Salford Quays Case Study paper 3 geographical skills

OCR GCSE paper 3 Geographical skills

What is the hypothesis

“A consequence of economic growth for Salford Quays is that the environment has changed.”

What data did we collect as a group

We collected 2 sets of primary data

environmental matrix

land use matrix

Environmental matrix

4 environmental surveys on five different categories (Noise, traffic, air quality, building quality and litter) ranked from one to five based on opinion (judgement) without the use of instrument devices.

Land use matrix

using a map of Salford area, land was marked with letters A-S. where each building was observed and categorised into the most likely land use on the lands matrix. there were a total of six categories to catagorise the buildings into (shipping related, railway, Secondary industry, leisure/cultural, offices, residential.)

Other use of data

We also used secondary data (environmental data collected by other students in the past) and land-use data from 1913 and a map from that year.

Results and data representation

For the environmental data we made web graphs for the four areas around Salford. this measured the 5 categories measured, eg. air quality each year with each spoke of the graph representing each year. therefore this was created with our primary data and secondary data from the past. Each year was represented with a different colour.

For land use and overlay map was created with the different buildings. given to it was a key with each of the categories used eg. secondary/industry and a colour assigned to each coloured in from the base map based on the data from 1913. using tracing paper an overlay was created for the actual data collected. therefore it creates an overlay for how the building have changed for landuse from 1913-2025

The conclusion

From the results collected we can conclude that the hypothesis is true. from the lands overlay map we can see that lands has changed from mainly shipping and secondary industry to more leisure, culture, residential and offices in 2023. This highlights the economic growth of the Salford area and as a result the environment has also changed.

it has mainly improved with better ir pollution and building appearances however the secondary data storage show that values were low in 1990 due to redeveloping the area to what it is now. This is linked the study if the study of the people of the UK “an environmental consequence of economic growth” which is that the area has improved. however evaluating the data collection method there could have been better ways to collect it.

Evaluation land use - limitations/resolutions

map used on the day was a little confusing as some letters are too big and get overlapped also a limit of categories a building can be placed in.

Make letters smaller on the map and also be able to categorise buildings into other or make up own category.

Evaluation environmental survey- limitations/ resolution

subjective based on different peoples opinions, different people will have different judgements also air could vary throughout the day causing people to have different experiences.

An instrument could be used to measure like a decibel reading, do it at different times of the day. air quality/ pollutions device etc.

Evaluation- data representation limitations/resolution

Although it shows dats for all different years data can overlap making it unreadable.

Could use a bar graph which is easier to read

smaller letters on base map

separate maps to compare side overlay- some letters are too big have to keep lifting to keep changes.