Urban Issues and Challenges

• Resource


  A supply of something that has a value or purpose e.g. water/ energy
• Economic well-being


  A person or family’s standard of living based on how well they are doing financially
• Social well-being


  The access to items which improves your quality of life.
• Energy Consumption:

  A) petroleum

  B) gas

  C) coal

  D) renewables

  E) nuclear

  
• Import


  Bringing goods or services into a country from abroad for sale.
• Export


  Sending goods or services to another country for sale.
• Food security


  The state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.
• Food miles


  The distance covered supplying food to consumers.
• Agribusiness

  Agribusiness means operating large scale intensive farming with a high input of chemicals , machinery and other investments such as irrigation.
• British people want a greater range of food:

  • People demand food out of season e.g. strawberries in the UK winter
  • More cookery programs are watched encouraging use of a range of foods
  • People travel more and wish to recreate food they have eaten on holiday
  • The UK used to have an Empire which introduced a range of foods to the British people
• Farming can be difficult in Britain:

  • The UK climate is unsuitable for production of some foods e.g. cocoa.
  • UK has the minimum wage which means farmers need to be paid more making UK food expensive.
  • Primary industry jobs are unpopular with British people.
• Importing is easier than in the past:

  • Transport and refrigeration have improved making long distance transport easier.
• British people desire cheaper foods:

  • Supermarkets compete for lower food prices.
  • Food can be produced cheaply overseas.
  • UK can have years of bad harvest which pushes the prices up meaning people buy from abroad.
• Food contributed 17% of UK’s C02 emissions, of which 11% is due to the transport of imported food.
• The growing, processing and packaging of food produces CO2 and other greenhouse hases. Up to 9% of the UK's total greenhouse gas emissions in 2013 came directly from the growing food.
• Transporting food from where it is grown to where it is sold also produces CO2. The distance foos is transported to the market is called food miles. The higher the food miles, the more CO2 is produced.
• The amount of greenhouse gas produced during growing, packaging and transporting a food is called its carbon footprint. A larger carbon footprint means more greenhouse gases and more global warming.
• Imported foods have to be transported a long way so have high food miles and a large carbon footprint.
• People are becoming aware of the environmental issues caused by transporting food over long distances. Environmentalists are encouraging people to buy food grown locally. Farmers' markets, farm shops and locally-produced vegetable boxes are becoming more and more popular.
• Since the 1960s, there has been a growth in agribusiness in the UK. Agribusiness is large-scale, industrial farming where processes from the production of seeds and fertilisers, to the processing and packaging of food are controlled by large firms.
• This means that farms in the UK have been changing, for example:

  • Farm sizes have been increasing - many small farms have been taken over and field sizes increased so that food can be produced more cheaply.
  • The amount of chemicals used in food production has been increasing - large quantities of artificial fertilisers and pesticides are applied to crops, and animals are given special feed to encourage growth.
  • The number of workers employed hav ebeen falling because of greater use of machinery, e.g. in planting and harvesting.
• Industrial farming also has environmental impacts. Increasing farm size has meant hedgerows have been removed, leading to a loss in biodiversity, and heavy machinery is causing soil erosion.
• Local food


  The product should be produced within 30 miles of where it is sold.
• Local food aims for local businesses to flourish and provide readily available produce at an affordable price for

  consumers and a fair one for farmers.
• Over the past couple of decades there has been increasing concern that we have become alienated from the sources of our food. Today, supermarkets compete for our food custom by price; as a consequence, the amount farmers are paid for their produce is continually squeezed.
• With supermarkets having 85% market share of food, they have disproportionate buyer power. The threat is always that if farmers don’t take the price offered, food is sourced from abroad, where production costs are lower.
• However, the carbon cost from food miles rises and nutritional value of food can be lost in the time it takes to get from field to plate. Over the longer term, locally distinct produce is at risk of being lost, and our rural economies damaged.
• A thriving local food industry:

  • Encourages a varied and seasonal diet of fresh food.
  • Reconnects communities with farmers
  • Creates jobs and supports local rural economies
  • Revitalises town centres and high streets
  • Reduces traffic congestion, noise and pollution from food miles and encourages a more sustainable use of land.
• Organic farming is a holistic way of producing food. This means that organic farmers think about the effects of their farming practices on the soil, crops and livestock on the farm, the quality of the food they produce, the local community and the wider environment.
• Organic farmers manage the land in ways that work with natural systems rather than trying to dominate or change them. For example, organic farmers use predatory invertebrates to help control pests instead of using man-made pesticides.
• The word 'organic' is a legal term. In the UK, all organic farmers, growers and processors must register with one of the organic certification bodies which inspect them at least once a year.
• Fresh water is becoming more and more of a scarce resource around the world.
• Water could be the primary source of future conflict.
• The Environment Agency says we don't have enough infrastructure to store water from wetter winters for the drier summers. The UK could see water shortages by 2050 if action is not taken to conserve supplies.
• The amount of water used per household has risen by 70% over the last 30 years – mainly due to the introduction of appliances that use a lot of water, like washing machines and dishwashers.
• Only 66% of households owned a washing machine in 1972 but, by 2010, that figure was 94%.
• Water is mostly used for washing and for flushing the toilet but also for drinking, cooking, washing the car and watering the garden.
• The average person currently uses 150 litres of water every day (but this ranges from 107-166 litres, with the very highest use in the south-east England).
• Water surplus


  There is excess water available to the system.
• Water deficit


  Exists where demand is greater than supply.