Geography Unit 2

Geography Unit 2

1. Population dynamics

   • The demographic transition model
     • Stage 1: High fluctuating: High birth/death rate, high infant mortality rate, low standard of living
     • Stage 2: Early expanding: High birth rate and decreasing death rate, higher standard of living
     • Stage 3: Late expanding: Lower birth and death rates, much higher standard of living
     • Stage 4: Low fluctuating: Low birth and death rates, population begins to become older
     • Stage 5 : Decline: Population is too old and natural decrease happens as death rate exceeds birth rate
   • Balance
     • Overpopulation: Results in a lack of resources for the ever growing population. Also creates issues suronding services to provide for people such as transport
     • Optimum population: Resources and population is balanced
     • Underpopulation: When there are more resources than people. This can result in exploitation of resources
   • China's one child policy attempts to control their population from growing to large and enforces penalties for those who go against them
   • Singapore has the reverse policy to China in that they wish their residents to "have three or more" This provides bonuses for large families. This was as a result of them having an aging population

2. Consuming resources

   • Alternative energy resources
     • Tar-sand oil
       • Not renewable however vast reserves are available
       • Benefits: Cheaper than other fuels, resource is readily available, would be easy to intergrate
       • Costs: Produces large amounts of CO2, only delays fuel issues as it is non renewable
     • Biofuels
       • Recyclable and sustainable
       • Benefits: Is not going to run out, can be easily intergrated into current systems
       • Costs: Not carbon neutral, would need a vast amount of land and organic waste in order to reach the fuel requirements of today
     • Solar energy
       • Renewable and sustainable
       • Benefits: Unlimited supply, no emissions, efficient
       • Costs: Inconsistent, not commonly used, expensive, uses a large amount of space
   • Malthus and Boserup
     • Malthus believed that as population increased, resources would decline and would lead to a massive drop in population. He was incorrect as when he predicted the drop would occur it did not and instead the population grew much larger
     • Boserup thought that as population increased technology would advance at an equally rapid rate. She thought that this advance in technology would offset the reduction in resources and it would eventually stabilize

3. Globalisation

   • Economic sectors
     • Primary sector: Working with natural resources
     • Secondary sector: Manufacturing things
     • Tertiary sector: Providing services
     • Quaternary sector: People who work in high tech industries
   • Clark Fisher model is a model that shows how economic sectors shift over time
     • It shows that initially in the "Pre-industrial" period of time primary is by far the most dominant industry followed by secondary then teritary.
       • However as this progresses into the "Industrial" period of time the industries begin to balance out, with tertiary begining to take the lead
         • By the "Post-industrial" section of the model primary has fallen dramatically and teritary makes up the bulk of the jobs. It is at this point that quaternery is shown on the model and it is currentley low however it is shown to be rising
   • Major players in the global economy
     • TNC: Trans national corperations are large business with huge amounts of money and influence
     • WTO: The World Trade Organisation deals with the global rules of trade between countries
     • IMF: The International Money Fund is an orgainsation that works to reduce poverty
     • World Bank: The world bank provides financial and technical assistence to countries that require it. Its main aim is to reduce poverty
     • UN: The united nations helps to promote the development of poorer countries
   • Foreign direct investment (FDI)
     • This is where one country (usually a developed one) invests its capital in another country (usually a developing country) in order to reap the beneits of that marketplace
   • Reasons for going global (TNC)
     • To be closer to other markets
     • To find cheap labor and land
     • To spread industrial risk
     • To take advantage of incentives
     • To sell wthin trade barriers

4. Development dilemmas

   • Measuring development
     • GDP (Gross Domestic Product)
     • HDI (Human Development Index)
     • HPI (Happy Planet Index)
     • General Inequality Index
     • Political Freedom
     • Corruption Perception Indexx
     • Environmental Performance Index
   • The Rostow development model
     • Traditional society: based on agriculture and subsistence
       • Pre-conditions for Take Off: Building infrastructure that is needed for industry to advance (i.e services and economics)
         • Take-Off: Rapid growth of industries
           • Drive to Maturity: New technologies replace old industries, growth spreads throughout the country
             • High Mass Consumption: Due to the economic improvment, people have more money and so they buy more goods and services causing increases in trade and service industries
     • Some people have criticized the model as it is only based on European countries and does not take into account the fact that not all countries begin with the same amount of resources
   • Dependency theory
     • Was created in response to Rostows model and suggested that developed countries would keep LEDC's from developing in order to keep things profitable
   • Types of development
     • Top down
       • This is a large scale scheme that impacts a very large area without any input from the local people
         • The Santa Antonia Dam in Brazil is an example of a Top down scheme
           • Benefits of the dam
             • For the residents of the nearby town of Porto Velho, there will be many improvments to their quality of life
             • Creates jobs
             • Infastructure improvments
           • Costs of the dam
             • Increase in malaria due to more water in the area
             • Indigenous peoples lands are at risk of being destroyed by flooding
             • Very expensive
     • Bottom up
       • This is a small scale scheme that is designed to impact a local area with the input of the people who live there
         • The Micro Hydro schemes in Peru are an example of this
           • This scheme provides power for people whom without the scheme wouldn't have any
             • However while it s very effective and cheap it only effects a small area and doesn't solve large issues that plague the developing world

5. Changing econmy of the UK

   • Case study
     • The ship building industury has declined dramatically over the past 60 year. There are many reasons for this such as: fall in demand of ships, competition from other countries, lack of modernisation, failure to deliver on time. This has resulted in massive job loss and economic decline in certain areas
   • As the UK becomes more developed the tertiary and quaternery sectors of emplment have increased dramaticlly
   • North East England VS South East England
     • North East
       • Becoming more deindustrialised
         • Derelect factory buldings
         • Decaying infastructure
         • Less energy and water is used
         • Unemployment
     • South East
       • Very prospourus reigon
       • Large amounts of industry due to high skilled population and good infastructure