Population and the Environment Notes
The environmental context for human population characteristics and
change.
Key elements in the physical environment: climate, soils, resource
distributions
including water supply.
Climate:
Affects the health and wellbeing of populations- dictates how many people an
area can support
Climate affects agriculture as crops need certain conditions to grow, and food is
needed
Climate affects incidence of disease (communicable diseases e.g. malaria)
Soil:
Water content, nutritional content and overall soil quality affects agricultural
productivity – important in food production
Natural resources:
Clean water: hygiene, sanitation, agriculture and drinking
Key population parameters: distribution, density, numbers, change.
Population parameters
Distribution: pattern of where people live
Population density: is the number of people living in an area, usually given as
p/km2
Dhaka, Bangladesh: More than 44,500 people per sq. km
If the world was evenly distributed, there would be just 50 people per km2
Amersham: 2,626 people per km2
Population numbers: amount of people in a defined area
Population change: increases and decreases in population over a period of time
Key role of development processes.
Development processes such as the Industrial Revolution led to a sharp increase
in population, this is because medical care increases, so people live longer and
as there are more taxpayers, the money is used to improve infrastructure and
services so that places provide a better quality of life which encourage people to
start a family in better living conditions- causing the population to increase.
Food supply:
Neolithic Revolution:
Shift from hunter- gatherer populations to agricultural communities
Birth rates and fertility rates rose as women no longer had to wait to have more
children – lack of mobile lifestyle
Agriculture could feed denser communities and these communities had a more
stable food supply
Green revolution:
Using technology and more efficient farming practices to maximise yields in
1950s and 1960s
Created more food in developing countries – sustains larger population
Global patterns of population numbers, densities and change rates.
More than half of the projected increase in the global population up to 2050 will
be concentrated in 8 countries: DRC, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the
Philippines, and Tanzania
,Countries in sub-Saharan Africa are expected to contribute to more than half of
the increase anticipated through 2050
Many of the HICs have a annual population growth of less than 1%
Turkey is the only country in Europe that has a growth rate of higher than 1%
LICs have the highest growth rates
India to overtake China as most populous country in 2023
‘Advancements in health that have extended lifespans and dramatically
reduces maternal and child mortality rates’
World population is growing at its slowest rate since 1950, it fell under 1% in
2020
Population projections: 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, peak of 10.4 billion
in 2080s
2/3 of global population lives in a country where lifetime fertility is below 2.1
births per woman
Populations of 61 countries to decrease by 1% or more between 2022-2050 (low
fertility rates/ elevated emigration)
‘rapid population growth makes eradicating poverty, combatting hunger and
malnutrition, and increasing the coverage of health and education systems more
difficult’
Shift in age distributions in Asia, sub-saharan Africa, Latin America provides time
bound opportunity for accelerated economic growth per capita
Global population of those aged 65 and over to rise from 10- 16% by 2050
Global life expectancy reached 72.8 years in 2019, improvement of almost 9
years since 1990. Due to rise to 77.2 in 2050
COVID impact on birth-rates/ human mobility/ life expectancy fell to 71.0 years
COVID may be responsible for the short-term change in birth/ pregnancy- future
trends may be different to predictions as a result of this
Global and regional patterns of food production and consumption.
Food security: when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe,
nutritious food needed to maintain a healthy life
Undernourishment: dietary intake below minimum daily energy requirements
(1700-200kcals per day dependent on gender/age/ physical activity)
Both global food production and calories intake per capita have increased over
the last decade
In sub- Saharan Africa, ¼ of the population is currently undernourished, this
region also has the highest fertility rates. Food poverty will only increase when
the population increases substantially between now and 2050.
The poorest households in the developing world spend 60-80% of their incomes
on food
There has been a 10% decline in agricultural production
Where does our food come from?
Mostly from Asia- Asian countries produce the most cereal crops (oats/ corn),
wheat, rice, sugar, meat, milk and fish
China and India are the largest producers of milk, fish and meat
South America grows the most oil crops
North America grows the coarsest grain (for animal feed and brewing)
Europeans grow the most barley
Regional variations in food production
Global food production is not evenly distributed
, Environmental capacity and human capacity determine the volume of food
production
Environmental capacity: influenced by the physical environment: climate, water
availability and soil type
Human capacity: population size and kills in regard to agriculture and
financial capital a country is able to invests into agricultural
infrastructure
There is a clear pattern in terms of population size and wealth of countries
Areas with vast human resources like China and India have agricultural output
values exceeding $100 billion
USA, Brazil, EU (France) have a very large output due to intensification of farming
methods and large capital investments
Less developed countries which are smaller produce less food
World output has increased by 140% from 1961-1999
Asia has experienced a 75% increase in food production
Africa has shown a 10% decline by 1999, despite billions of dollars of multilateral
aid support, independence and development
Large fluctuations in food production, with most regions except for Asia
experiencing periods of increased outputs and periods of decline
Net exporters of food: USA, Canada, Ukraine, Argentina, SE Asia
Most countries in Europe are net importers of food
Reliance of the entire African continent on food imports (esp. North Africa)
Reliance of both China and India on imports despite scale of their own
agricultural output
Why has food production increased over time?
Green revolution: describes the transformation of agriculture in many
developing nations that led to significant increases in agricultural production
between 1940s and 1960s
Global trade: increased reliance on global trade; during 1970s, net imports of
cereals by LICs more than tripled
Global patterns of food consumption
Food consumption: kcal per capita per day
Despite there being enough food available to feed everyone, there are still 798
million people who are undernourished
All of the HICs have over 3000 kcal everyday
Most of Africa has 2000-2500 kcal or less, except south Africa and northern Africa
(Algeria/ Libya, Egypt) that consumes 3000 calories or more per day
The impact of COVID: number of those undernourished has risen
Regional changes:
Everyone’s food consumption has increased by 8.1% since 1997 globally as all
countries are developing
Developing countries: 10%
NE and N Africa: 5.2%
Sub Saharan Africa: 13.6% - second biggest increase but still lower than other
countries
Latin America: 10.1%
E Asia: 8.4%
