Population Ecology Flashcards
(48 cards)
1
Q
What is population growth according to science?
A
When biotic potential (the reproductive capacity) is greater than environmental resistance (limiting factors such as famine and disease), then there is population growth.
2
Q
What is overpopulation?
A
- Occurs where the population is too large for the resources available.
- This relationship also depends on the level of technology available to help to make good use of resources, and also on the climate and physical limitations of the area.
- Overpopulation can cause unemployment and out-migration.
3
Q
What is Under-population?
A
- Under-population occurs where there are not enough people living in an area or country to utilise the resources efficiently.
- An increase in the number of people would, therefore, result in a higher standard of living.
- Under-populated areas tend to have in-migration and low unemployment.
4
Q
What is an optimum population?
A
- Where the resources available can be developed efficiently to satisfy the needs of the current population and provide the highest standard of living.
- However, as technology develops, the optimum population will increase.
5
Q
What population did Japan have in 2016?
A
125 million
6
Q
What is happening in Japan in terms of the population trend?
A
- Population decline has started to take place in Japan and will continue into the future.
- The cause is purely natural – death rates (10 per 1000) exceed birth rates (8 per 1000).
7
Q
Why is there a population decline in Japan? Give 3 reasons
A
- The high cost of raising children in the country
- The growing number of women who choose to work longer and have a career rather than have children
- Japan’s reluctance to accept immigrants.
8
Q
How is Japan’s population decline causing problems?
A
- Population decline is already affecting rural areas in particular (they tend to experience significant outflows of young people away.)
- A consequence of depopulation is the increasing amount of abandoned property (an increasing number of houses and their associated land are left unoccupied when the last resident dies.)
Whole communities in rural areas are ‘dying’ socially and economically.
9
Q
What are Japan’s Wider issues
A
- The increasingly inverted structure of Japan’s population pyramid means that it will be very difficult to generate the tax revenues necessary to pay for the healthcare needs of the elderly.
- As the elderly population grows, the financial burden of healthcare in Japan will increase and there will be a shortage of labour in the healthcare industry.
10
Q
How much of Japan’s population is over 65?
A
Japan’s older population (over 65) is currently around 25% of the total. In 2050 this proportion is expected to be 40% in rural areas.
11
Q
What is the predicted future of Japan in terms of population?
A
It is possible that Japan’s population will drop to just 96 million by 2050.
12
Q
How has Japan’s Decline in population contributed to its main issue today?
A
- The slowing of population growth and an ageing population are shrinking Japan’s pool of taxable citizens, causing the social welfare costs to spiral upwards.
- This has led to Japan becoming the most indebted industrial nation in the world.
13
Q
What is carrying capacity?
A
The carrying capacity of an area means the largest population that the resources of a given environment can support.
14
Q
What are the 3 influencers of carrying capacity?
A
It is also influenced by development, the living standards of people and the consumption patterns of a population.
15
Q
What is the ecological footprint?
A
- The ecological footprint is a measurement of the area of land and/or water required to provide a person (or society) with the energy, food and other resources they consume.
16
Q
What is Earth Overshoot Day?
A
- the day when the productive capacity of the planet has been used up for that calendar year.
- In 2000, it was the 1st of November.
- In 2018 it was the 1st of August.
17
Q
What is the PRP?
A
- The Population, Resources and Pollution (PRP) model illustrates relationships between people and their environment and offers a ‘big picture’ view of human-environment interactions.
- The model shows that humans, like all other organisms, acquire resources from the environment.
18
Q
Give an example of a negative feedback in the PRP Model? (Give 4 chains)
A
-> continued soil erosion from the world’s farmlands
-> resulting from poor agricultural practices such as overgrazing
-> (and due to population pressures in the first place) could cause a big decline in food production,
-> that could then have an effect on the global population.
19
Q
Give an example of a positive feedback in the PRP model?
A
The efficient harvest of food has made it possible for larger numbers of people to inhabit the Earth.
20
Q
Give an example of a pessimistic view on population growth?
A
Thomas Malthus’s view
21
Q
What did Malthus view say about population growth?
A
- Thomas Malthus stated in his work ‘An essay on the Principle of Population’ in 1798 that population growth was geometric (1, 2, 4, 8, 16 etc.) while food supply could only grow arithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
- This leads to a point where carrying capacity is exceeded, leading to a food shortage.
22
Q
What does Malthus mean about population checks?
A
- Malthus believed that increasing the food supply dramatically was not possible, and so food shortages would lead to a series of population checks which would reduce the population size.
- These checks would either increase the death rate (a ‘positive check’) or reduce the birth rate (a ‘preventative check’).
23
Q
Give 3 examples of positive checks
A
Examples of positive checks include war, famine and epidemics.
24
Q
How do preventative checks occur?
A
Preventative checks happen when individuals realise that there may not be enough food to support a family, and so they opt for later marriages or sexual abstinence.
25
What did Malthus argue with the theory of preventative checks?
- Malthus argued that preventative checks would never reduce the population sufficiently and that we would never escape from cruel positive checks.
- In other words, starvation, war and disease are inevitable.
26
What are Neo-Malthusians?
A group of people who are part of the Neo-Malthusian club of Rome
27
What did the neo-malthusians argue?
- In the 1972 ‘The Limits to Growth’ report, they suggested that there would be a sudden decline in global population in 100 years (so, in 2072) due to the overuse of resources.
- The decrease in population would return the world to a state of balance with the resources on the land.
28
Give an example of an optimistic view on population growth?
Ester Boserup’s view
29
Who was Ester Boserup and what did she argue?
Ester Boserup was a UN agricultural economist and she argued in 1965 that it was the size of a population that determined the level of its food supply.
30
How did Ester Boserup create this theory?
By examining the development of agriculture in a number of regions, she concluded that as population size reached carrying capacity, societies were forced to make radical agricultural changes to ensure there was enough food.
31
Give an example of how she came up with the theory and develop it into 3 points.
- She noted, for example, that the people of Java (Indonesia) had over time adapted their farming practices several times to feed a larger population.
- They had moved from long fallow farming (land is farmed for 1–3 years and then left to recover for 10–20 years) to short fallow.
- Then they had moved to annual cropping (a crop is harvested annually from a piece of land), then to multiple cropping (a piece of land produces more than one annual crop).
32
What other 2 optimistic views are there?
- Other optimists argue that agricultural advances over the last century, such as the Green Revolution, and more recently, the development of GM foods, show this. (‘Necessity is the mother of invention’.)
- Julian Simon summed up this optimistic perspective in his book The Ultimate Resource (1981) by suggesting that the ultimate resource is human ingenuity.
33
Where is Swaziland located in?
Swaziland is a small landlocked country bordering South Africa and Mozambique.
34
What is the Swaziland population?
1.3 Million
35
How many people in Swaziland live in urban areas?
Approximately one-quarter of the population live in urban areas.
36
How many people in Swaziland live in unplanned townships without access to basic sanitation services?
Almost two-thirds
37
What has been the well-being of Swaziland’s population?
The well-being of Swaziland’s population has declined in recent years and it fell to a rank of 150 out of 188 countries in the 2016 Human Development Index.
38
How many people in Swaziland live below the food poverty line?
Almost half of the population lives below the food poverty line, unemployment is high and only half of the people have access to safe water.
39
What were the HIV prevalence rates in 2016 in Swaziland?
- Over 40%, one of the highest rates in the world.
- A high proportion of children have been orphaned by the disease.
40
What was the life expectancy in 2016 in Swaziland?
Life expectancy has declined markedly and in 2016 it was 50 years for men and 48 years for women.
41
What is Gender Equality like in Swaziland? (Give 2 points)
The country has a poor record on gender issues:
- Women may not open a bank account in their own name and are considered minors, like children, under Swazi law.
- Land tenure is a problem because traditionally land is owned only by men.
42
What is sexual behaviour in Swaziland like? And give 2 points
In Swaziland, there is a low status for women:
- Sexist attitudes towards women and traditions of polygamy mean that men often control women's sexual decisions.
- Despite the HIV infection risks, some women resort to commercial sex to pay for food for their families and very few would dare insist on condom use by their partners.
43
What is the Eswatini Kitchen business an example of?
An example of a small business assisted by a start-up loan (micro-credit scheme) where the initial money was given to women.
44
Where did the money come from the aid the eswatini business?
The ‘seed’ money to get it started came from the UN, with other donors in Canada and South Africa.
45
In terms of now, what is the eswatini business like? (Give 3 things)
- The business is now financially independent, has international exports and does not need donor support.
- It produces and sells natural gourmet foods - jams and chutneys - to the EU and Australia.
- It has links with the Fairtrade movement and you can buy products in Oxfam shops.
46
How many women were employed buy the eswatini business?
300 disadvantaged women
47
What are the 3 other things that the eswatini business also provide?
- It has also provided a market for small local farmers and rural families who harvest wild fruit (e.g. guava and marula).
- The women have been taught to read and write and have learnt about budgeting, nutrition, HIV/AIDS and health-care.
- There is also a savings and burial payment scheme.
48
What have been the 3 major benefits that the Eswatini business created?
- Over 20 handicapped people have an income making small wooden spoons that are sold with the chutneys.
- Over 50 farmers have been shown new techniques of agriculture to combat drought.
- 200 women in rural areas have been trained by Eswatini to weave local lutindzi grass into the baskets in which the products are sold.
