification. Other climate factors include our changing and warming climate and natural hazards, such as floods and tropical storms which can damage crops (you can find more on these in other sections of this book).

Wheat crops

Technology has been used for centuries to make farming easier and more productive. HICs can afford to invest in combined harvesters, irrigations systems for watering and road networks to improve communications. investment in technology can also make different forms of crop or pastoral farming possible in areas where they previously were not. The Green Revolution has transformed agriculture in certain parts of the world and is tied in with technological innovation. In many LICs they cannot afford these things and this limits the productivity of their agriculture. Richer nations also have access to improvements in transport and storage of food, and Transnational corporations process food making it more freely available.

Crop spraying, an example of the use of technology

There are many pests that can affect a crop and reduce the amount a farmer gets to eat or sell at the end of the harvest. Mice and rats can eat crops, as can locusts and slugs. Animals can be affected by diseases such as foot and mouth and cattle can have their lungs affected by bovine pleuropneumonia. Many HICs can combat these problems using medicines via vets for their animals or using pesticides and insecticides on their crops. These interventions are expensive and often out of the reach of LICs. HICs are even using natural pest remedies to stop insects devouring crops.

Water stress has a huge impact on food production. Water stress occurs when the demand for water exceeds the available amount during a certain period or when poor quality restricts its use. Without water people do not have a way of watering their crops and, therefore, to provide food for the fast growing population. Some countries have sufficient rainfall year round for their crops. Irrigation systems can be used in drier areas or during drier periods to allow for the watering of crops. These can lead to a doubling of crop yields. Many LICs struggle to afford these systems. Other issues include floods which contaminate water supplies and (ironically) put agriculture under water stress, and climate change which is changing the amount of rainfall and when it falls.

Figure 24 - UN poster on the risks of water stress

Conflict and wars affect food supply in many ways and can often lead to hunger. For example;

* Many of the farm workers leave their land to join the fighting, this leaves the land untended.
* Many farmers and their families are forced to flee the areas and become refugees
* Food can become a weapon, as armed forces are taken by soldiers and destroyed or stolen
* Soldiers can deliberately pollute water supplies to affect the local population
* Crops can also be burnt and destroyed in battle.

This has been the case in many places over the past decades including in parts of Syria and Sudan.

People wait in line to check in to a food distribution in UN House, a UN base on the outskirts of Juba, 2014. Photo taken by Crystal Wells/Concern Worldwide.

People who have little money or possessions are said to be living in poverty. They often do not have enough money to buy food and this makes them physically weaker and less productive in their work. It also makes them more susceptible to suffering from disease and ill health. They also cannot afford many of the things that improve food supply such as seeds, tools and fertilisers.

Many of these factors can interlink and act together to severely limit food supply for people.

NEXT TOPIC - Food insecurity

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Coolgeography - GCSE - Food - Factors affecting

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There are many factors which can affect whether a country has a food surplus or a food deficit. In many LICs there is a large portion of the population who live in rural areas and who suffer from undernourishment. In most HICs undernourishment is much lower and in many cases limited to few people in society.

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Reasons for increasing food consumption: economic development, rising population

The amount of calories consumed by people around the world has gone up, but as you have seen this is not the case in all parts of the world. However, the average calorie intake even for the poorest countries, the LICs, has gone above UN safe values. Values in HICs are well above what is required for human well-being.

One of the main reasons for the increase in the amount of food we consume is the rise in global population. As global population and rates of consumption increase there is a need to increase water, food and energy supplies, but to do so in a sustainable manner to meet the needs of all people. The world population crossed 7 billion in 2011, this puts increasing pressure upon resources. In addition, the rates of population growth are not the same around the world. In Africa for instance, population is growing at 2.5% a year, this makes it very difficult to provide a secure food supply for everyone.

Many countries across the world are developing rapidly. In the Newly Emerging Economies (NEEs) such as China or India are becoming wealthier and so are the people that live there. This is allowing a change in the diet of people who live in those countries. It has been observed that the amount of meat consumed in those countries has gone up as development improves. In 1980 people in China consumed just 12kg of meat per person per year, by 2015 this had risen to almost 60kg. This is problematic as approximately 7kg of grain are needed to produce just 1kg of beef, and a typical meat eater needs 2.5 times the amount of land than a vegetarian. This means that people in NEEs need more land and more food produced to meet the needs of their new lifestyles.

NEXT TOPIC - Food - Factors affecting food supply

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Coolgeography - GCSE - Food - consumption

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The amount of calories consumed by people around the world has gone up, but as you have seen this is not the case in all parts of the world. However, the average calorie intake even for the poorest countries, the LICs, has gone above UN safe values.

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Global Patterns of food surplus and deficit

Famine -A widespread, serious, shortage of food. In the worst cases it can lead to starvation and even death.

Food insecurity - Being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. More than 800 million people live every day with hunger or food insecurity.

Food security - When people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.

Undernutrition - This occurs when people do not eat enough nutrients to cover their needs for energy and growth, or to maintain a healthy immune system.

Across the globe we now produce a huge amount of food in different regions and countries which is transported globally. Countries use their geographic advantages to specialise in different food stuffs which can be consumed locally and/or sold internationally. There is enough food for EVERYONE on the globe to have enough to eat, unfortunately this food is not DISTRIBUTED EQUALLY. This leaves countries and places in one of 2 states;

* Areas of DEFICIT have Food Areas of surplus have Food insecurity - Being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. More than 800 million people live every day with hunger or food insecurity.
* security - When people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.

Generally, there are clear patterns of food consumption. The richest nations consume the most Kilocalories per day (from 2,600 up to 3800), including North America, Europe, Australia, South Korea, Japan and parts of South America. All of these places are part of the G20 group of richest world nations. This can be seen on the map earlier in the chapter.

Large parts of central Africa, Asia and South America consume far fewer calories and can be said to be suffering from UNDERNUTRITION - where people consume less than the United Nations Department for Health's recommended daily MINIMUM totals at 1940Kcal for Women and 2550Kcals for men.

An added problem to deal with for those countries where people suffer under nutrition is the concept of MALNUTRITION . This is where people may get sufficient calories a day but not have a balanced diet - all of their calories might come just from rice for example. This can also have grave health consequences. The double "whammy" is where a country or person suffers from both conditions at the same time. The undernourishment issue is shown clearly on the map above.

Food Production and supply

The graph shows that different parts of the world have different advantages or preferences in producing certain foods. Rice is a great example, with the production being dominated by Asia where the climate is ideal for rice growth and the population consumes a lot of it. What is clear is that HICs like Europe and North America have smaller percentages of the World's population but can produce more food than that percentage. LICs like the majority of the continent of Africa, on the other hand, have larger percentages of the world population and produce less food. There are also clear patterns of global food supply and consumption, and these patterns are linked together by the trade in foodstuffs. Agricultural goods are continually produced in some regions and sold in others. Indeed, food and other agricultural products are GLOBALISED commodities that are traded the world over, and this has some startling consequences for our planet and the people that live upon it.

NEXT TOPIC - Food - increasing food consumption

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Coolgeography - GCSE - Food - Global Patterns

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Famine -A widespread, serious, shortage of food. In the worst cases it can lead to starvation and even death. Food insecurity - Being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. More than 800 million people live every day with hunger or food insecurity.

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Most voters say Brexit to blame for food shortages, poll reveals

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Exclusive: 57% say Brexit behind gaps on supermarket shelves, as shortages hit school meals

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New Cross-Border Green Energy Power Line 

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New Cross-Border Green Energy Power Line 

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A new power line which could provide green electricity to 1.8 million homes is set to be built by the UK and the Netherlands as part of a plan to boost energy security.

Officials claim the LionLink connection beneath the North Sea will be the "world's largest multi-use electricity power line".

It will connect the two countries to each other and to offshore wind farms in the North Sea when it becomes "operational by the early 2030s".

The cross-border electricity cable will be only the second of its kind in the world - the first was built by Germany and Denmark.

The British government claimed it will be able to carry more than four times the amount of electricity as its predecessor - 1.8GW compared with 0.4GW - making it "the largest of its kind in terms of capacity anywhere in the world".

The project is being developed by Britain's National Grid and Dutch electricity network operator TenneT.

The line will be able to move enough surplus energy between the countries to power Birmingham and Manchester combined, according to ministers.

Energy Secretary Grant Shapps said Monday's "historic deal" was a boost to the UK's energy security and sends a "strong signal to Putin's Russia that the days of his dominance over global power markets are well and truly over".

The Netherlands' climate and energy minister Rob Jetten said "close collaboration" on offshore wind energy among North Sea countries was "imperative".
Read more on Sky News:
'Damning' report calls for major changes to prevent UK missing wind power targets
£300m invested in Scottish port to create major energy facility
2:15

Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of the trade association Energy UK, said: "Tapping the potential of the North Sea to generate and deliver clean energy is key to ensuring that we reach in the quickest and cheapest way possible."

Jess Ralston, of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit - an organisation which supports "informed debate on energy and climate change issues" - said: "The North Sea oil and gas basin is in terminal decline, so unless the deployment of renewables as well as electric heat pumps and the basics like home insulation is sped up, we'll become more dependent on foreign gas imports."

The LionLink announcement was made at the North Sea Summit in Belgium on Monday.

The UK, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway and the Netherlands are meeting in Ostend to discuss ambitions for building future offshore wind farms.

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LionLink: 'World's largest cross-border power line' to be built by UK and Netherlands

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A new power line which could provide green electricity to 1.8 million homes is set to be built by the UK and the Netherlands as part of a plan to boost energy security. Officials claim the LionLink connection beneath the North Sea will be the "world's largest multi-use electricity power line".

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Energy - The Latest News from the UK and Around the World | Sky News

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Sky News - First for Breaking News, video, headlines, analysis and top stories from business, politics, entertainment and more in the UK and worldwide.

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Economic and environmental issues associated with exploitation of energy sources

There are many issues attached to exploiting our remaining reserves of fossil fuels. Some of these affect our natural and built environment, whilst others issues involve the economic impacts of using these resources. Some of the main issues with fossil fuel use is the damage to the natural environment during extraction and the production of pollutants during burning such as CO ₂ which lead to global warming, dust which is hazardous to human health and Sulphur Dioxide which contributes to acid rain.

The UK has reserves of oil and gas in the North Sea, and exploitation of this resource began in 1975. Oil and gas are vitally important to the UK and most of our reserves fall in Scottish territorial waters. Getting at these resources is difficult, as it involves drilling under the sea from large offshore oil and gas rigs. This is dangerous, and there have been accidents such as the Piper Alpha disaster where an oil rig set on fire and various helicopter disasters where workers have been killed just trying to get the rigs to work. However, these 2 resources bring lot of wealth to the UK and provide people with jobs. They also boost the local economies of towns such as Aberdeen.

Coal is a reasonably cheap source of energy for example compared to other fossil fuels and we still have reserves left in the UK, in areas such as the Northumberland coalfield for example. However, is it correct and morally right to continue to use non-renewable and unsustainable fossil fuel reserves when we have viable renewable alternatives such as wind or solar power?

We also have nuclear power stations across the UK, but many of these need renewing or completely rebuilding. Many of the current nuclear power plants will need decommissioning, a very costly and long process. In addition, nuclear power plants produce nuclear waste, which needs disposing of in a safe manner (currently it is stored underground). Many people around the country worry about the safety aspects of nuclear power and nuclear waste disposal and don't want it in their local area. This is known as NIMBYism, Not In My Back Yard. However, Nuclear energy can produce lots of power and has a low carbon footprint except for in the initial construction of the plants. A huge new plant is planned for Hinkley Point to start generating electricity in 2025 in a joint project between EDF (Électricité de France, a French energy company mainly owned by the French government) and financed in part by the Chinese government. Questions have been raised about the whether it is a good idea to allow foreign governments access to our energy infrastructure.

Even renewable energy types, such as biofuel, wind, tidal and solar power have issues relating to them despite being broadly supported by environmental groups. Renewable energy takes up space that could be used for other uses, such as producing food, and the natural environment can suffer. Offshore wind farms damage the sea bed for example and are hazardous for birds, whilst on land local s can complain about wind turbines being an eyesore and producing too much noise. More information on the positives and negatives of these fuel types can be seen in section 1.17 - Energy - Strategies to increase supply

FRACKING
is a current and new technology that is being investigated in the UK. It is already used in the USA and the UK government seems keen on its use in the UK. The first Fracking site on the Fylde in Lancashire has been approved. The process generally involves pumping a mixture of sand and chemical laden water into Shale rocks at very high pressures. This shatters the rock and releases Shale Gas which is trapped within the rocks. This has drastically reduced energy costs in the USA and has reduced the USA reliance on imported gas and oil. However, the long term environmental impacts of this process are unknown and fears exist over water contamination, water use and even small earthquakes in fracking areas. Also, in a country such as the UK which has huge potential for using wind power, tidal power and solar power (in the south and east) do we need to exploit something as environmentally damaging?

NEXT TOPIC - ONE FROM Food - Global patterns OR Water - Global Patterns OR Energy - Global Patterns

YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO ALL 3 - St Marys students we do FOOD

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Coolgeography - GCSE - Overview - Energy Issues

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There are many issues attached to exploiting our remaining reserves of fossil fuels. Some of these affect our natural and built environment, whilst others issues involve the economic impacts of using these resources.

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Reduced domestic supplies of coal, gas and oil

The UK has been blessed with large reserves of coal, oil and gas and has exploited these over time. The coal industry including the NE coal fields such as the Durham coal field the industrial revolution in the UK and led to our rapid economic development. Some of our coal mines simply ran out or become exhausted, but we still have reserves of coal in the UK. However, our coal became gradually less economic to mine because much of it is deep underground and therefore difficult and expensive to get at. The UK therefore turned to cheaper imports of Polish and Australian coal, which were open cast. There are still coal mines in the UK;

* 10 deep mines
* 22 open cast surface mines
* New proposed areas such as Druridge Bay in Northumberland which companies would like to expoit.

The UK has reserves of oil and gas in the North Sea, and exploitation of this resource began in 1975. Oil and gas are vitally important to the UK and most of our reserves fall in Scottish territorial waters. Getting at these resources is difficult, as it involves drilling under the sea from large offshore oil and gas rigs. This is dangerous, and there have been accidents such as the Piper Alpha disaster where an oil rig set on fire and various helicopter disasters where workers have been killed just trying to get the rigs to work. However, these 2 resources bring lot of wealth to the UK and provide people with jobs. They also boost the local economies of towns such as Aberdeen.

The UK's reserves are in decline and we are producing less and less oil and gas. This leaves the UK reliant on overseas imports of oil and gas which makes our energy supply vulnerable. For example, some of our gas imports come from Russia, who have used gas supply as a political tool in the past against the Ukraine for example.

NEXT TOPIC - Overview - Issues with Energy exploitation

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Coolgeography - GCSE - Overview - DS Energy

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The UK has been blessed with large reserves of coal, oil and gas and has exploited these over time. The coal industry including the NE coal fields such as the Durham coal field the industrial revolution in the UK and led to our rapid economic development.

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Energy Overview: The Changing Energy Mix

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Energy Overview: The Changing Energy Mix

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The changing energy mix - reliance on fossil fuels, growing significance of renewables

Modern life is heavily reliant upon our use of energy, to heat our houses, power our forms of transport, help our industries work and produce our food and clothes.

Energy mix - The range of energy sources of a region or country, both renewable and non-renewable.

Fossil fuel - A natural fuel such as coal or gas, formed in the geological past from the remains of living organisms

The "energy mix" relates to the different energy sources we use as a country and in what proportions. This is often spilt into renewable and non-renewable forms of energy. Fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas are used to provide heat or to produce electricity. These are non-renewable so will run out and also pollute the atmosphere with greenhouse gases such as Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Renewable sources of energy include sun, wind, waves, the tides, running water and geothermal heat. They are renewable because they will not run out and they are non- polluting. However, they return smaller amounts of energy and take up lots of land, and they require regular maintenance. The last energy type is nuclear, which is non-renewable as Uranium is a fuel that will run out. Many of the UK's nuclear reactors are due to be replaced and there is a massive scheme planned with the French company EDF and the Chinese government to build a reactor at Hinkley Point that will provide 7% of the UK's energy needs.

The way that we source our energy has changed over time and will change again in the future. Up until the mid-20th Century we were heavily reliant on coal, until oil drilling in the 1950's changed this. The government would like this to change again by 2020 as shown on the graph. We are heading towards a more renewable energy future if the UK government can maintain investment in this area. At present, many of the grants for this are being reduced or withdrawn. It is also clear that the total amount of energy we produce is expected to fall as a result of falling use. This is an ongoing pattern; we use less energy today than we did in 1970 despite our population having risen! Households are using less energy due to improvements in heating and heat conservation technologies such as insolation and triple glazing. Industry is using less because many of our heavy industries have shut down, gone abroad or become more energy efficient. In contrast, we are using more energy for transport as the number of cars on our roads has gone up significantly.

NEXT TOPIC - Overview - Reduced domestic supplies of Energy

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Coolgeography - GCSE - Overview - energy mix

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Modern life is heavily reliant upon our use of energy, to heat our houses, power our forms of transport, help our industries work and produce our food and clothes. Energy mix - The range of energy sources of a region or country, both renewable and non-renewable.

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Water quality and pollution management

Whilst it is very important to transfer water to combat water shortages it is equally important to consider the QUALITY of the water that is being moved. Water quality can be measured in terms of the chemical, physical, and biological content of water. The most common standards used to assess water quality relate to health of ecosystems, safety of human contact and drinking water.

Water in the UK has generally improved in quality over time since the cleaning up of our industrial past. According to the EU, only 27% of our water meets its stringent water quality standards. This means that we have some work to do in ensuring that our open water areas are clean. However, many attempts have been made to keep improving our water.

There are many sources of pollution in the UK that threaten the quality of our water including;

1. Agricultural runoff water, this picks up chemical pesticides and insecticides, nitrates and phosphates (found in fertilisers) and run into our lakes and rivers
2. Historical wastes, water running through old mine workings and old industrial sites can pick up hazardous heavy metals
3. Runoff from roads and motorways including salt used for gritting, oil and heavy metals from car engines and exhausts
4. Sewage waste can end up in our water courses, despite our attempts to clean it

Figure 11 - A stream in the town of Amlwch, Anglesey which is contaminated by acid mine drainage from the former copper mine at nearby Parys Mountain. By Cls14 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Poor water quality affects the UK because;

* It can potentially poison our water supply, essential for human life
* Eutrophication can occur - this is where fertilisers washed into our rivers and lakes encourage plants and algae to grow, starving other life of oxygen
* Sewage contains bacteria which can spread disease
* Heavy metals and toxins can poison wildlife. These toxins can then end up in people as they work their way up through the food chain in a process of bioaccumulation
* Insect and animal life can be killed unintentionally by pesticides and insecticides, affecting food chains

To combat water pollution, the UK government attempts to do lots of things.

* Educate people - the government having run campaigns for the public to show them the need to use as little water as possible and to not dispose of inappropriate items in our waste water. Not leaving the tap running when brushing your teeth is one way to save water, whilst not disposing of oils or baby wipes is a way to protect our disposal network.
* Laws and legislation - The EU and the UK have very strict laws for our water, which make sure that industries and farms do not pollute it. For example, phosphates contribute to eutrophication. The amount of phosphates allowed in laundry detergent was reduced in2013 and will be reduced for dishwasher products in 2017.
* Treat our water - we have invested huge amounts of money in new treatment plants to clean our water. This is shown on the flow chart below. This can cost a lot of money which creates bigger bills for consumers, but ensures our clean water supply. We have also invested in our pipe and sewer network, to reduce losses of treated water from pipes and to prevent spills of sewage which lead to pollution.

* Improving our water courses - the government have invested in pollution traps downstream of old sources of pollution such as old mine workings, or by using innovative schemes such as the Tees Barrier.

NEXT TOPIC - Overview - The changing energy mix

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Whilst it is very important to transfer water to combat water shortages it is equally important to consider the QUALITY of the water that is being moved. Water quality can be measured in terms of the chemical, physical, and biological content of water.

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The changing demand for water in the UK

The UK is highly variable in terms of water supply and demand. A lot of the rainfall received by the UK falls in the North and West, whereas most people live in the South East. This means that the North and West of the British Isles are WATER SURPLUS (areas that have more water than is needed by the population) areas, whilst the south east is a water shortage area (where demand can exceed supply).

The North and the West receive more rainfall because the bulk of our weather comes from the South West with our prevailing wind. This brings moist air because the air is warm and has travelled a long way over the Atlantic Ocean. The wet areas also coincide with our highland areas, as the wet incoming air is forced to rise over these hills, and as it does so it cools, condenses and forms clouds and then rain. These patterns are clearly visible on the maps opposite:

Figure 8 - UK precipitation

People in the UK use a lot of water, they use on average of 175 litres of water per day. This contrasts to just 83 litres in Bangladesh. Only 4percent of the drinkable water in the UK is actually drunk. The rest is used for other uses such as toilet flushing, washing clothes, or cleansing. The demands on our water in the UK have also gone up by 70% since 1985, this is because;

1. The UK population has increased a lot over that time period.
2. Personal habits have changed, people shower more regularly whereas people in the past would have had less frequent baths, often sharing the water with family members.
3. People are wealthier so have more water intensive machines such as dishwashers, washing machines and even power washers.
4. Farm uses have gone up as irrigation systems improve and consumers demand out of season food which needs watering in greenhouses.
5. Industrial uses of water have increased, as has our use of water in producing electricity.

Areas of the UK that suffer from severe water shortages are said to be under water stress. The UK can have unreliable rainfall and during these water stress periods it has been known for hosepipe bans to be put in place and even for standpipes to be put into streets to limit water use.

Figure 9 - population density of British Isles - Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Water transfer schemes

To combat these issues, we have several water transfer schemes to move water from areas of surplus to areas of demand. Water transfer schemes attempt to make up for water shortages by constructing elaborate systems of canals, pipes, and dredging over long distances to transport water from one river basin to another. More large-scale transfers have been planned to meet future demands but are controversial. The schemes would cost a lot and cause large scale environmental disruption. The schemes can be seen on the map and one suggested scheme would move water from Kielder Water in Northumberland to the reservoirs around London, over 350 miles away.

Kielder water is a good example of a current LOCAL water transfer scheme. Water is trapped behind a dam in North West Northumberland then moved by pipe and rivers into the Derwent, River Wear and River Tees to supply the major settlements along the north east coast such as Newcastle and Middlesbrough.

England and Wales water transfer schemes

NEXT TOPIC - Overview - Water quality

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Coolgeography - GCSE - Overview - Water supply

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The UK is highly variable in terms of water supply and demand. A lot of the rainfall received by the UK falls in the North and West, whereas most people live in the South East.

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Carbon footprints, 'food miles' travelled, local sourcing of food and the trend towards agribusiness

Agribusiness - Application of business skills to agriculture.

Carbon footprint - A measurement of all the greenhouse gases we individually produce, through burning fossil fuels for electricity, transport etc. expressed as tonnes (or kg) of carbon-dioxide equivalent.

Food miles -The distance covered supplying food to consumers

There has been an increasing demand for Organic produce in the UK too. Organic farming does not include the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides and involves the production of animals, fruit and vegetables.

The Soil Association certifies 70% of the UK's £2.5bn (2020) organic food sector and sales grew by 4.9%. Organic farming is a much more sustainable method, in that it reduces the intensification of food production and encourages a more local approach. Artificial fertilisers are banned and farmers develop fertile soil by rotating crops and using compost, manure and clover. Strict regulations, known as 'standards', define what organic farmers can and cannot do - and place a strong emphasis on the protection of wildlife and the environment;

* Pests are controlled using natural predators
* Crops are rotated so that farmers can maintain the fertility of their fields
* Animals are farmed in lower numbers and without the use of growth hormones and antibiotics
* Weeds are controlled either by hand or machines rather than by spraying chemicals on them.

Carbon footprints, 'food miles' and local sourcing of food

Food miles are a basic way of showing how far our food travels to get to us. The amount of food miles is increasing for each family in the UK. The increase in food miles poses significant problems to the environment because of the energy required to transport the food. This is becoming increasingly important as increasing quantities of our food are now being air-freighted, the worst type of transport for air pollution. The number of food miles also varies per food type, and we import 89% of our fruit. We also transport food stuffs that can be grown here in the UK, including potatoes. This is surprising, and according to the British Potato Council, the UK imports 350,000 tonnes of potatoes a year, and that includes during potato season. Kenya benefits massively (24% of GDP and 50% of export earnings come from agriculture) from its export of chillies, sugar snaps, green beans, flowers and baby corn, but is it environmentally ethical and socially ethical (in a food shortage country) to do so?

Food miles therefore contribute to the carbon footprint of our food. The transport types used output huge quantities of greenhouse gasses such as Carbon Dioxide and Nitrous Oxides. However, transport is only part of the carbon footprint of our food and this has a direct impact on our environment. Other items produce carbon dioxide, including packaging, especially plastic packaging, the retail spaces that sell our food (in the form of their electricity use, heating, refrigeration etc.), agricultural production of carbon, food use etc.

There are alternatives to eating imported food;
1. Try growing some of your own on an allotment
2. Eat only seasonal produce, grown in the UK
3. Look for the Red Tractor food standards label which assures that your food is British
4. Use local farmer's markets and try to eat locally grown food, this will support your local famers and the local economy

The trend towards agribusiness

In the UK we used to have a lot of small farms run by families. This has changed. Most of our farms are now agribusinesses. Agribusiness involves the application of business skills to agriculture or food production. This means that farms are run as big businesses which attempts to increase food production by using lots of inputs such as fertilisers or labour saving machines. These farms have increased food production by;

* Increasing in size by buying up smaller farms
* Increasing in size by removing hedgerows and draining wetlands
* Producing one crop or animal in monocultures in big quantities
* Applying huge amounts of chemicals in the form of fertilisers and pesticides
* Applying the best technology such as a combined harvester or using better seeds
* Using modern production methods

These big businesses have come to dominate the food markets in the UK. This is because they have vertical integration allowing them to produce the food and get it to markets easily - "from farm to fork". The big food processing companies will often buy food before it is planted and can put huge pressure on farmers over the appearance, quality and quantity of food produced. The positives of agribusiness include more food security and cheaper prices for consumers. However, many farmers have been forced out of business and the big companies can be seen to have too much power over the market price of goods. There are also negative consequences for the environment from this type of farming. In east Anglia, farm sizes have increased considerably over the past 40 years because of this type of farming.

NEXT TOPIC - Overview - Water supply and demand

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Coolgeography - GCSE - Food supply issues

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Agribusiness - Application of business skills to agriculture. Carbon footprint - A measurement of all the greenhouse gases we individually produce, through burning fossil fuels for electricity, transport etc. expressed as tonnes (or kg) of carbon-dioxide equivalent. Food miles -The distance covered supplying food to consumers There has been an increasing demand for Organic produce in the UK too.

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The growing demand for high-value food exports from low income countries and all-year demand for seasonal food

Food supply and consumption in the UK has changed incredibly since World War 2. The UK's population has risen, the large supermarkets have grown and diets have changed. Prior to WW2, much of the food consumed in the UK would have been home grown and seasonal with some exotic exceptions. Fruit and vegetables would have been grown and sold according to the seasons, with products like strawberries only available in summer and winter vegetables like Brussels Sprouts later in the year. People used preservation methods such as canning, bottling, making jams etc. to preserve food for use out of season.

Today this has changed. The UK population is used to having non seasonal produce all year round and we consume far more exotic produce which cannot be produced in the UK due to our climate. There are issues with this. This food has to be transported by ship or plane many thousands of miles, creating problems with food miles. Even food that can be grown in the UK, such as onions or apples, are now grown in other countries where the cost of production is cheaper. Often this production is in countries such as Kenya, LICs or NEEs where labour costs and environmental legislation is weaker so farmers can produce more cheaply.

Kenya - an example of a producer of no seasonal produce

The demand for non-seasonal and high value products in the UK has had an impact on poorer countries such as Kenya. Do they use productive farmland to feed their own people or to boost their economies by growing commercial crops for trade with richer, Western nations.

In 2009, at the same time as the Kenyan government was reporting food shortages in some areas, large quantities of food were being loaded on to planes and sent by air from Kenya to fill the supermarket shelves in the UK. More than 75% of the population work in agriculture, which contribute almost 25% to the national production. Horticultural produce and tea are the major items of export for Kenya.

Greenhouses around Lake Naivasha In Kenya - By NASA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

According to the Royal Geographical Society - "Many of the farms based in Kenya that have contracts with UK companies are high-tech, commercial businesses that have to produce food to very high standards. They employ large numbers of labourers. However, they sometimes pay relatively low wages and they have been accused of environmental damage through water pollution and overuse of irrigation. Those farmers producing for the local Kenyan market, rather than for overseas, struggle to produce sufficient food as a result of their small farms, a lack of technology and unreliable rainfall."

1. Kenya prepares 350 tonnes of vegetables and cut flowers each night ready to be sold next day in UK supermarkets.
2. Leguminous vegetables (peas, beans, mange tout) constitute the largest proportion of Kenyan imports to the UK. Due to their high perishability and value, leguminous vegetables tend to be imported by air freight.
3. In 1988, the UK imported around 3,800 tonnes of legumes from Kenya. By 2005, this had increased to around 25,000 tonnes.
4. In 2005, the UK also imported 18,650 tonnes of cut flowers from Kenya with a value of around £52m. Due to the high unit value and highly perishable nature of the products, virtually all of the African trade in cut flowers are imported by air freight - they need to be in UK supermarkets within 24 to 48 hours of picking in Kenya.
5. Horticulture (growing fruit, flowers and vegetables) employs about 70,000 Kenyans directly, and another 20,000 in ancillary industries, for example transport. Add in their dependents and it may support as many as 500,000 people.
6. Horticulture is Kenya's second biggest earner of foreign exchange after tea, having leapt up from fourth place since 2001.

NEXT TOPIC - Overview - Food supply Issues

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Coolgeography - GCSE - Changing food demand

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Food supply and consumption in the UK has changed incredibly since World War 2. The UK's population has risen, the large supermarkets have grown and diets have changed. Prior to WW2, much of the food consumed in the UK would have been home grown and seasonal with some exotic exceptions.

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An overview of global inequalities in the supply and consumption of resources

The access to food, water and energy resources is not shared equally amongst the people of the world. There are massive inequalities (where people have different access to resources) in people's access to clean water, reliable energy supplies and adequate food supplies. The general pattern is for HICs to consume a far higher amount of resources than LICs. We have enough food, fresh water and energy resources to provide for everyone on our planet, but these resources are not evenly distributed or shared.

Global inequality refers to differences between people across countries. This may be economic differences between countries as well as medical care and education differences. In this case, we will consider inequalities in food, energy and water.

Resource supply providing vital items from sources of a natural resources to satisfy human needs and wants such as food, energy and water.

Resource consumption is the use of natural resources such as food, energy and water.

Global inequalities in the supply and consumption of food

There are still people in the world who do not have enough food to eat. The map below shows the daily kilocalorie intake for the countries of the world. Throughout sub-Saharan Africa there are countries where the number of calories is too low to sustain good human health. This is known as undernourishment. In some HICs like the UK the kilocalorie intake is actually too high and has led to an obesity "epidemic".

Figure 3 Calorie intake around the globe

Global inequalities in the supply and consumption of water

Water is essential to human life. Although our planet has abundant water over its surface (70%) only 2.5 percent of it is fresh. The rest is saline and ocean-based. Of that fresh water just 1 percent of is easily accessible, with much of it trapped in glaciers and snowfields.

A water footprint can be calculated to compare the consumption of water in different places. This includes visible water use such as water for drinking, cooking and washing but also less visible uses of water used for growing our food and for making our clothing, cars or computers. The less visible uses of water can often contribute the biggest portion of the water footprint.

The UK's water footprint is 3400 litres per person per day, whilst in Bangladesh it is just 2,100 litres per person per day.

The map shows countries that are suffering from water scarcity. Physical water scarcity is when countries do not have enough water due to climatic reasons and other physical reasons, such as Northern Mali in the Sahara Desert. Economic water scarcity is where a country has water, but does not have the economic means to access it, as is the case in parts of Afghanistan.

Energy resources are also unequal, and the consumption of energy varies hugely across the globe. According to the International Energy Agency, the richest countries in the world of around 1 billion people consume 50% of the world's energy, while the poorest 20% consume only 4%. These patterns are clear on the energy consumption map.

The overall pattern is that as populations become wealthier, they have increased access to these basic resources and consume more. This means that as countries become wealthier over time they can expect their populations to consume more natural resources.

The reasons for varying consumption of these resources are;

1. Access - some countries have more natural resources than others, and if the resource is evenly shared all can benefit. This is not always the case however.

2. Quantity - how much of a natural resource does a country or population have? If it is in short supply do they have the means to overcome that. For example, water is in short supply in the Dubai but it is building desalinisation plants to help it cope.

3. Level of wealth - how much money does a place have? The wealthier a place the more options the country has to combat any shortages in key resources. This can be seen in the table below;

4. Level of technology and infrastructure - here we need to consider if the country has the technology to deliver energy, water and food to its people. The UK has a tiny percentage of its population producing food (about 1%) yet can produce nearly 60% of the nations needs. Some countries do not have water purification plants or enough power station capacity.

5. Standard of living of population, the higher this is the more the population expects to get in terms of clean water, energy use and food consumption. 6. Diet - this can influence how many calories and taken in and what foods are eaten. A meat rich diet would be harder for a country to provide for.

NEXT TOPIC - GCSE - Overview Changing food demand

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Coolgeography - GCSE - Resources & inequalities

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The access to food, water and energy resources is not shared equally amongst the people of the world. There are massive inequalities (where people have different access to resources) in people's access to clean water, reliable energy supplies and adequate food supplies. The general pattern is for HICs to consume a far higher amount of resources than LICs.

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Overview of Resources and Human Development

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Overview of Resources and Human Development

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The significance of food, water and energy to economic and social well-being

There are natural resources that are essential to human survival, these being food and water, but if we add energy to that list we have the resources that are fundamental to human development.

Key word

Resource Management - The control and monitoring of resources so that they do not become depleted or exhausted.

Food, water and energy have a huge significance in determining people's economic and social well-being across the globe. This is recognised by both the World Bank and the United Nations. However, access to these resources is unequal across the globe. Without access to these fundamental items, countries and people get trapped in the mire of poverty. Reliable energy supplies are vital to allowing a countries industry and economy to function, whilst human survival and well-being require clean and reliable food and water supplies.

When food water and energy are abundant relative to the number of people living in a place, their quality of life increases. Where there are scarcities of these items there can be social and political unrest. As global population and rates of consumption increase there is a need to increase water, food and energy supplies, but to do so in a sustainable manner to meet the needs of all people. The world population crossed 7 billion in 2011, this puts increasing pressure upon resources.

People need enough food to survive and live a healthy life. According to the NHS the guideline figures per day are;

Food production is governed by many factors including physical factors such as climate (temperature and rainfall), the gradient or slope of the land, and the quality of the soils. Human factors also play a role, with capital (money for investment, technology, land ownership and government policies all having an effect.

WATER SUPPLY and QUALITY vary around the world and not everyone has the luxury of safe, clean drinking water on tap. Water quality can have a massive impact on people; this is why India has attempted to clean up the River Ganges. Poor water quality has a direct impact on people's lives as it is an essential element for life. Poor water quality can lead to disease, which weakens people and therefore has a direct impact on their productivity and hence economic development. Diseases related to poor quality water include Bilharzia (snail fever, where snails transmit flatworms to people causing internal organ damage), Yellow fever and Malaria (both related to mosquitos which breed around water) and cholera (extreme diarrhoea). Water supply is another major issue because in many parts of the world unreliable water supplies limit agriculture and other development areas. If people are searching for and carrying water they cannot focus their energies on other areas of the economy, limiting development further.

According to Water Aid;
* Around 700,000 children die every year from diarrhoea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation. That's almost 2,000 children a day
* 768 million people in the world don't have access to safe water. This is roughly one in ten of the world's population
* 2.5 billion people don't have access to adequate sanitation, almost two-fifths of the world's population.
* More than one fifth of the world's population live in areas of water scarcity, where there isn't enough water to meet everybody's needs.
Water supplies are also under pressure from uses in food production, energy production, industry and urbanisation.

We use energy is a huge variety of ways including powering our homes, for transport, in our industries and to help produce and process our food. There are big gaps in who uses energy around the world and how much. More traditional forms of energy involve burning wood and coal for heat, but we can also use fossil fuels to produce electricity and many countries are increasing turning to renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and hydroelectric power to meet their energy needs.
There are other issues in energy, relating to the pollution of our atmosphere which can cause health issues and global changes in our climate, and issues related to the extraction of the resource and the damage that does to the environment. Another issue to consider is that of biofuels, where we use farmland to produce oils to be used as fuel. Is this a good way to get a fuel when some people around the world do not have enough food to eat?

NEXT TOPIC - GCSE - Resources Global inequalities

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Coolgeography - GCSE - Resources and human development

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There are natural resources that are essential to human survival, these being food and water, but if we add energy to that list we have the resources that are fundamental to human development. Key word Resource Management - The control and monitoring of resources so that they do not become depleted or exhausted.

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The UK's role in the World

Despite its small geographic area the UK still plays a major role around the world. It does so because of its history, its links with other nations, its cultural excellence and through trade.

The UK is one of the most globalised countries in terms of its culture. The UK has a globally successful gaming industry.

English is the language of many countries, and the main language used for businesses around the world. Our cultural activities have become global brands, and British football clubs have fans everywhere

Many British groups, and actors, and TV and radio programmes, are popular around the world. The map below shows countries where English is the official language .

The UK depends heavily on the trade with other countries. We currently have a trade deficit, as we import (buy in) a higher value of goods than we export (sell out). The figures from 2018 show this;

The UK trades all over the world, but mainly with other EU countries.

Outside the EU, its main trading partner is the USA. Inside the EU, it's Germany.

Many British companies are transnational corporations (TNCs) with branches all over the world, e.g. Shell, Vodaphone, and Barclays Bank.

Many TNCs from other countries have set up branches in the UK, like Sony, Coca-Cola, Nike, and MacDonald's.

The UK has an extensive electronic communication network not only across the whole country but linking it to other parts of the word. The government wants 90% of the country to have superfast broadband by 2016 and link remote areas of the country via satellite technology. Globally, the UK is linked up via a vast cable network under the sea. We have cables linking us to North and South America, Europe, Africa. Other cables then link us to other parts of the world.

Source: http://www.submarinecablemap.com/

The Commonwealth of Nations was established in the 1949 by Queen Elizabeth II (the head of the commonwealth) as countries started to declare their independence from the British Empire. It is an intergovernmental organisation of 53 countries, that were mainly territories of the British Empire. In the London Declaration of 1949 all member states of the Commonwealth were declared free and equal. The members of the commonwealth have no legal obligation to each other. They are linked together by history, culture, language and 3 shared values: democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

It covers more than 29,958,050 km2 (11,566,870 sq. mi), almost a quarter of the world land area

It spans all six inhabited continents.

It has an estimated population of 2.328 billion

In 2014 produced a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of $10.45 trillion,

Annual meetings - the heads of state of the Commonwealth countries meet every year to discuss common goals and interests. The UK benefits from these links both politically and economically

The European Union is a group of 27 countries that have common goals and close ties to one another. The EU started as a trading union between France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands with the added incentive of sustaining peace in Post-World War 2 Europe. Over time the Union has grown, adding a common market of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957. The UK joined in 1973 and the EU has slowly expanded ever since. The UK has major connection with, and UK citizens lives were affected by the EU because;

1. It has policies in place to control food production under the Common Agricultural Policy

2. It can determine national law through the European Court of Justice

3. It controls and allows free movement of EU citizens throughout member countries

4. It promotes easier trade between EU countries so boosting economies

5. It can bail out countries in financial trouble through the European Central Bank

6. It makes big decisions in a democratic way through its elected MEPs at its parliaments in Brussels and Strasbourg

7. It passes laws protecting people's rights and the environment

8. It tries to even out differences in development between richer member states and poorer member states.

Policies include the EU Investment bank which invests in companies such as Jaguar, structural funds which are monies going to the poorest regions of the EU and the EU region Development Fund.

The UK voted to leave the EU in 2016. On the 31st January 2020 the UK left the EU, with a transition period lasting until the 31st of December 2020. There will be ongoing ties between the EU block and the UK through trade and tourism, but the UK will have more sovereign control over its affairs.

The UK is a major transport hub in the world and many of the world's transport systems are connected to the UK. The UK has;

1. Many international airports connecting the UK to cities on every continent. That includes a major "hub" airport at Heathrow that allows people to travel around the globe and stop off in London.

2. Huge freight ports around the country, including at Teesport and Thames port which can provide access for huge container ships for import and export

3. Rail links to the continent via Eurostar and Eurotunnel. This connection provides access to major northern European cities such as Paris and Brussels and then on into the wider European rail network

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Despite its small geographic area the UK still plays a major role around the world. It does so because of its history, its links with other nations, its cultural excellence and through trade. The UK is one of the most globalised countries in terms of its culture.

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Coolgeography - GCSE - UK North South divide

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The Changing economic world, a page of resources to help with AQA GCSE

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UK developments in infrastructure

Infrastructure is the stuff that makes a country work. It is the basic equipment and structures (such as roads and bridges) that are needed for a country, region, or organisation to function properly. It is really important for the UK to have excellent infrastructure if it is to deliver a good quality of life for the people living there and to allow its businesses to compete across Europe and the world. The Government of the UK stated in 2013;

"The Government is determined to succeed in the global race by creating growth and delivering lasting prosperity. To build a strong economy, necessary for a fairer society, the UK needs infrastructure that competes with the best in the world. Long-term investment in infrastructure helps enhance productivity and creates jobs. It also means the UK is ready to face new challenges such as population growth and climate change and take full advantage of new technologies. The UK needs transport and communications networks that connect people and businesses; resilient, cost effective and sustainable energy supplies; and the science infrastructure which can give UK industry the edge over our competitors. 21st century infrastructure is needed for a 21st century Britain."

There are many ways in which we can improve our infrastructure and the exam board ask you to focus on ports, roads, rail and airports.

Our roads are going to get significant amounts of money. Extra lanes can be added to the busiest motorways, the equivalent of at least an additional 221 lane miles in total by opening the hard shoulder to traffic and using new technology. The government will also build all available Highways Agency road projects to tackle the most congested parts of the network, including the A14 from Cambridge to Huntingdon and the M4 from London to Reading.

There is also big investment in our ports. Ports are vital ways for the UK to get the resources and products it needs to function as a major country. For example, the London Gateway is a development on the north bank of the River Thames in Thurrock, Essex. It is just 20 miles (32 km) east of central London and has a new deep-water port, which is able to handle the biggest container ships in the world.

The port also has one of Europe's largest logistics parks, providing access by road and railways to London and the rest of Great Britain.

Airports connect the UK to the world. Heathrow and Gatwick are our major airports, and act as "hubs" allowing passengers to connect to the rest of the world. There is a proposal to expand Heathrow and add a third runway and sixth terminal building. There are many economic and social benefits to this but it would be damaging for people locally and for the environment.

HS2 is a major transport project designed to improve rail journeys in the UK and is split into 2 stages;

* The first phase between London and Birmingham will open in 2026.
* The second phase involves adding a V shaped section, with separate lines going from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds.

The objective of the scheme is to reduce journey times between the cities of the Northern part of England, and also to reduce the journey times to London. The idea is that businesses will function better with less loss of time spent travelling. The table below summarises the arguments that surround this massive project;

It will help bridge the north-south divide

The rail link could act as a way of growing industries in the North. The government expects 70% of jobs created to be outside London.

Some professors say that similar projects in France, Spain and South Korea show that it is capitals that benefit from these projects by sucking more wealth to the centre, in this case, London.

The final bill could be very expensive

The UK Government normally invests £50bn a year in projects like this. This project is spread over 20 years so equates to just 10 months of that budget.

The original price for HS2 was £32.7bn but the government added a further £10bn to a maximum of £42.6bn. Rolling stock (the trains etc.) is expected to cost another £7.5bn.

It will help boost the UK economy

HS2 is expected to generate 22,000 construction jobs in the next five years and once the entire line is running create 100,000 jobs.

It should also increase the UK's GDP by £15bn a year - an increase of 0.8%.

Better transport connections like HS2 mean reduced production and transport costs, higher productivity and greater competition between UK regions.

The HS2 Action Alliance, which campaigns against the project, says there is no independent research backing up the £15bn figure. The money could be used to boost businesses in other ways.

The demolition of homes and damage to rural England is too costly and disruptive

Most of the disrupted homes are not in rural areas but are actually in London. The most disrupted area in the country will be to the north of London's Euston station. More than half of the properties affected by the scheme are here.

Only just over 600 homes will be bulldozed and another 340 homes will be cut off from their wider neighbourhood by the project. Home owners affected will get money as compensation.

HS2 limited have added more tunnels and moved the location of parts of the line to minimise the number of people affected

Infrastructure supporting the line will be built on 250 acres of green belt land. Sites of special scientific interest will be sliced through by the line.

Historic houses in Buckinghamshire and Warwickshire will be demolished or blighted by the new line, campaigners say.

It will be good for the environment

The government claims that HS2 will move millions of air and road trips on to rail. It will open up space on the existing rail network for freight, taking hundreds of HGVs per hour off the roads.

Some experts say that few high-speed train passengers will transfer from air; most users would otherwise have taken normal train services or simply not have made the trip.

HS2's 250mph trains will use 50% more energy than the Eurostar trains, the HS2 Action Alliance says.

There are better value projects the UK could spend the money on

The government argues it is doing this anyway. Improving rail journey times between Leeds and Manchester and adding extra lanes to motorways.

One of the strongest arguments against HS2 is the opportunity cost. Spend £50bn on HS2 and that's £50bn gone from other projects. The UK is heavily in debt, public finances are stretched so spending must be carefully prioritised.

NEXT TOPIC - UK - North South divide

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Coolgeography - GCSE - UK Infrastructure

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Infrastructure is the stuff that makes a country work. It is the basic equipment and structures (such as roads and bridges) that are needed for a country, region, or organisation to function properly.

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Social and economic changes in the rural landscape in one area of population growth and one area of population decline

A rural area in the UK is defined as an area with a population of less than 10,000 people. Villages become "towns" as soon as they pass this figure. Generally, a rural area is usually defined as one that is relatively sparsely populated and either left as wilderness or with farming as a major economic activity. We often describe rural areas as countryside. Opposite is a selection of image results from a web search on "UK rural areas".

Rural areas have many characteristics, and although many people view them as countryside area where farming is the main economic activity, this is no longer the truth. There are a huge number of economic activities in rural areas as the pie chart opposite shows, and rural areas can thrive in the right circumstances.

Generally, rural areas in the UK that are close to major centres of population such as towns and cities have experienced population growth. These areas are known as ACCESSIBLE RURAL as they are well connected to cities via roads and other transport links. This allows for COUNTER-URBANISATION, where people move to rural areas to improve their quality of life but COMMUTE to cities for their jobs or HOME WORK.

Rural population decline

Rural areas which have a decline in population have been in REMOTE less accessible areas far from major towns and cities. In these less accessible rural areas many of the younger population move out. The reasons for this are known as push factors, and for the young people are the shortage of jobs and a lack of social life.

If population shrinks or the population ages then the SERVICES available could decline. Shops and post offices become less profitable because of rural depopulation. Bus services may decline leaving the elderly cut off. This can result in a cycle of rural decline.

Examples of rural areas in the UK

NEXT TOPIC - UK - Infrastructure developments

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A rural area in the UK is defined as an area with a population of less than 10,000 people. Villages become "towns" as soon as they pass this figure. Generally, a rural area is usually defined as one that is relatively sparsely populated and either left as wilderness or with farming as a major economic activity.

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UK Impacts of Industry on the Environment

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UK Impacts of Industry on the Environment

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The Impact of industry on the environment

Key words:

Post industrial economy - The economy of many economically developed countries where most employment is now in service industries. In short, the Industry the UK has now that the old, traditional ones like Steel, Coal and Shipbuilding have gone.

Deindustrialisation - The decline of a country's traditional manufacturing industry due to exhaustion of raw materials, loss of markets and competition from NEEs.

Sustainability - Development that meets the needs of the present without limiting the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Industry can have various impacts upon the environment depending upon the type of activity taking place. Modern high technology industries tend to have lower impacts upon the environment than older traditional heavy industries such as the manufacture of steel of the production of chemicals.

Chemical Industries at the Wilton Chemical Plant, East Middlesbrough

Industrialisation is important for the economic growth and development of a society but can also be harmful to the environment. Amongst other things industrial process can cause climate change, pollution to air, water and soil, and health issues.

Industry is a major cause of air pollution, since the operation of factories results in the emission of pollutants. Minute particles called particulate matter are damaging when breathed in, sulphur dioxide (SO ₂) and nitrogen oxides (NO x) can cause acid rain and CO ₂ can cause global warming. These pollutants and others can both harm public health and damage the environment.

Industries use a lot of water and produce a lot of waste water too. Waste water is called effluent and can come from industrial outlets, treatment plants, and sewers. This waste water pollutes underground reservoirs of water and our rivers, damaging wildlife and ruining potential drinking water. In the North east of England Salmon disappeared for many years from the major rivers because of poor water quality.

Heavy industries use lots of land and often deal with very hazardous chemicals. These were dumped on industrial sites in the past, or industries suffered leakages onto the land and soil. Examples of soil pollution sources are oil refineries and pipelines transporting gas, oil depots, gas stations, garages, metal treatment and coating factories, chemical plants, dry cleaning businesses, printing businesses, the textile industry, and sites where hazardous materials are stored.

These sources of pollution can cause serious damage, and added to this there is the potential for marine and coastal pollution too. Finally, large industries pose problems because they are noisy. Frequent or prolonged exposure to loud noises is not only a nuisance, but can cause damage to a person's physical and mental health.

Photo source http://s3.freefoto.com/images/13/53/13_53_18_prev.jpg

Teesside is a large conurbation in the North East of England. It has one of the largest industrial concentrations in the country and is home to chemical and manufacturing industries. Its development started in the 1850s because;

* Natural resources were locally available -ironstone in the Cleveland hills, Limestone in the Pennine Hills and coal in the Durham coalfield. All 3 items needed for steel making.
* Salt rock was also available for the chemical industries
* The area has a deep water port - good for the import of raw materials and finished goods like ships, steel and machinery
* Large areas of flat land on the flood plain of the river Tees
* Available water from the sea and river Tees for cooling processes

All these factors meant that Teesside boomed in the 1960s, with a massive integrated steel plant in Redcar and huge chemical industries at Billingham and in Wilton east of Middlesbrough. Kielder water was even created in Northumberland to guarantee water supplies.

However, the 1980's saw the decline of secondary industries.

1. Changes in oil prices hit the chemical industries hard
2. Steel making came under increasing competition from cheaper overseas producers. The Massive Redcar works was shut (again) in 2015 after the Thai owners SSI, pulled out blaming higher energy costs and unfair competition from producers in other countries.
3. Shipbuilding was out competed too.

The area now suffers from high unemployment, out migration of skilled workers and a decline in population of major urban centers like Middlesbrough. The land has also been polluted and the locals are derogatively called "smog monsters" by others in the North East, a reflection of the poorer air quality in the town.

Recently Teesside University has provided a boost for the town and its renowned IT department has resulted in the start-up of many new high tech IT businesses. Water quality has also been improved by the creation of the Tees Barrage, a dam across the Tees.

The South Tees Development Corporation (STDC)
STDC are a government group (awarded £123million of funds from Government) charged with bringing the area of land that used to have a steel works in it back into productive use. In 2020 they announced the creation of "Net Zero Teesside". This will make Teesside a global leader - after being named the anchor project by a consortium of some of the world's largest energy firms. An estimated 5,500 jobs will be created and safeguarded by the project. And with a start-up date of mid-2025, the project is set to drive almost half a billion pounds into the regional economy and boost the wider UK by £3.2bn.

Many projects are already under way, some industrial, some environmental including:

BOC - BOC is a leading provider of gases to industrial operators in the area. It is an important asset to the site and is currently supplying the South Tees Site Company with nitrogen to support its operation at the former SSI site.

MGT - MGT's £650million biomass power plant is the largest of its kind in the world. It will be fuelled by wood chip and pellets and, by around 2020, will generate electricity for the equivalent of 600,000 homes.

Northumbrian Water - Northumbrian Water operates a state-of-the-art effluent treatment facility within the site, serving the major industrial complexes in the area.

PD Ports (Teesport) - One of the best connected and fastest growing ports in the UK, Teesport offers deep water facilities and lock-free access to the North Sea.

PMAC - PMAC is bringing a £250million waste to energy plant on Redcar Bulk Terminal land. The facility will generate enough electricity from household and commercial waste to power 56,000 homes. * Redcar Bulk Terminal -RBT is one of the best deep water facilities of its type in the UK.

Sirius Minerals- Sirius' £3.2billion Woodsmith Mine project will provide access to export for the world's largest polyhalite (a fertilizer) mine, delivered by a 23-mile tunnel and conveyor system from its mine in North Yorkshire.

The UK has a changing economy. The manufacturing or secondary industry section of our economy is in decline, and a smaller percentage of our GDP and employment comes from manufacturing.
The UK is moving towards a post-industrial economy, where the focus of our economy is not on the making of traditional manufactured products (although this is still an important party of our economy) but on products based on knowledge and research. This is known as the KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY.

In the UK (as in other parts of the world this involves the development of;

* Information technology - these businesses use computers and other hardware to store, process and use data, often to help businesses and governments.

* Service industries - these are businesses that do work for a customer, and sometimes provides goods, but is not involved in manufacturing

* - the financial services industry is a major part of the UK and especially London economy. They provide services to do with money, such as accountancy, money transfer, trading and credit.

* - these industries involve research and development, where ideas are transformed into workable products.

* Science and business parks - Business Parks are purpose built areas of offices and warehouses, often at the edge of a city and on a main road. Science parks are often located near university sites, and high-tech industries are established. Scientific research and commercial development may be carried out in co-operation with the university.

Many of these 5 industries can work together, and they have some common characteristics;

1. They are often footloose - they are not tied to heavy raw materials so can locate wherever they have a cost advantage.
2. They often locate close to transport routes such as motorways and railways stations to offer maximum access for customers and employees
3. They are dependent upon HUMAN RESOURCES - they need people's ideas and skills to make them work and innovate new products and ideas. They therefore require a highly educated work force
4. They are often more sustainable than heavy industry, with lower energy needs, low or zero air pollution emissions, landscaping to offer a nice environment and carbon neutral buildings.
5. They often group together so that ideas can be exchanged - this is known as agglomeration

Source: © Cmglee https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cambridge_Science_Park_Napp_fountain.jpg

There are many of these types of industry across the country, from silicon Fen near Cambridge to Silicon Glen in Edinburgh. Newcastle upon Tyne is also bidding to become a "science city" with a focus upon the science of ageing, sustainable energy and transport. Cambridge has a huge number of high tech firms and business parks, with many having links to the various colleges of Cambridge University.

The Cambridge Science Park was founded by Trinity College in 1970 and is the oldest science park in the UK. It is a concentration of science and technology related businesses and has strong links with the nearby University of Cambridge. Many businesses are in Biotech or technology.

The science park is situated about 3 km to the north of Cambridge city centre, by junction 33 of the A14. It has many site factors and advantages;

1. The site has its own fitness club and gym

2. It has the benefit of fibre optic broadband systems in operation

3. There is an onsite nursery

4. Recycling - recycling facilities are available * Plastic bottles * Clean glass (no lab glass)* Aluminium drinks cans * Clean office paper and newspaper * A skip for clean cardboard

5. The park has low density of buildings. The landscaping design was to create a peaceful and serene environment in accord with a location whose ideal is the pursuit of scientific research and development.

6. Efforts made to conceal car parks behind trees and shrubs.

7. The 152 acre site benefits from 20 acres of park style landscaping which provides a central area of lakes, natural habitat, mature trees, shrubs and extensive grassed areas. No building is permitted in this protected area.

TRANSPORT - Located north of Cambridge city centre, Cambridge Science Park boasts excellent transport connections. The Park is committed to encouraging people to travel sustainably where this is possible; for example, every new building on the Cambridge Science Park is provided with shower facilities and covered and lit cycle racks.

CYCLING - Already more than 22% of commuters cycle to work.

Electric pool bikes for FREE hire - allowing employees to use electric bicycles for journeys in and around the area or for quick visits into Cambridge city The Science Park is a committed member of Travel Plan+ (TP+) - promotes more sustainable travel to work. An on-site Commuter Centre based at the Innovation Centre on the Park where people can speak to local travel planning experts

Rail - Cambridge North Station is about 1km from the eastern end of the Science Park so a 12-minute walk approximately. From other parts of the park it is about 2km.

Car sharing - 11% of Cambridge Science Park commuters currently car share.

Companies on Cambridge Science Park have been registered to use CamShare, the Cambridgeshire on-line car sharing matching database

The Cambridge economy is reported to be pumping out revenue of £37billion a year. The arrival of AstraZeneca, whose new HQ is currently being built in the city, will add another £16billion onto that. NEXT TOPIC - UK - Rural Changes

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Coolgeography - GCSE - UK Industry Environment

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Key words: Post industrial economy - The economy of many economically developed countries where most employment is now in service industries. In short, the Industry the UK has now that the old, traditional ones like Steel, Coal and Shipbuilding have gone.

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Reasons for the changing economic structure of the UK

The economy of the UK has changed dramatically over time. The graph above shows that over time;

1. Primary industries have declined rapidly
2. Secondary industries experienced a period of growth during the industrial revolution and has been in decline since the turn of WWII
3. The service industries have grown massively in importance and is the dominant industry in the UK economy today
4. A new sector of industries, the quaternary industries in which research and development takes place, has emerged and is growing rapidly.

These reasons for these changes in the UK are complex and will affect which job you eventually get! Many of the reasons are because of globalisation, deindustrialisation and government policies.

Globalisation is the process which has created a more connected world, with increases in the movements of goods (trade) and people (migration & tourism) worldwide. This process has had a big impact on the way in which the UK's economy works.

For example, many factories in the UK have shut down and production has continued in low income countries, which have less educated workforces, limited health and safety or no minimum wage laws. This makes costs cheaper. In addition, manufacturing industries in the UK are less productive than in other countries. Newly Emerging Economies like China opened their countries to global business in the 1980s and many UK firms chose to move there.
In addition, the UK has a highly educated workforce who can work in global industries. In 2013 nearly 50% of young people in the UK entered university, and results in a very high demand and high aspirations for graduate level jobs often in services and the quaternary sector.

Deindustrialisation is the decline of a country's traditional manufacturing industry due to exhaustion of raw materials, loss of markets and competition from NEEs. This means it is tied in with globalisation. One of the causes of deindustrialisation is mechanisation (the use of machines). As this has taken place businesses and farms began to replace many workers for machines as they are generally more reliable and cheaper to run. In addition, many of the UK's secondary industries like armaments manufacture and coal heavily polluted the environment. As the UK and EU have very strict laws for environmental pollution for businesses, this makes it expensive to make products here.

Government Policy is a plan or course of action decided by a government to manage issues in a country. This has also resulted in a change in the types of jobs people do in the UK. For example;
* Some primary industries have declined because of laws and treaties - fishing is limited by quotas imposed by the European Union. Policies limiting fishing and helping farmers mechanise cost jobs in primary industries.
* The UK Government in the 1970s and 1980s sold or turned many of its secondary and primary industries to companies in a process called privatisation. This cost many jobs in steel making and coal in particular.
* Many UK governments have invested in the "knowledge economy" rather than primary and secondary industries

There are other reasons, for example some resources such as iron ore and coal have declined in availability in the UK or become uneconomic to mine, so employment declined. Economic reasons are also very important; the average annual wage of a farmer in the UK is £9000 or less, making this an unlikely occupation for a highly educated skilled workforce.

NEXT TOPIC - UK - impacts industry on the physical environment

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Coolgeography - GCSE - UK Economic Change

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The economy of the UK has changed dramatically over time. The graph above shows that over time; 1. Primary industries have declined rapidly 2. Secondary industries experienced a period of growth during the industrial revolution and has been in decline since the turn of WWII 3.

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Strategies to Reduce the Development Gap 

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Strategies to Reduce the Development Gap 

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Strategies used to reduce the Development Gap

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What are the consequences of Uneven Development | GCSE Geography

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Consequences of Uneven Development (Cool Geography)

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Consequences of Uneven Development (Cool Geography)

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Coolgeography - GCSE - Consequences of uneven development

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The Changing economic world, a page of resources to help with AQA GCSE

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Causes of Uneven Development (Cool Geography)

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Causes of Uneven Development (Cool Geography)

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Causes of uneven development

The Development Gap refers to the widening difference in levels of development between the world's richest and poorest countries. There are many different measures used to assess the development gap, including HDI, GNI, Life expectancy etc. This GAP has major impacts on the QUALITY of LIFE for millions of people around the globe

There are Economic, historical and physical reasons for this development gap;

Economic factors affecting development

Unfortunately poverty can lead to poverty. The diagram shows the poverty trap, which is often thought of as a cycle. Low investment in key areas such as infrastructure (roads, rail, telecommunications etc.), education and healthcare can be bad for a population.

Populations in countries at low levels of development can become more vulnerable to ill health (as we have seen with HIV and AIDs in sub-Saharan Africa) which reduces the productivity of the workforce.

In addition, a lack of education leads to a lower quality workforce, and poor road networks are not attractive to outside investors. Simple things like these can exacerbate (make worse) poverty, and keep countries mired in a low level of development.

It is very difficult to expand from a very low base, particularly in today's very competitive global economy. In addition, countries at low levels of economic development are also more likely to be victims of civil wars and their after effects. Countries such as the Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda are good examples of this. Wars consume vital resources and divert attention away from the crucial issues for normal people, healthcare, reliable food supplies, stability, economic well-being and access to clean drinking water.

WORLD TRADE
The world's poorest countries have also been at the mercy of a global trade system designed and controlled by the world's richest countries. Several measures put in place by the world's richest countries mean that the world's poorest countries are at a disadvantage;
1. Import tariffs of goods from poorer countries put the prices of those goods UP
2. Subsidies (payments from governments to the producer) of goods produced in richer countries push the prices of rich world goods cheaper. This makes it harder for poorer countries to compete.
3. The world trade system encourages a "race to the bottom", where buyers from richer countries go from place to place around the world driving down prices because supply of goods often outstrips demand.
In addition, the lack of reliable energy supply, political stability, infrastructure and educated workforce put countries at a disadvantage. The net result in many poorer countries is that they are forced to export only lower value raw materials such as agricultural goods, whilst they buy back more expensive manufactured goods or services. Poorer countries do not have the capital to set these types of industries up.

The physical environment can have a direct impact upon the development of a place. The UK benefitted in many ways from its physical or natural environment for its rise to a global superpower during the Industrial Revolution. Its Island natural gave it a coastline to fully exploit for resources and many potential trade routes. It had the right mix of natural resources to exploit for many Industrial processes, including coal, iron Ore and Limestone. It also had a temperate climate without the extremes of weather that can damage development. Many countries are not as fortunate and the following factors can limit development;

1. Climate related disease - many tropical countries unfortunately suffer from diseases that thrive in hot humid conditions, such as Dengue Fever, Chagas Disease and Malaria. People who get these diseases are incapacitated and cannot work or may even die, limiting development.
2. A lack of natural resources - countries with few natural resources start off at a very low economic base and find it hard to create products that can sell on world markets.
3. Natural resource curse theory - this is a theory that states if a country has one very valuable resource all efforts of the country are put into the exploitation of that resource. That limits the POTENTIAL development of other industries and if the resource is in the hands of a minority unscrupulous ruling elite, the profits are not shared well amongst people in the country.
4. Being landlocked with bad neighbours - although this has a political element to it, countries that have no access to the sea are at the mercy of their neighbours. If they are "bad neighbours" who expect huge payments or have regular conflict, this can severely limit development.
5. Climatic hazards such as hurricanes and drought are more likely to strike some countries than others. For fragile countries a drought could have a devastating impact on development. The 2011 to 2012 Horn of Africa famine that affected Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya and Somalia had a long term impact. As well as killing and weakening people from hunger and thirst, many of these countries had to deal with a refugee crisis, diverting valuable resources away from other development objectives.

Famine in the Horn of Africa - ©Oxfam East Africa

There are many historical factors that can affect the level of development of a place. In the short term a lack of investment in education is particularly important, as many countries cannot afford to send all children to school even at a basic level. UNICEF claim that in 2006 93 million children of primary school age were not in school!
Looking at the longer term, the colonial legacy of many countries across the globe has held many countries back. Countries such as the UK, France, Spain and Germany had colonies across the globe from which they took people and resources. These processes have limited the development of these countries. Opposite is an image of mutilated Congolese slaves who were forced to work on Belgian rubber plantations under King Leopold. Such acts of vicious oppression held countries such as the Congo back.

Colonial countries also drew up borders and created countries that ignored tribal, ethnic and religious differences within those regions. This has subsequently led to conflict which also holds a countries economic development back.
Another good example here is Nigeria, a country created by the UK but struggling to cater for all of its different ethnic and religious groups.

Source of photo: King Leopold's Soliloquy: A Defense of His Congo Rule, By Mark Twain, Boston: The P. R. Warren Co., 1905, Second Edition.

By Alice Harris [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

NEXT TOPIC - Consequences of uneven development

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The Development Gap refers to the widening difference in levels of development between the world's richest and poorest countries. There are many different measures used to assess the development gap, including HDI, GNI, Life expectancy etc.

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How can countries measure the well-being of their citizens?

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Mapping development - Different ways of classifying different parts of the world

One of the most useful things we can do to understand development and how it changes over space from place to place is map it! There are many different things that we could map to show how development varies from place to place , and we could map them at different scales. The most common way to map data or information is to use a choropleth map, which is basically a coloured in map where the colours represent certain values. We could map the number of people per doctor, the level of a place, the number of calories consumed, the number of mobile phones in a population, the average wage, the number of AIDS sufferers etc. to see how these features of a population vary over space.

For a long time Geographers have been trying to CLASSIFY or put into groups countries around the globe with similar characteristics. This has been particularly relevant to development, and these characteristics have changed over time.

One of the earliest classifications was a 3 fold division used by the United Nations for the first time in 1945.

1. The First World included mainly capitalist free-market countries found in Western Europe and their old colonies such as the USA and Australia.
2. The second world comprised centrally planned, socialist or communist countries. These countries had different structure to those of the first world and had much more government control of business and public services. The second and first worlds were at odds for decades during the cold war.
3. The third world comprised the least developed countries and developing countries.

This division had a bias towards the democratic first world and hid huge differences between countries in the third world.

The North-South Divide
The North-South Divide is a division that exists between the wealthy developed countries, known collectively as "the North", and the poorer developing countries (least developed countries), or "the South." The divide was part of a report by Brandt on the State of World Development in 1971 and classified countries broadly as economically wealthy manufacturing countries (the North) or agricultural (the South).

The "North";

1. Is home to four of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council
2. Has all members of the , the group of the 8 most powerful nations/economies on Planet Earth
3. Has enough food and water for 95% of its population
4. Has 95% of people with access to a functioning education system.
5. Controls four fifths of the world income.
6. Owns 90% of the manufacturing industries

This distinction has fallen out of favour because;

* It is too simple - large variations in wealth are hidden in both the rich North and poor south
* It is geographically incorrect - Australia and New Zealand are geographically south but included in the North, whilst more poor countries that make up the South are above the Equator than below it!
* Development changes over time -the BRIC economies of Brazil, India and China (but not Russia as it was already north of the line) have grown massively since the map was made
* Economies have become more varied that manufacturing and agriculture.

The five - fold division based on wealth

1. Rich industrialising countries e.g. UK, USA, Japan, Australia, etc.
2. Oil Exporting countries e.g. UAE.
3. New Industrializing countries e.g. India, China.
4. Former centrally planned economies (previous communist systems) e.g. Russia.
5. Heavily indebted poor countries e.g. Chad, Congo.

This is a more recent method designed to try and classify countries and their level of development. It makes a better distinction between countries of lower levels of development and accounts for different reasons for wealth. It also takes into account the variable success of the formally centrally planned economies such as Russia. The also has a program for LDCs, the Least Developed Countries.

Correlation between Development measures

Generally, we would expect many of the indicators to be correlated together. The expression "correlated" means that they should link to one another and affect one another.
For example, in a country with high Gross National Income we would expect a high number of Internet users as the country has the money available for a high quality cable network. Similarly, we might expect countries with Low Gross National Income to have high numbers of people per doctor as it is expensive to train and pay doctors, and to pay for the facilities they would require.

There are 2 examples below dealing with the following measures of development
* Gross Domestic Product is the total market value of goods and services that a country produces in a year per person. This is measured in US$.
* Life Expectancy is the length of time the average person in a country can expect to live for.
* Infant mortality is the number of babies who do not survive past the age of 1 year old for every 1000 live births in a population.

The graph reveals a POSITIVE correlation that is reasonably STRONG. This is because the points are close to the line and as one variable goes up so does the other. This means that as GDP goes up so does the average age a person can expect to live to. This makes logical sense, in countries with high GDP such as the USA there are very good food distribution systems, clean water, education facilities and excellent medical care. All of these features maximize people's chances of living a long and healthy life. Sadly, in poorer countries such as Burkina Faso their lack of wealth and high levels of debt mean that they cannot afford the same things as the USA, resulting in a lower life expectancy.

The scatter graph above shows a NEGATIVE correlation between the 2 variables. Here, we can see that as the GDP per capita (person) goes up, the infant mortality falls rapidly. In DR Congo, a huge infant mortality of 68 infants under 1 dying before the age of 1 in every 1,000 live births is a tragedy. It is a reflection of their status as a Highly Indebted LDC, which cannot afford decent maternal care, vaccines and medical care for newborn infants. This will not be the case in richer countries such as the UK and Japan.

Not all variables will be linked together in this way, but the majority will be, and there will always be countries that disrupt the trend. However, when correlating data this way some distressing patterns emerge for the world's poorest countries which have;
* The highest infant mortalities
* Shorter life expectancies
* Lower calorie intake per person
* Higher maternal death rates
* Higher incidents of HIV, AIDS and Malaria
* Lowest access to safe drinking water
* The highest % of people undernourished
* The lowest per capita incomes
* The poorest literacy rates and shortest educations
This is where Aid and fairer trading can really make a difference to the poorest people in the world, who have been dubbed the "bottom billion" .

NEXT TOPIC - Causes of uneven development

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One of the most useful things we can do to understand development and how it changes over space from place to place is map it! There are many different things that we could map to show how development varies from place to place , and we could map them at different scales.

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The Changing Economic World

The economy is the state of a country or region in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services and the supply of money. There have been MAJOR changes to the global economy over time;

1. The growth of Newly Emerging Economies such as China and India or the BRIC economies

2. The emergence of major regional trading blocs like the European Union

3. Many High Income countries have experienced deindustrialisation - the loss of manufacturing industries

4. World trade has GROWN, increasing amounts of goods are moving around the world

5. Trade is more OPEN - there are fewer barriers to global trade

6. Some countries are stuck in poverty - these are known by the UN as the Least Developed Countries

7. Major TNCs have had an impact on the economy

8. The rise of quaternary industries and digital industries has been witnessed

Different economic and social measures of development

Development relates to "the progress of a country in terms of economic growth, the use of technology and human welfare."

Development levels vary around the world and we can study this on a local scale, and consider with our own community how different groups of people on one estate might be wealthier and have a better quality of life than others. We could look at development a national scale, and consider how health and wealth change across the British Isles (life expectancy is lower in Scotland than it is in England for example). The last scale we can look at is globally, because there are huge differences between the quality of life between countries and continents. There are 3 very broad groups of countries;

*
Low income country (LIC) - countries that have a GNI per capita of $1,035 or LESS according to the World Bank. These are poorer countries that have mainly primary jobs such as farming and mining. Countries include Bangladesh and Mali.
* High income country (HIC) - a country that has a GNI per capita of $12,535 or above according to the World Bank. These are richer countries that have lots of industry and service jobs such as the UK and Japan.
* Newly Emerging Economies (NEE) - Countries that have begun to experience high rates of economic development, usually with rapid industrialisation. They differ from LICs in that they no longer rely primarily on agriculture, have made gains in infrastructure and industrial growth, and are experiencing increasing incomes and high levels of investment. E.g. Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa (the so-called BRICS countries).

There are a huge number of measures that can be used to measure the level of Development of a place. These measures can be classified as;
* Social - relating to the development of the people of the place and;
* Economic, relating to the finances and wealth of the place.
Some countries may have imbalances in these measures, so a country may have very high levels of wealth and economic development, but poor levels of political freedom so poor political and social development. It is therefore better to look at a NUMBER of different measures of development of places before coming to a judgment about its level of development.

The most powerful individual number or measure is probable the Human Development Index, because it combines together economic and social measures into one figure. However, I quite like the Happy Planet Index as an alternative! Surely if people are ranked as happy then their country or region is developed!

The Exam board expects you to know the definitions below, but there are many other Indicators of development that you could investigate;

1. GNI per head - Gross national income is a measure of the country's wealth. GDP is part of GNI. It includes the total value of goods and services produced within a country (i.e. its Gross Domestic Product), together with its income received from other countries (such as interest and dividends), minus similar payments made to other countries. So if a British-based company such as BP sends profits back to the UK our GNI is enhanced, whilst profits flowing out of the country from a company such as Nissan to Japan will count to Japan's GNI and not the UKs. GNI is therefore different to GDP because it includes it!
2. Human Development Index (HDI) - This is a composite (combined) measure that considers life expectancy, GNI and an education index to give a value between 0 and 1, 1 being the most developed. This is powerful as it includes both economic and social factors.
3. Birth Rates - How many babies are born per 1000 people in a population per year. We tend to find that the poorest countries have high birth rates, and wealthier countries have lower births rates. This is because poorer countries have high replacement rates to compensate for high infant mortality, poorer access to family planning and contraception, and a tradition for large family size to supplement a largely agricultural workforce.
4. Death rates - How many people die per 1000 people in a population per year. This is becoming less useful as a measure of development, as death rates fall due to imported medicine and technology in many poorer countries. It would be better to look at CAUSE of death, as in HICs it will be wealth and age related illnesses
5. Infant mortality - How many babies die per 1,000 live births per year. This is a useful measure as it indicates the medical systems in the country and how well the most vulnerable in society, the very young, are protected and looked after in their early years.
6. People per doctor - How many people there are for every doctor in a country or place. Again, this indicates how much money is available in a country for the training and recruitment of doctors, which has an instant knock on effect on the well-being and quality of life of a person.
7. Literacy rate - What percentage of the country is able to read and write as adults. This is another social measure, and helps to indicate the standard of education within a country or place.
8. Access to safe water - What percentage of people have access to sanitary and safe water that is free from bacteria and parasites. This is something we take for granted in the UK, but according to Water.org 780 million people lack access to safe water and 3.4million die every year from a water related disease.
9. Life expectancy - The average age a person can expect to live to at birth. This is a very useful indicator as it reveals how good food security, water quality, shelter and medical care are in a country.

NEXT TOPIC - Development Classifications

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The economy is the state of a country or region in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services and the supply of money.

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Human Development Index (HDI)

Development is measured using the Human Development Index (HDI) ). HDI is calculated by the . It measures average , level of education and income for each country in the world. Each country is given a score between 0 and 1 - the closer a country gets to 1, the more developed it is.

Other measures of development

HDI is the best measure of development as it takes into account both economic and social factors. However there are many other measures of development that can be used. Some of them are:

The Demographic Transition Model and development

The Demographic Transition Model (DTM) shows population changes over time. There are five stages in the DTM and these stages can be linked to levels of development.

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Social and economic measures of development - Contrasts in development between different countries - AQA - GCSE Geography Revision - AQA - BBC Bitesize

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Development is measured using the Human Development Index (HDI) ). HDI is calculated by the . It measures average , level of education and income for each country in the world. Each country is given a score between 0 and 1 - the closer a country gets to 1, the more developed it is.

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Sustainable Cities: Crash Course Geography #49

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Urban Sustainability (Cool Geography Revision)

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Urban Sustainability (Cool Geography Revision)

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Features of sustainable urban living:

Integrated transport systems - When different transport methods connect together, making journeys smoother and therefore public transport more appealing. Better integration should result in more demand for public transport and should see people switching from private car use to public modes of transport, which should be more sustainable. It may also lead to a fall in congestion due to less road users.
Urban sustainability - A sustainable city is one in which there is minimal damage to the environment, the economic base is sound with resources allocated fairly and jobs secure, and there is a strong sense of community, with local people involved in decisions made. Sustainable urban living includes several aims including the use of renewable resources, energy efficiency, use of public transport, accessible resources and services.
Waste recycling - The process of extracting and reusing useful substances found in waste.

Urban sustainability is a massive issue both in the UK and globally. It is basically to do with ensuring that cities and towns have a minimal environmental footprint (they don't pollute too much and don't consume too many natural resources) on their surrounding area, allowing local people a say so that society and communities are sustainable and making cities pleasant places to live through the provision of adequate open spaces and recreation facilities.

Indeed, a sustainable city can be defined as;
"Improving the quality of life in a city, including ecological, cultural, political, institutional, social and economic components without leaving a burden on the future generations. A burden which is the result of a reduced natural capital and an excessive local debt."
Urban21 conference in Berlin 2000

You could consider the idea of urban sustainability as defined by the three "E's";
Economy - Economic activity should serve the common good, be self-renewing, and build local assets and self-reliance.
Ecology - Human are part of nature, nature has limits, and communities are responsible for protecting and building natural assets.
Equity - The opportunity for full participation in all activities, benefits, and decision-making of a society.

This is the reduction in the use of energy by;
1. Preventing use - stopping using energy for certain activities, for example, switching TVs off when not in use, not leaving on standby
2. Greater efficiency - using technologies that use less energy for the same function
3. Developing renewable sources of energy - using wind and solar power for example, rather than fossil fuels
Newcastle City Council gives advice to both businesses and individual home owners on how to save energy. They have a "warm up north" scheme which tries to improve the energy efficiency of homes across the North East. Schemes include insulation, UPVC windows or doors, a new heating system or boiler and loft or cavity wall insulation. The scheme has also been installing solar panels on homes across the city. Newcastle City Council having achieved a 29% reduction in overall CO ₂ emissions since 2005. The council have also completed 357 new energy efficient properties via Your Homes Newcastle New Build Programme.

Newcastle City Council also plan to place 400 solar panels on the roof of its Civic Centre (generating around £38,000 savings a year for the next 20 years) after installing 600 panels on the top level of Manors car park in the city.

Source: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/could-newcastle-civic-centre-turn-10412489
Water conservation
Water conservation involves is the preservation, control and development of water resources, both surface and groundwater, and prevention of pollution Water conservation should reduce water loss, waste and use.
It is important to conserve water because:
* 780 million people in the world lack access to clean water
* Only 1% of the world's water supply is available for human consumption
* The demand for water is increasing
* Each Briton uses about 150 litres of tap water a day

Schemes underway in Newcastle upon Tyne to conserve water including;
1. The Hospitals in Newcastle have a water conservation policy. This includes a commitment to use efficient technology to limit water use. Water saving devices such as push taps have been installed in all new builds and refurbished buildings, and water is measured per member of staff.
2. Northumbrian Water has launched a campaign called 'Every Drop Counts' in 2015 aimed at reducing water use through education. They also offer free products for the garden will also be provided, including a free water butt, trigger hose guns and water saving gel for compost. The company also work hard to prevent leaks which consume huge amounts of water.
3. Newcastle University has also developed a water strategy, the target is to reduce water use to 13 cubic metres per staff and students by installing push taps, dual flush toilets and aerated showers head in their buildings to reduce water use

Reducing and safely disposing of waste
Human beings create an incredible amount of waste, and the problem seems to be even worse within our cities. If you think about your own home, you can consider the amount of waste that needs to be dealt with. On a weekly basis you or the council needs to deal with:
* Your refuse and general waste from your bins, plastics, metals, food wastes;
* Waste water from cleaning, dishwashers, washing machines;
* Waste Water from your toilet;
* Emissions from your energy needs.
Imagine now that this needs to be repeated for thousands of people in your town, or tens of thousands/ hundreds of thousands/millions of people in your city!
This doesn't include any of the wastes from the industrial processes that take place in cities either. In HICs our cities are not growing so fast or their growth has slowed, and we have had many decades to establish organised systems to get rid of our waste. In LICs the problem is much more difficult to deal with, especially given the rapid growth of these cities and the informal nature of some of the development, where many people construct their own homes in squatter or shanty developments. One such LIC city is Cairo. All of this ties in with the issue of sustainability, can we continue to produce so much waste and not expect consequences?

Waste Facts
* 45% of waste in the UK was recycled in 2018, up 1% from 2014
* The UK has reduced the amount of waste going to landfill. It is now only 20% of the 1995 value.
* WRAP estimates that around 600 million tonnes of products and materials enter the UK economy each year but only 115 million tonnes of this gets recycled.
* Nearly 25% of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) that's taken to household waste recycling centres could be re-used, worth around £200m gross a year.
* We throw away around 9.5million tonnes of food and drink every year from our homes - most of which could have been safely consumed.
2 main options for getting rid of waste are landfill (burying the waste) and incineration (burning the waste). Landfill is used more but we are running out of sites and it can pollute the land and water sources near them. Incineration only accounts for 9% of household waste disposal but is unpopular as it can cause problems like air pollution.

How Newcastle has done this
* Every household in Newcastle has recycling bins, allowing local residents to recycle cardboard, plastics, metals and glass.
* Households in Newcastle can also pay for a brown bin, into which garden waste can be put, collected and then composted
* Local tips in Newcastle also force people to separate their waste whenever possible, further increasing recycling rates.
* However, huge amounts of waste generated in Newcastle still end up in either landfill sites or incinerated.

Providing adequate open spaces
* Greenbelts or areas where local authorities choose to restrict building around cities offers open space for recreation purposes
* Many areas in cities have designated areas of open space in the form of parks, playing fields and individual gardens.

How Newcastle has done this
* Newcastle has a huge range of open spaces available for public use, including Jesmond Dene (above and below pictures) which was donated to the people of the city by Lord Armstrong and the Town Moor.

NEXT TOPIC - UIC - Urban Transport Strategies

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Coolgeography - GCSE - Urban sustainability

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Integrated transport systems - When different transport methods connect together, making journeys smoother and therefore public transport more appealing. Better integration should result in more demand for public transport and should see people switching from private car use to public modes of transport, which should be more sustainable.

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Across the globe and in a short amount of time, we've given up the tractor for the city bus, the open landscape for one of brick and mortar. We are now an urban planet. In fact, by 2008 over 50 percent of the global population was living in urban areas. It was 3 percent in 1800. Throughout history, cities have attracted people as centers of culture, religion, learning, and economics. Looking back, the first wave of urban migration took place in what are today's more developed countries, especially in Europe and North America. But looking ahead, 90 percent of the future urban increase is expected to take place in Asia and Africa, and it is projected that more than two-thirds of all people will be calling cities home by 2050.

Urbanization is often linked with economics - increased job opportunities, a centralized market, better pay and higher individual wealth have all drawn people into cities. And for a long time, these pull factors are what caused cities to grow. The Industrial Revolution caused a shift from agriculturally based societies to industrial, and thus geographically centered, societies. But that dynamic is changing. Today, most urban growth is natural increase - due to more births than deaths among those already dwelling in cities. Additionally, formerly small settlements are being reclassified as urban areas as the populace living there grows from within.

Implications of Growing "Too Fast"

Depending on cities' ages and locations, there is much variation in wealth and infrastructure. Many of the newer urban areas, located in Latin America, Asia and Africa, have an entirely different look, feel, and outlook than their older European or North American counterparts. How fast an area grew, or is growing, is a key component.

When a city grows at a manageable rate, which is often considered roughly 1 percent annually, its infrastructure can keep pace with an increasing population and its demands. Necessities such as roads and public transportation, appropriate sewers and water treatment facilities, clinics, schools and housing have time to be planned and built alongside the increase in human numbers. The risk of fast urban growth, especially in an economically strained country, is that the necessary infrastructure often cannot expand fast enough to keep up with residents' needs. Without infrastructures in place to provide basic needs, residents can be forced to create their own provisions with whatever is available.

The Rise of Slums

In less developed countries, densely populated slums form both on the edges and within the largest cities. Due to a poor economy and weak infrastructure, cities such as Mumbai, India do not have the means to support the overwhelming urban population. According to the 2018 UN World Urbanization Prospects Report, Mumbai ranked as the seventh largest city in the world, with 20 million people in the entire metropolitan area. Even more striking, over half of Mumbai's metro residents live in slums surrounding the city, causing huge public health, environmental, and land use problems.

Slum dwellers survive with practically no sanitation, water, urban amenities, employment, or security, and roughly one-seventh of the world's population lives under these conditions. The lack of running water and sanitation, plus malnutrition and inadequate housing, leads to deadly conditions in the slums and shantytowns that surround many cities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The spread of HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases in areas where so many people live in such close physical proximity is a critical public health issue for urban areas throughout the developing world. When combined with high unemployment rates and inadequate schools, these public health issues create a poor quality of life for many of the city's residents.

The Emergence of Megacities

The urban shift over time has led to the emergence of the megacity - a city with a population of 10 million or more. New York City and Tokyo were the first known megacities, both reaching an urban conglomeration of over 10 million by the 1950s. But today they are far from alone in their size. In 2018 there were 33 megacities across the planet - from Sao Paulo, Brazil to Lagos, Nigeria and London, England to Shanghai, China - and all major global regions except Oceania are marked with megacities.

Most of the cities that have reached the 10 million marker in recent years are located in Asia and Africa. In fact, it's where six of the eight newest megacities can be found and where nine of the 10 projected 2030 megacities will be located. These regions are also home to the fastest growing megacities. The population of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has doubled roughly every 5 years since 1950. From 2010 to 2015, Kinshasa's population grew by over 23 percent, and today over half of the more than 13 million residents are under 22 years old. A combination of factors has led to this growth including migration from rural areas, high fertility rates, and widening of the city's boundaries. The population is outpacing almost all support structures in the city where the threat of food shortages, traffic congestion, and insufficient education facilities have become a stark reality.

Environmental Pros and Cons

A large urban population may seem environmentally troublesome with cities viewed as a disruption to the natural world. But environmentalism and urbanization are not incompatible. Dense urban areas have a much smaller ecological footprint - many people live in apartments or smaller connected houses rather than ranch-style homes in sprawling neighborhoods. Multifamily dwellings have the added benefit of being more energy efficient and they require less resources per person. Cities are also walkable and have public transportation options that can make cars less of a necessity. And above all, densely populated areas make it possible to protect other open spaces to serve as wildlife habitat, farmland, conservation areas, or oxygen-producing forests.

But of course, there are ecological downsides to cities as well. Concentrations of people mean concentrations of pollutants and trash. Cities produce up to 70 percent of global CO2 emissions and smog is becoming a common feature in many urban landscapes. Large swaths of continuous pavement prevent water drainage and boost temperatures. Without proper infrastructure, cities also risk having waste - both trash and human waste - clogging waterways and causing damage. And with cities across the globe producing more than 2 billion tons of waste annually, that's a lot for one area to handle.

Planning an Urban Future

It is predicted that most future urban growth will happen in settlements currently home to between 100,000 and 250,00 people, and if this is to be done sustainably, planning is a must. Future high-growth areas require strategic urban planning individually tailored to a city's history, culture, value system, and other specificities; a single cookie-cutter approach won't work, nor will the plans of the 20th century. But by keeping an eye towards social justice concerns, natural resource use, environmental hazards, and other issues of modern cities, urban plans can help ensure the health and well-being of tomorrow's city dwellers.

distribution of world urban Population by area

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Urbanization and the Megacity - World Population

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Urbanization and the Megacity Across the globe and in a short amount of time, we've given up the tractor for the city bus, the open landscape for one of brick and mortar. We are now an urban planet. In fact, by 2008 over 50 percent of the global population was living in urban areas.

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Urbanisation and the Rise of the Megacity

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Urbanisation and the Rise of the Megacity

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Urbanisation and the rise of the megacity

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Factors Affecting Urbanisation (BBC Bitesize)

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Factors Affecting Urbanisation (BBC Bitesize)

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The world's population is growing rapidly and reached 7.9 billion people in 2022. The highest rates of population growth are occurring in developing countries , such as Uganda, Malawi and Niger. Some countries are experiencing population decline, for example Japan, Russia and Romania.

Today more than 55% of the world's population live in . The number of cities with over 10 million people is increasing. These are called . There are now at least 33 megacities in the world. The table shows the top 10 megacities.

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Urban growth - push and pull factors - Urbanisation - Edexcel - GCSE Geography Revision - Edexcel - BBC Bitesize

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Learn about and revise urbanisation and its causes with GCSE Bitesize Geography (Edexcel).

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Introduction

More than half of the world's population lives in urban areas. Due to the ongoing urbanisation and growth of the world's population, there will be about 2.5 billion more people added to the urban population by 2050, mainly in Africa and Asia. The world's urban areas are highly varied, but many cities and towns are facing problems such as a lack of jobs, homelessness and expanding squatter settlements, inadequate services and infrastructure, poor health and educational services and high levels of pollution.

In this study session, you will learn about the trends in urbanisation and the causes of urban growth. You will also learn about the demographic, health, environmental and social consequences of urbanisation.

Learning Outcomes for Study Session 5

When you have studied this session, you should be able to:

5.1 Define and use correctly all of the key words printed in bold. (SAQs 5.1 and 5.2)

5.2 Describe the global and local trends in urbanisation. (SAQ 5.3)

5.3 Explain the main causes of urban growth. (SAQs 5.1 and 5.2)

5.4 Describe the main positive and negative impacts of urbanisation. (SAQ 5.4)

5.1 Urbanisation trends

In Study Session 2 you learned about the overall trend in global population growth. Most of this increase is taking place in urban areas. Urbanisation is an increase in the number of people living in towns and cities. Urbanisation occurs mainly because people move from rural areas to urban areas and it results in growth in the size of the urban population and the extent of urban areas. These changes in population lead to other changes in land use, economic activity and culture. Historically, urbanisation has been associated with significant economic and social transformations. For example, urban living is linked with higher levels of literacy and education, better health, lower fertility and a longer life expectancy, greater access to social services and enhanced opportunities for cultural and political participation (UNDESA, 2014). However, urbanisation also has disadvantages caused by rapid and unplanned urban growth resulting in poor infrastructures such as inadequate housing, water and sanitation, transport and health care services.

5.1.1 Global trends in urbanisation

In 1960, the global urban population was 34% of the total; however, by 2014 the urban population accounted for 54% of the total and continues to grow. By 2050 the proportion living in urban areas is expected to reach 66% (UNDESA, 2014). Figure 5.1 shows the change in the rural and urban populations of the world from 1950 through to projected figures up to the year 2050.

The process of urbanisation affects all sizes of settlements, so villages gradually grow to become small towns, smaller towns become larger towns, and large towns become cities. This trend has led to the growth of mega-cities. A mega-city is an urban area of greater than ten million people. Rapid expansion of city borders, driven by increases in population and infrastructure development, leads to the expansion of city borders that spread out and swallow up neighbouring urban areas to form mega-cities. In 1970, there were only three mega-cities across the globe, but by the year 2000, the number had risen to 17 and by 2030, 24 more mega-cities will be added (see Figure 5.2).

The global trend in urbanisation is not the same in all parts of the world. Asia and Africa currently have the highest rates of urbanisation. Figure 5.3 shows a comparison of trends in more or less developed regions of the world.

5.1.2 Urbanisation in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is one of the least urbanised countries in the world today, and only 18% of its population lives in urban areas (JMP, 2014). In common with many other developing countries, however, this pattern is changing (Figure 5.4). Ethiopia's urban growth rate is more than 4.0% per year, which places it among the highest in Africa and the world (MWUD, 2007).

The rapid increase in urban populations has meant that peri-urban areas are growing much more quickly than formal urban centres. Peri-urban areas are those areas immediately around a town or city. They are areas in transition from countryside to city (rural to urban), often with undeveloped infrastructure, where health and sanitation services are under pressure and where the natural environment is at risk of degradation.

Defining the boundaries of urban, peri-urban and rural areas is not straightforward. They do not neatly separate themselves by lines on a map. On the contrary, the sprawling nature of urban development means that the areas merge into each other. The lack of a clear boundary can make it difficult to assess the size of towns by their population or geographical area. However, judgements have to be made and, for planning and administrative purposes, data on population size are collected. Table 5.1 shows the number of towns and cities in Ethiopia by population in 2007, the most recently published data.

Of the four cities with a population of more than 200,000, by far the largest is Addis Ababa. In 2007, the population of Addis Ababa was more than 3 million, which amounted to about 25% of Ethiopia's urban population (MWUD, 2007). The next-largest city, Dire Dawa, had only 293,000 occupants at that time. The impacts of urbanisation are generally much more evident in the capital than in other towns and cities.

5.2 Causes of urbanisation

Urbanisation in the developing world occurs for two main reasons: the natural increase of population and rural to urban migration.

5.2.1 Natural increase of population

From Study Session 2 you will know that the population is increasing in developing countries. This natural increase is a significant cause of the growing urban population.

As birth rates decline over time, according to the demographic transition model, the role of natural increase in determining the pace of urban population growth becomes less important in comparison to migration.

5.2.2 Rural to urban migration

In developing countries, urbanisation usually occurs when people move from villages to settle in cities in hope of gaining a better standard of living. The movement of people from one place to another is called migration. Migration is influenced by economic growth and development and by technological change (Marshall et al., 2009) and possibly also by conflict and social disruption. It is driven by pull factors that attract people to urban areas and push factors that drive people away from the countryside.

Employment opportunities in cities are one of the main pull factors. Many industries are located in cities and offer opportunities of high urban wages. There are also more educational institutions providing courses and training in a wide range of subjects and skills. People are attracted to an urban lifestyle and the 'bright lights' of city life. All of these factors result in both temporary and permanent migration to urban areas.

Poor living conditions and the lack of opportunities for paid employment in rural areas are push factors. People are moving away from rural areas because of poor health care and limited educational and economic opportunities as well as environmental changes, droughts, floods, lack of availability of sufficiently productive land, and other pressures on rural livelihoods.

Rural to urban migration can be a selective process, as some types of people are more likely to move than others. One of the factors involved is gender, because employment opportunities vary greatly with different jobs for men and women. Another factor is age. Young people are more likely to move to towns, with more elderly people and children left in rural areas. Selectivity in migration affects the population in both the rural and the urban areas. If more men move to towns and cities than women, this leaves a predominantly female society in rural areas.

5.3 Impacts of urbanisation

Although people are pulled towards the advantages of cities, the impacts of urbanisation are mixed. First we will look at the many positive impacts of urbanisation before going on to describe some of the challenges created by rapid unplanned urban growth.

Thriving towns and cities are an essential element of a prosperous national economy. The gathering of economic and human resources in one place stimulates innovation and development in business, science, technology and industry. Access to education, health, social services and cultural activities is more readily available to people in cities than in villages. In cities, child survival rates are better than in rural areas because of better access to health care (Mulholland et al., 2008). The density of urban populations makes it easier and less costly for the government and utilities to provide essential goods and services (Brockerhoff, 2000). For example, the supply of basic facilities such as fresh water and electricity can be achieved with less effort and less cost per person.

Schools, colleges and universities are established in cities to develop human resources. A variety of educational courses are available, offering students a wide choice for their future careers. People of many classes and religions live and work together in cities, which creates better understanding and harmony and helps break down social and cultural barriers. Cities also have advanced communication and transport networks.

However, these many benefits of urban life do not apply to all. Rapid population increases and unplanned growth create an urban sprawl with negative economic, social, and environmental consequences. In Ethiopia, the rate of urban growth often strains the capacity of local and national government to provide urban residents with even the most basic services of housing, water supply, sewerage and solid waste disposal (MWUD, 2008).

5.3.1 Housing

In developing countries, about a third of urban inhabitants live in impoverished slums and squatter settlements (UN-Habitat, 2012). Slums are urban areas that are heavily populated and have sub-standard housing with very poor living conditions, creating several problems.

In Addis Ababa, a report in 2008 found that 80% of the houses in the city were classed as slums due to the physical deterioration of its housing, overcrowding, high density, poor access and lack of infrastructure services (Tolon, 2008) (Figure 5.5).

Slum areas typically suffer from:

poor housing with small, overcrowded houses built very close together using inadequate materials and with uncertain electricity supply

restricted access to water supplies

little or no sanitation/latrine facilities and no solid waste disposal, which leads to a polluted and degraded local environment

inadequate health care facilities which, coupled with the poor living conditions, increases sickness and death rates

insecure living conditions - slum dwellers may be forcibly removed by landowners or other authorities.

Many low-income families gravitate to these informal settlements that proliferate in and around towns. Poverty is one of the most critical issues facing urban areas. Urban poverty degrades both the physical and social environment. This then makes it more difficult for people to escape from poverty and they fall victim to the 'vicious cycle' that you read about in Study Session 2.

5.3.2 Water supply and sanitation

The provision of water and sanitation services to growing urban settlements, peri-urban and slum areas presents critical challenges. The increased demand for water from the growing population can place added stress on already stretched resources. In and around cities, water is commonly in short supply and subject to increasing competition by different users. Urban growth leads to increasing demand for water for industrial and domestic use, which conflicts with agricultural demands.

It is especially difficult to provide water and sanitation services to deprived areas and the poorest people. Many people in these areas live without access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation. Even where adequate water supplies are available, sanitation and wastewater disposal are often inadequate or missing. Pit latrines and septic tanks are the usual methods for human waste disposal but they have limited capacity and are not always adequate to cope with the quantity of waste produced by many people living close together. Overflowing latrines and septic tanks contaminate surface water and create a serious health risk.

The lack of these essential services threatens not only the health and the environment of people in slum areas, but also that of people living in formal urban areas. In Africa and Asia most of the urban centres have no sewers at all, which affects rich and poor alike. This is true of many cities with a million or more inhabitants, as well as smaller cities and towns.

5.3.3 Wastes and pollution

Urbanisation affects land, water, air and wildlife because of the number of people, the amount of buildings and construction, and the increased demands on resources. It has impacts on the physical environment in several ways.
Water quality
In developing countries, including Ethiopia, many rivers in urban areas are more like open sewers (Figure 5.6). The lack of sanitation and sewerage systems has a dramatic impact on urban watercourses. People use the rivers to dispose of all their wastes from homes, industries and commercial businesses. Wastewater from human settlements contains organic material and nutrients; industrial wastewater contains many different types of toxic pollutant. These make the water unsafe for humans to use for many purposes including drinking and irrigation, as well as harming the fish and other animals and plants living in the water. Any changes to the quality of surface water also affects groundwater because they are linked by the processes of the water cycle so pollutants from the surface will infiltrate down and contaminate soil and groundwater as well.
Solid waste
In many towns and cities solid waste management is inefficient or non-existent. Solid waste management means the proper collection, transfer, recycling and disposal of all the solid material we throw away, including plastics, paper and cardboard, food wastes, electrical waste, etc. It also includes industrial, hospital and institutional wastes which often contain pathogens as well as hazardous and toxic chemicals, which need special care.

Urban waste often ends up in illegal dumps on streets, open spaces, wastelands, drains or rivers. This is frequently a problem in peri-urban areas, which are convenient for dumping wastes because of the availability of open space and ease of access from central urban areas. This can lead to the pollution of groundwater and surface waters which may be used as a source for drinking water. Sometimes the wastes are collected and taken to legalised waste disposal sites but these are not always properly managed to protect water bodies and groundwater.

The combustion of solid waste creates yet another environmental problem. People want to get rid of the wastes and they will burn them in their backyards if there is no collection system (Figure 5.7).
Air quality
Air quality in towns and cities is frequently very poor as a result of air pollution from many different sources (Figure 5.8). These include:

vehicle exhausts

smoke from domestic fires

outputs from factory chimneys

diesel-powered generators

dust from construction works and city streets.

Poor air quality has a significant impact on the health of many urban residents as well as leaving a damaging and unsightly layer of dust on plants, buildings and other surfaces.

5.3.4 Health

Urbanisation can have both positive and negative effects on health. The main benefits are associated with easier access to hospitals, clinics and health services in general. If you live close to these services you can reach a doctor in minutes rather than hours or days, so this improves emergency care and general health. There are also benefits from easier access to sources of information such as radio and television which may be used to communicate information about health to the general public. For example, women living in towns and cities are more likely to be informed about family planning, which results in reduction in family size and less frequent childbirth, with consequent benefits to general health.

However, urban life can also damage your health. Poor environment, housing and living conditions are the main reasons for poor health in urban areas. Contamination of water sources can cause epidemics of waterborne disease. Close proximity to other people can make the spread of many types of infectious disease more likely. The polluted air can also cause respiratory disease and contribute to premature deaths among more vulnerable sections of the population such as older people and children.

5.3.5 Food

Population movements also put pressure on food supplies and on food distribution. As people migrate to the cities, they tend to use purchased food instead of their own crops and this makes them more vulnerable to changes in food prices. As the population grows and the demand for water and land increases, it becomes difficult to increase food production in a sustainable way. The increase in urban demand, combined with a loss of agricultural land, means more pressure on rural people to produce food for the growing number of urban people.

Furthermore, pollution from urban areas can disrupt food supply. For example, fisheries are often damaged by urban domestic wastes and liquid effluents from city-based industries. (Effluent is another word for wastewater that flows out from a source.) In several Ethiopian cities, such as Bahir Dar, Hawassa, Bishoftu and others, untreated wastes are dumped into nearby lakes, which can damage the fish stocks (Figure 5.9).

5.3.6 Economic and social systems

The process of urbanisation has positive as well as negative economic and social changes. The positive effects include economic development, and education. However, urbanisation places stresses on existing social services and infrastructure. Crime, prostitution, drug abuse and street children are all negative effects of urbanisation. Also there tends to be a lack of social support for children in school and home by their hard-working, usually poor, parents. Inadequate income, overcrowded housing and poor living conditions create a fertile ground for the development of violence. Violent crime is more visible in the cities than in rural areas and it affects people's everyday life, their movements and the use of public transport. Crime in the city can create a sense of insecurity in its inhabitants. This unsafe feeling in city streets separates residential areas into higher-income and lower-income groups, which reduces the sense of community and forms areas with dissimilar incomes, costs and security levels.

In the next study session we will look at some of the ways in which these problems and challenges can be addressed by considering the future demands for urban living and by taking a planned approach to the development of new urban areas.

Summary of Study Session 5

In Study Session 5, you have learned that:

1. Urbanisation is a global trend reflecting the growing population of the world. The urban populations of less-developed countries are currently increasing at a faster rate than those of more-developed countries.

2. Urbanisation results from a natural increase in the population and rural to urban migration.

3. People migrate to towns and cities in hope of gaining a better standard of living. They are influenced by pull factors that attract them to urban life, and push factors that make them dissatisfied with rural living.

4. Urban living is associated with better employment and education opportunities, better health, greater access to social services and opportunities for social and cultural activities.

5. Uncontrolled migration and rapid urban growth are associated with increasing urban poverty and inequality and rises in slum and squatter populations. These people usually have inadequate water supply and sanitation services.

6. Urbanisation affects the physical environment through the impacts of the number of people, their activities and the increased demands on resources.

7. Urbanisation has negative consequences on health due mainly to pollution and overcrowded living conditions. It can also put added pressure on food supply systems.

8. The pressures of urban living may lead to crime and other consequences of social deprivation.

Self-Assessment Questions (SAQs) for Study Session 5

Now that you have completed this study session, you can assess how well you have achieved its Learning Outcomes by answering these questions.

SAQ 5.1 (tests Learning Outcomes 5.1 and 5.3)

SAQ 5.2 (tests Learning Outcomes 5.1 and 5.3)

SAQ 5.3 (tests Learning Outcome 5.2)

SAQ 5.4 (tests Learning Outcome 5.4)

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Study Session 5 Urbanisation: Trends, Causes and Effects

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More than half of the world's population lives in urban areas. Due to the ongoing urbanisation and growth of the world's population, there will be about 2.5 billion more people added to the urban population by 2050, mainly in Africa and Asia.

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Global Patterns of Urban Change (Cool Geography Revision)

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Global Patterns of Urban Change (Cool Geography Revision)

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The global pattern of urban change.

Urbanisation is defined as the " increasing proportion of people living in built environments such as towns and cities ".
The word proportion in this definition is very important, because it indicates that we must judge urbanisation by looking at both the numbers of people living in both rural AND urban areas. For the first time ever in the history of mankind it is now estimated that more people now live in towns and cities than in rural areas.

Key words
Low income country (LIC) and high income country (HIC) - This subdivision of countries is based on the World Bank income classifications (GNI per capita), which in 2013 were Low Income $1,045 or below, and High Income $12,746 or above.
Newly emerging economies (NEEs) - Countries that have begun to experience high rates of economic development, usually with rapid industrialisation. They differ from LICs in that they no longer rely primarily on agriculture, have made gains in infrastructure and industrial growth, and are experiencing increasing incomes and high levels of investment. E.g. Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa (the so-called BRICS countries).
Urbanisation - The process by which an increasing percentage of a country's population comes to live in towns and cities. Rapid urbanisation is a feature of many LICs and NEEs.

World Urbanisation rates in 2011 according to the UN.

PATTERNS in urbanisation

1. HICs were the first to urbanise, and generally have the largest proportion of their population living in towns and cities.
2. LICs currently have lower amounts of urbanisation, but are urbanising rapidly. Megacities, cities with over 10 million people, are almost exclusively in poorer nations.
3. Cities of World importance for commerce and trade are dominantly in HICs, regardless of size. World cities include Tokyo, London and New York.
4. Many old colonies (e.g. in South America) have high percentages of urbanisation as the colonising countries such as France and the UK favoured city growth to help administration
5. Asia has the highest number of Megacities

The graph (copyright coolgeography.co.uk) shows the differences in urbanisation for various regions. Despite Asia's lower percentage of urbanisation it has a far greater number of people living in towns and cities than any other world region. The map below backs up these patterns

NEXT TOPIC - UIC - Factors affecting urbanisation and megacities

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Coolgeography - GCSE - Urban Issues and Challenges

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Urbanisation is defined as the " increasing proportion of people living in built environments such as towns and cities ". The word proportion in this definition is very important, because it indicates that we must judge urbanisation by looking at both the numbers of people living in both rural AND urban areas.

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This unit is concerned with human processes, systems and outcomes and how these change both spatially and temporally. They are studied in a variety of places and at a range of scales and must include places in various states of development, such as higher income countries (HICs), lower income countries (LICs) and newly emerging economies (NEEs).

The aims of this unit are to develop an understanding of the factors that produce a diverse variety of human environments; the dynamic nature of these environments that change over time and place; the need for sustainable management; and the areas of current and future challenge and opportunity for these environments.

Section A: Urban issues and challenges

In this section, students are required to study all the themes.

A growing percentage of the world's population lives in urban areas.

The global pattern of urban change.

Urban trends in different parts of the world including HICs and LICs.

Factors affecting the rate of urbanisation - migration (push-pull theory), natural increase.

The emergence of megacities.

Urban growth creates opportunities and challenges for cities in LICs and NEEs.

A case study of a major city in an LIC or NEE to illustrate:

the location and importance of the city, regionally, nationally and internationally

causes of growth: natural increase and migration

how urban growth has created opportunities:

social: access to services - health and education; access to resources - water supply, energy

economic: how urban industrial areas can be a stimulus for economic development

how urban growth has created challenges:

managing urban growth - slums, squatter settlements

providing clean water, sanitation systems and energy

providing access to services - health and education

reducing unemployment and crime

managing environmental issues - waste disposal, air and water pollution, traffic congestion.

An example of how urban planning is improving the quality of life for the urban poor.

Urban change in cities in the UK leads to a variety of social, economic and environmental opportunities and challenges.

Overview of the distribution of population and the major cities in the UK.

A case study of a major city in the UK to illustrate:

the location and importance of the city in the UK and the wider world

impacts of national and international migration on the growth and character of the city

how urban change has created opportunities:

social and economic: cultural mix, recreation and entertainment, employment, integrated transport systems

environmental: urban greening

how urban change has created challenges:

social and economic: urban deprivation, inequalities in housing, education, health and employment

environmental: dereliction, building on brownfield and greenfield sites, waste disposal

the impact of urban sprawl on the rural-urban fringe, and the growth of commuter settlements.

An example of an urban regeneration project to show:

reasons why the area needed regeneration

the main features of the project.

Section B: The changing economic world

In this section, students are required to study all the themes.

There are global variations in economic development and quality of life.

Different ways of classifying parts of the world according to their level of economic development and quality of life.

Different economic and social measures of development: gross national income (GNI) per head, birth and death rates, infant mortality, life expectancy, people per doctor, literacy rates, access to safe water, Human Development Index (HDI).

Limitations of economic and social measures.

Link between stages of the Demographic Transition Model and the level of development.

Causes of uneven development: physical, economic and historical.

Consequences of uneven development: disparities in wealth and health, international migration.

Various strategies exist for reducing the global development gap.

An overview of the strategies used to reduce the development gap: investment, industrial development and tourism, aid, using intermediate technology, fairtrade, debt relief, microfinance loans.

An example of how the growth of tourism in an LIC or NEE helps to reduce the development gap.

Some LICs and NEEs are experiencing rapid economic development which leads to significant social, environmental and cultural change.

A case study of one LIC or NEE to illustrate:

the location and importance of the country, regionally and globally

the wider political, social, cultural and environmental context within which the country is placed

the changing industrial structure. The balance between different sectors of the economy. How manufacturing industry can stimulate economic development

the role of transnational corporations (TNCs) in relation to industrial development. Advantages and disadvantages of TNC(s) to the host country

the changing political and trading relationships with the wider world

international aid: types of aid, impacts of aid on the receiving country

the environmental impacts of economic development

the effects of economic development on quality of life for the population.

Major changes in the economy of the UK have affected, and will continue to affect, employment patterns and regional growth.

Economic futures in the UK:

causes of economic change: de-industrialisation and decline of traditional industrial base, globalisation and government policies

moving towards a post-industrial economy: development of information technology, service industries, finance, research, science and business parks

impacts of industry on the physical environment. An example of how modern industrial development can be more environmentally sustainable

social and economic changes in the rural landscape in one area of population growth and one area of population decline

improvements and new developments in road and rail infrastructure, port and airport capacity

the north-south divide. Strategies used in an attempt to resolve regional differences

the place of the UK in the wider world. Links through trade, culture, transport, and electronic communication. Economic and political links: the European Union (EU) and Commonwealth.

Section C: The challenge of resource management

In this section, students are required to study Resource management and one from Food or Water or Energy.

Resource management

Food, water and energy are fundamental to human development.

The significance of food, water and energy to economic and social well-being.

An overview of global inequalities in the supply and consumption of resources.

The changing demand and provision of resources in the UK create opportunities and challenges.

An overview of resources in relation to the UK.
Food: Water:

the changing demand for water

water quality and pollution management

matching supply and demand - areas of deficit and surplus

the need for transfer to maintain supplies.

Energy:

Food

Different strategies can be used to increase food supply.

Overview of strategies to increase food supply:

irrigation, aeroponics and hydroponics, the new green revolution and use of biotechnology, appropriate technology

an example of a large scale agricultural development to show how it has both advantages and disadvantages.

Moving towards a sustainable resource future:

the potential for sustainable food supplies: organic farming, permaculture, urban farming initiatives, fish and meat from sustainable sources, seasonal food consumption, reduced waste and losses

an example of a local scheme in an LIC or NEE to increase sustainable supplies of food.

Water

Different strategies can be used to increase water supply.

Overview of strategies to increase water supply:

diverting supplies and increasing storage, dams and reservoirs, water transfers and desalination

an example of a large scale water transfer scheme to show how its development has both advantages and disadvantages.

Moving towards a sustainable resource future:

water conservation, groundwater management, recycling, 'grey' water

an example of a local scheme in an LIC or NEE to increase sustainable supplies of water.

Energy

Different strategies can be used to increase energy supply.

Overview of strategies to increase energy supply:

renewable (biomass, wind, hydro, tidal, geothermal, wave and solar) and non-renewable (fossil fuels and nuclear power) sources of energy

an example to show how the extraction of a fossil fuel has both advantages and disadvantages.

Moving towards a sustainable resource future:

individual energy use and carbon footprints. Energy conservation: designing homes, workplaces and transport for sustainability, demand reduction, use of technology to increase efficiency in the use of fossil fuels

an example of a local renewable energy scheme in an LIC or NEE to provide sustainable supplies of energy.

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This unit is concerned with human processes, systems and outcomes and how these change both spatially and temporally. They are studied in a variety of places and at a range of scales and must include places in various states of development, such as higher income countries (HICs), lower income countries (LICs) and newly emerging economies (NEEs).

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In 1950, the fishing village of Shenzhen in south-east China had 3,148 inhabitants. By 2025, the UN predicts, that number will exceed 12 million. Congo's capital Kinshasa will have gone from 200,000 to more than 16 million, growing over the next decade at the vertiginous rate of 4% a year (about 40 people an hour). Meanwhile Brazil's economic engine São Paulo will have slowed to less than 1% per annum, nonetheless experiencing a 10-fold expansion over the 75-year period.

Earlier this year London overtook its historical high of 8.6 million reached at the outset of the second world war, bucking the trend of many European and North American cities which have experienced only slight or even negative growth. Compared to other global cities, London is inching forward, with only nine new residents an hour, compared to double that number in São Paulo and over 70 in Delhi, Lagos and Dhaka. Nonetheless, London will accommodate one million more people by 2030.

These snapshots reflect deep differences in patterns of urban growth and change across the globe, often masked by the crude statistic that the world is now more urban than rural, and that we are heading towards the 70% threshold by 2050. To better understand the impacts of these regional differences, the Urban Age has investigated the demographic, economic and environmental patterns linked to global urbanisation and urban change.

Demographic change

Historically, urbanisation has always been closely linked to economic development. While growth in the mature cities of Europe and North America accelerated in the 19 th century, most reached their peak by mid-20 th century. Other regions of the world saw their cities grow most significantly since the 1950s. Tokyo grew by more than half a million inhabitants each year between 1950 and 1990, Mexico City and São Paulo by more than 300,000, and Mumbai by around 240,000.

The only exceptions in this period were cities in China and Sub-Saharan Africa, which experienced only modest growth. But from the 1990s onwards - with the impact of globalisation and opening up of the Chinese economy - cities continued to grow rapidly in south and south-east Asia, with China experiencing a sustained growth spurt that is palpable today. For example, the South Guangdong metropolitan area (which includes Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Dongguan) saw its 5.5 million inhabitants in 1990 increase six-fold to reach almost 32 million in just two decades.

The result of this process of growth and change is an uneven distribution of urbanisation across the globe. Europe, South and North America are the most urbanised of the five continents - with 73%, 83% and 82% of people respectively living in cities, towns and other urban settlements. Africa stands at around 40% and Asia at 48% - and both regions are set to experience exponential growth in the coming decades, a combined effect of increased birth rate and migration.

Past and present growth of large cities. Source: World Urbanisation Prospects/LSE Cities

The stark differences in patterns of urban growth across the globe are graphically illustrated in the map above. It charts the population size of a selection of world cities with more than a million people from 1950 to 2025. By highlighting three periods of past and future growth (based on UN predictions), the uneven distribution of urbanisation becomes clear to see. Most large cities of Europe and parts of North America hit their current size by 1950. Latin America, the west coast of the USA, Japan and some Asian cities grew substantially in the years leading to 1990. But the bulk of urban growth will be experienced in Sub-Saharan Africa, India and China and other Asian cities like Dhaka and Manila, while Tokyo will experience relatively modest growth over the same period.

The same data has been translated by the Urban Age to capture how these numbers impact cities on the ground. The map at the top of the page shows how many people are likely to be added to some of the world's largest cities through a combination of natural internal growth and migration. Again, the projected growth rates of African and Indian cities stand out. Of the Urban Age cities, the regional pattern is reinforced, with Delhi growing at 79 people/hour, Shanghai at 53 and Mumbai at 51; Latin American cities like Mexico City, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro slowing to 22, 18 and 10 respectively while New York and London demonstrate their urban resurgence at 9 and 10 people/hour, running contrary to the majority of mature cities in Europe (especially Eastern Europe) and some cities in North America which have been hit particularly hard by economic restructuring and the recent recession. Interestingly, Hong Kong's highly controlled and efficient planning regime leads to a relatively low projection of 4 people/hour.

Economic development

Analysing patterns of economic development in cities across the globe reveals equally striking regional differences. Using data on the economic performance of 700 cities with more than 500,000 people over the next 15 years (based on data from UN Desa), it appears that larger cities tend to perform disproportionately well. In 2012, large cities made up 33% of the world's global population, but produced more than 55% of all global economic output.

Future patterns of economic output and growth for the same 700 cities show that dramatic regional differences will still persist in GDP per capita in 2030 between the global north and global south - with important exceptions in the Middle East, China and parts of Latin America and Oceania, with the most intense growth in average GDP concentrated in China and East Asia. While there is evidence that urbanisation contributes to wealth creation, especially in cities in developing countries, it is likely that the economic gulf between rich and poor is likely to persist.

The geography of energy consumption. Source: LandScan, IEA, World Energy Balances Database/LSE Cities

Environmental impact

Where people live and how much they consume are inextricably linked. People living in the highly concentrated urbanised regions of eastern China and the Ganges Valley in India have modest consumption patterns compared to the oil and petrol-guzzling habits of those in the more sparsely populated regions of North America and the Middle East, where people have much higher income levels. There are equally varied patterns between the established urban areas of Europe and the US, and the more widely scattered but dense cities of Latin America and Africa. Reflecting global disparities in wealth, lifestyles and consumption, the map below confirms that a person living in the United Arab Emirates is likely to use 40 times more energy than a Bangladeshi, while a UK citizen consumes less than half of his US counterpart, but twice as much as a typical Mexican, and slightly less than a Dane.

Electricity is a major component of the world's energy mix. Yet, electrification differs substantially between countries, swinging from less than 5% of total energy in Nigeria and Nepal, to more than 50% in Sweden and France. But a high share of electricity does not necessarily deliver environmental benefits. Generation is still dominated by carbon emitting fossil fuels, and electricity is not always the most efficient energy choice for uses such as heating and cooling in buildings. Aside from electricity, most of the world's energy consumption involves directly burning fossil fuels, such as oil for transport, coal for making steel and cement industries and gas for heating. Despite recent improvements in some countries in procuring energy from renewables, they make up only 13% of the world's total consumption - mostly hydro-electricity in high-income countries and biomass for cooking and heating in low income countries.

Carbon emissions by sector confirm that fossil-fuel based electricity is an important contributor to global climate change. Emissions from electricity generation vary depending on fuel source, with coal-dependent countries such as Australia, China and South Africa showing high proportions. In contrast, Denmark has lower emissions from electricity due to its high level of renewable generation. Varying levels of emissions from transport also echo motorisation rates. Global carbon emissions are concentrated in a few nations with China and the US alone producing 39% of global emissions.

Urban v rural populations. Photograph: LSE Cities

The urban footprint

To capture the subtle variations in patterns of urban and rural habitats, the Urban Age has mapped the urban footprint of Europe, Africa, China and India. In Europe, there is a more decentralised form of urbanisation that reflects the culture, history and geography of the region - and the fact that Europe urbanised early at a time when transport costs were significantly higher.

Even though 73% of Europeans live in urban areas - the most urbanised of the four global regions - the urbanisation density threshold is low, meaning that areas with more than 314 people/sq kmare considered urban, contrasting with India where this threshold is over 10 times higher. Europe's urban residents occupy just 3% of the total land area of the geographic region, and a third of the total land area remains unpopulated, consisting mostly of large bodies of water and mountains. In addition to 128 cities with over 500,000 people, there are a large number of highly connected smaller cities and towns across parts of Germany, the Netherlands and Benelux countries, and Northern Italy. This highly connected urban area represents one of the wealthiest parts of the globe.

India stands out for the far higher population densities in rural areas across vast territories such as the Ganga valley, as well as the emerging presence of large cities like Calcutta, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi. The dark grey areas in Northern India reflect the preponderance of high-density rural areas which, by European standards, would be considered urban. While India has an urbanisation level of 32%, its urban areas represent only 1% of the total land surface of the country, but only 5% of the country is unpopulated - a much lower percentage the other three global regions. In India, the urbanisation density threshold is by far the highest of the four regions, at 4,128 people/sq km.

Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the largest of the four regions and is experiencing a period of intense demographic growth. While only 37% of the population lives in urban areas today, that percentage is set to rise dramatically, much of it through informal growth. While urbanisation levels are below that of the other global regions, just 0.4% of the total land area in this part of the continent is urban, while around a third of the total land area (32%) remains unpopulated. There are fewer, higher density rural areas than in China or Asia, with concentrations around Lagos, Kigali, Nairobi and Addis Ababa. The urbanisation density threshold is 1,019 people/sq km.

Just over half China's population (54%) live in urban areas, which represent just 2% of the total geographic footprint of the nation, with largely unpopulated regions making up 39% of the total land surface area. With its rapid demographic and economic growth, urbanisation levels are approximately two-thirds that of Europe. As in India, there are extensive concentrations of higher density rural areas in the regions stretching from Beijing to Shanghai, and around the Chongqing, Chengdu and Nanchong districts, all areas which are experiencing a rapid transformation from agricultural to urban economies. China has an urbanisation density threshold of 1,433 people/sq km.
Urban Age is a worldwide investigation into the future of cities, organised by LSE Cities and Deutsche Bank's Alfred Herrhausen Society. Its 10-year anniversary debates are held in conjunction with Guardian Cities

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Cities in numbers: how patterns of urban growth change the world

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In 1950, the fishing village of Shenzhen in south-east China had 3,148 inhabitants. By 2025, the UN predicts, that number will exceed 12 million. Congo's capital Kinshasa will have gone from 200,000 to more than 16 million, growing over the next decade at the vertiginous rate of 4% a year (about 40 people an hour).

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Urbanization and the future of cities - Vance Kite