population resource relationships

• carrying capacity - the maximum number of people that can be supported in a given region without damaging the area
• resource - anything that can be used (typically food, water, energy, materials)
• ecological footprint - impact of a person on the environment, expressed as the amount of land required to sustain their use of natural resources
• sustainable development - development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
• Sustainability is split into 3 areas: society, environment, economy. It accounts for the present and future.
• Food is the most important resource. Food security is when everyone in a country has access to sufficient, safe, affordable and nutritious food enabling them to maintain a healthy and active life. It has 3 main aspects:

  • food availability : sufficient quantities of food are available at all times
  • food access : people have enough money or land to obtain food for a nutritious diet
  • food use : people know how to have a good diet, and are able to do so
• Consumption triangle:

  • resources are needed to support population growth and economic development
  • population growth can lead to economic development
  • economic development can improve technologies for new resources
• Causes of food shortages:

  • soil exhaustion - monoculture does not replace minerals in soil so there are smaller yields
  • aid dependency - farmers stop producing crops and don't pass on their skills to kids
  • disease - affect crops, cattle, or farmers
  • drought - crops and cattle die
  • floods - can fertilise soil and irrigate crops, but destroy if severe
  • tropical cyclone - poisons crops and soil with salty seawater
  • war - farmers leave their land
  • pests - destroy crops
  • low capital investment - no improvement
  • biofuels - replacing food crops
  • poor transport - farmers can't go to markets
• Consequences of food shortages:

  • undernourishment - kills children, people can't work as efficiently
  • famine - people die, often due to a natural disaster
  • vicious circle - poor people are undernourished so they can't work, so they have a smaller yield, so they are more undernourished
  • aid dependency - free food is given out so local farmers can't sell their produce, so stop growing crops
• Green Revolutions lead to an increase in global food production during the 1960s. They are the reason why food supply has kept up with population growth.
• GR India:

  new hybrid seeds (HYV) produce high yields -> expensive fertilisers and pesticides, less nutritious

  better irrigation systems -> salivation of soil, making it infertile

  more chemical fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides -> pollution of water

  mechanisation of farming -> increased rural unemployment, expensive repairs

  land reform programmes so that farmers pay less rent and improve their farms

  better rural transport so that food can be taken to markets

  genetically modified crops are more nutritious
• Death control is when death rates rise and stop population growth because the size of population exceeds the amount of resources available. The factors that stop population growth are constraints.
• Constraints in sustaining populations:

  traditional -> war

  -> poverty

  -> famine

  -> plague

  economic -> unfair trade deals controlled by HICs

  environmental -> natural disasters

  political -> political corruption and instability
• Overpopulation occurs in an area where the available resources are unable to sustain the population living there. It is often due to unsustainable development.
• Underpopulation occurs when there are too few people in an area to use all the resources efficiently for the current level of technology.
• Optimum population is reached when the population is in balance with the available resources of an area, given the current level of technology.
• Pessimistic models of population-resource relationships predict a global population crash because population growth will exceed food production. There will be death control when the population nears the crash, so that the balance re-establishes itself, but the crash will happen eventually. Although it has not happened yet, unlike Malthus's prediction, it could happen in the future.
• Optimistic models of population-resource relationships predict continued economic growth and the stabilisation of world population. Esther Boserup said that population growth would lead to increased food supplies due to improvements in farming and technology. This is supported by the Green Revolution.
• Julian Simon - Ultimate Resource Model says that natural resources are infinite because when a resource starts to run out, the prices will increase so there will be more investment in developing alternatives or a change in society to not depend on the resource
• Bjorn Lomborg - population growth will stabilise once all parts of the world are economically developed, because poverty is the major cause of problems such as pollution, AIDS, hunger and overpopulation
• population projection - estimates the future population numbers based on current trends and on population theories such as the DTM
• Eswatini food shortages - causes:

  • migrant workers went to South Africa but lost their jobs and returned
  • life expectancy of 48
  • HIV/AIDS outbreak - 26% of 15-49
  • droughts in 1992
  • aid dependency for 60% of people and children don't have agriculture skills
  • farmers grow cotton and sugar cane as cash crops instead of food crops
  • sugar is the biggest industry