Geography Revision

Geography Revision

1. Sustainable Development

   • Definition
     • Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
     • "Living for today with tomorrow in mind"
   • Large organisations
     • ASDA/Wal-mart
       • Many products are wrapped in polythene or shrink wrap
       • A distribution centre in Oxfordshire used to fill four skips a week
       • A company called Mil-tek installed a plastic bailing machine
       • The bails are collected once a week by a recycling company
       • ASDA now gets money for this and no plastic goes to landfill
     • Nokia
       • Over 50% of people get a new phone every year
       • 44% of the old phones are kept in a draw and never used again
       • 100% of phones can be recycled
       • They can be made into trumpet, park benches etc.
     • General Electric
       • Operates in many different countries
       • By 2012 they will reduce fresh water usage by 20%
       • This will save 7.4 million cubic meters of water
   • Rainforest extraction
     • Deforestation - to set up operations, companies have to build roads through the forests
     • Local conflicts - the locals often gain the least from projects and stand to loose the most
     • Biodiversity loss - fragmentation of natural habitats caused by pipelines can deplete species populations and sometimes companies working near protected areas don't always follow the rules
     • Soil and aquatic pollution - lots of things can go wrong when oil is mined, spills and toxic by-products are are sometimes dumped near the site, polluting the surroundings
     • Air pollution - by products or natural gas are sometimes burnt, these can cause air pollution, and can sometimes cause fires
     • Costa Rica
       • They are trying to develop through ecotourism
       • They have cleared trais through the woods
       • They are also developing through plant life, they have made a deal with an american company called merck, that they look for plants that can be used in medicine etc. and the Costa Ricans get a share of the money

2. Tectonic Activity

   • Scales
     • Mercalli scale
       • The mercalli scale measures how much damage is done by an earthquake
       • It is measured in a scale between 1 and 12
     • Richter scale
       • It measures the magnitude of an earthquake using a seismometer
       • It has no upper limit
       • It is a longarithimic scale, this means that a magnitude of 6 on the richter scale is 10 times bigger than 5 which is 100 times bigger than four
   • Volcanoes
     • Can be popular tourist attractions (e.g. Mount Etna in Sicily)
     • People can't afford to move sometimes
     • People may not want to leave family and friends
     • People near Mount Merapi in Indonesia believe that the spirits protect them
     • May not erupt for hundreds of years
     • Volcanic soils can be especially fertile (e.g. the lower slopes of Mount Mayon, Philippines is covered in plantations
     • In Iceland the volcanoes provide cheap geothermal energy
   • Earthquakes
     • People feel safer as buildings can be earthquake proof
     • Some places can be really beautiful (e.g. Malibu, California)
     • People believe the chance of an earthquake is very low
     • Can be popular tourist attractions
     • People may consider the risk acceptable because they get money from their job
     • Some people have disaster plans that tell them what to do in an emergancy
   • Plate boundaries
     • Constructive/Divergent
       • New land is created
       • Two plates move apart
       • Magma rises to fill the gap
       • Since magma can escape easily, it doesn't erupt with much force
       • As the two plates move apart, the magma comes out and new land is created
     • Distructive/Convergent
       • Land is destroyed
       • Subduction zone - when an oceanic plate meets a continental plate, the oceanic plate goes under as it is heavier and denser, as it drops down, it becomes magma, the magma then rises through the gaps causing severe folding
       • Very explosive
       • The friction can cause earthquakes
     • Conservative/Transform
       • Land moves past each other
       • No volcanoes occur
       • Plates moving in the same direction tend to stick and then jerk forwards sending shock waves and so causing earthquakes
       • No land is created or destroyed
   • Focus, Seismic waves, Epicentre
     • Focus - the point at which the rock moves
     • Seismic waves - they start at the focus and spread out like ripples on a lake
     • Epicentre - directly above the focus on the Earth's surface