S3 Geog WA2

• Benefits brought by nature to people

  • Lower air temperature (presence of vegetation, provides shade)
  • Remove pollutants (wetland plants trap suspended material and absorb nutrients thus improving water quality)
  • Provide space for recreation (fields often enable abundant opportunities for outdoor activities)
• Disadvantages brought by nature to people

  • Contributing to soil erosion
  • Damaging vegetation
  • Worsening pollution
  • Disturbing wildlife
• Disadvantages brought by nature to people

  • Human-wildlife conflicts (people that unintentionally provoke animals might get attacked)
  • Environmental protection may be perceived to be limiting development
• Benefits brought by people to nature

  • Promotes the importance of environmental protection (raising awareness of their importance in the environment)
• Relationship between people and nature in their neighbourhoods


  • Nature provides essentials such as air and water for human survival
  • People in the neighbourhood may tend to the health of nearby nature areas and ensuring the plants and animals living there thrive
• Local communities and nearby nature areas


  Depend on one another for many things
• Through reforestation activities

  • People can gain enjoyment and enhance their mental health and well-being
  • Provides more shelter and habitat for the urban wildlife to thrive, enhancing their overall health
• Sense of place

  • The importance of memories and meanings that people associate specific locations with
  • It reflects the relationship that people have with places, it helps to build our identity, enabling us to understand people better
• How sense of place is acquired

  1. Repeated encounters (helps us recall them and develop attachment, creating memories)

  2. Memorable events (easy to remember as they are symbolic)

  3. Interacting with others at locations
• How sense of place is represented

  Using different forms (texts, images) and types of media (internet) to express their sense of place to reflect the significance of the location
• How representation enhances our sense of place

  Shapes our identity, hence, we respond well to representations that agree with our opinion, these representations can reveal interesting information about our sense of place thus adding new layers of meaning and enhancing our sense of place
• How representation contradicts our sense of place

  We might uncover disturbing information about our sense of place through media causing us to question our sense of place as we may perceive the media as truth
• Spatial association

  The tendency of a pair of services, events, and objects to be located near each other
• Regions

  Classified according to environmental characteristics, human characteristics, geographical location
• Regions in our neighbourhoods

  • The areas that our Town Councils service
  • Fitness centres are found near studio HDB blocks, allowing people to access them without having to travel
• Spatial patterns

  Reflect non-random arrangements that are recognisable as shapes, clusters, geometry, or repeated occurrences at regular intervals
• Spatial patterns

  • Services, events and objects in our neighbourhood are often non randomly arranged together
  • Example: Train stations on Singapore's Circle line resemble an oval. Clusters or concentrations on map
• Spatial scales

  • More than 20 towns spread across the country, catering to different lifestyles
  • Each town has a town centre, serving as commercial and social hubs for residents living in its neighbourhoods
• Spatial hierarchies

  • Nested areas of different sizes, beginning with a single residential unit
  • Clusters of residential units that form a precinct, which in turn form neighbourhoods that combine into a town
• Town planning

  • Serves residents and provides for nature, at distinct levels of the precinct, neighbourhood and town
  • Creates connections and synergies across precinct, neighbourhoods and towns
• Sustainable development

  • Meets the needs of the present population by achieving high standard of living for all
  • Ensures that future generations are able to sustain themselves
  • Aims for economy, environment, society
• Social sustainability

  • Achieved by ensuring residents feel included and have a sense of shared identity
  • Having shared community spaces to promote regular social bonding
  • Residents can come together to discuss their problems, building positive and resilient relationships
• Environmental sustainability

  • Ample protection for nature
  • Having facilities that support waste minimisation and recycling
  • Energy and water efficient design approaches for buildings and landscapes
• Economic sustainability

  • Achieved by ensuring a neighbourhood has a sufficient population density to help support local business and keep transport costs low
  • Local business are able to sustain themselves due to sufficient demand for goods/services
  • Transport/Infrastructure costs are kept low
  • Residents can take up employment opportunities at local business, earning income
  • Amenities are located close to each other, increasing convenience and accessibility
• An area where living communities and non-living environments interact, vary in size, and every aspect depends on one another, directly or indirectly
• People are important parts of the ecosystem, interacting with other parts of the ecosystem, and human activities impact the ecosystem both positively and negatively
• Ecosystem services

  • Provisioning services
  • Regulating services
  • Cultural services
  • Supporting services
• Provisioning services

  Tangible resources that people can get from ecosystems such as food, water and wood
• Regulating services

  Benefits obtained from the regulation of various ecosystem processes, including services such as climate regulation, disease outbreak regulation and flood regulation
• Cultural services

  Non-material benefits obtained from the ecosystem, such as aesthetic experiences, educational opportunities and recreational activities
• Supporting services

  Services that are necessary for the functioning of all other ecosystem services, such as soil formation, pollination, and photosynthesis