Geography and Demography Notes
8.1 Geography & Demography
Geography: Study of Earth's physical features, atmosphere, and affected human activity (population, resource use).
Demography: Statistical study of human population characteristics, trends, and issues.
Population Density: Number of individuals in a specific geographic location per unit area (e.g., individuals per square km).
Census: Survey or count of a population, recording individual details; random selection gives more detailed information.
Types of Geography:
Economic Geography:
Focuses on how humans make a living and how geography is used (raw materials, goods).
Includes agriculture, manufacturing, trade, and transportation.
In Canada, analyzes benefits from natural resources, contributing 11.3\% to the Canadian economy.
Cultural Geography:
Studies geography's impact on cultural customs and issues relative to the natural world.
Considers language, arts, food, etc.
Political Geography:
Examines the relationship between politics and physical spaces.
Studies relationships between landforms, political boundaries, regions, government responses to environmental issues, and local policies.
Often related to political violence, Indigenous issues, immigration, and human rights.
Canada: considers traditional land rights and conflicts.
Urban Geography:
Applies geographical concepts to urban areas.
Addresses urban design, development, governance, and attitudes.
Focuses on transportation, healthcare, crime, pollution, education, and poverty in modern cities.
Considers differences in identities between rural vs. urban areas.
Notes rapid urbanization consequences.
1861: 84\% rural, 2016: 81\% urban.
Environmental Geography:
Studies relationships between natural environments and human societies.
Covers climate change, natural resource management, and natural disasters.
Focuses on human use, activities, and their impacts.
Increasingly incorporates traditional Indigenous ecological knowledge, world views, and practices.
How Geography Impacts People
Areas with readily available natural resources can support larger populations and more complex systems.
Climate, weather, and natural resources play key roles.
Trade relationships facilitate cultural exchanges.
Mountainous regions adjust agricultural practices differently than flatlands.
Importance of Studying Demography
Helps understand causes and consequences of population change.
Significant for governments and businesses.
Determines needs for schools, services, and hospitals.
Businesses use it to determine consumer habits in specific communities.
Challenges in Collecting Demographic Data
Varying resources affect data currency; accounting for the homeless poses challenges.
Higher-income countries have better infrastructure for accurate results.
Lower-income countries face challenges in census accuracy due to birth & death issues, remote areas, and poverty.
Formulas for Calculating Population Changes
Considerations:
Birth rate vs. death rate.
Immigration rate vs. emigration rate.
Natural Increase:
Birth rate minus death rate.
Net Migration:
Immigration rate minus emigration rate.
Combined with natural increase, gives a full picture of annual population changes.
Canada, US, and Australia have significant population growth via immigration.
Most immigrants are economic migrants or refugees.
Changes in Demographic Trends
Approximately 200 years ago, life expectancy was around 30 due to disease, poor healthcare, living conditions, and nutrition.
Families had many children due to low survival rates.
Rapid population growth in the 1750s as death rates fell faster than birth rates.
Post-WW2: Baby boom.
Current Trends: Lower birth rates, longer life expectancies in Canada.
Demographic Transition Model
Model representing population change, consisting of 3 elements: birth rates, death rates, and overall population numbers.
5 Distinct Stages:
Pre-Transition: High birth and death rates.
Early Transition: Mortality rates fall, birth rates remain high.
Late Transition: Mortality rates continue to fall, birth rates also fall.
Post Transition: Stable population.
Declining Population: Birth rates drop below death rates.
Limitations of the Model
Not universally applicable to all countries.
Based on European and Western development patterns.
Must consider global pandemics, climate change, cultural variations, and industrialization.
8.2 Urbanization – Causes & Consequences
Push Factor: Reasons for leaving an area.
Pull Factor: Positive attributes attracting people to a new area.
Migration: Movement of a person from one place to another.
Urbanization: Increasing proportion of people living in cities and towns.
Mega City: City with over 10 million inhabitants.
Causes of Urbanization
Push Factors:
Agriculture Challenges: Limited farming employment due to droughts or other issues.
Economic Pressure: Lack of adequate income or living conditions.
Resource Scarcity: Limited access to water, healthcare, or education in rural areas.
Disasters and Conflicts: Natural disasters forcing people to leave rural areas.
Pull Factors:
Employment Opportunities: More job availability in urban areas.
Better Living Standards: Higher quality of life with better healthcare and access to services.
Education: Better educational institutions and a wider range of topics.
Social Factors: Family ties and social networks already established in cities.
Push Factors Summary:
Unemployment
Lower wages
Crop failure
Poor living conditions
Poor health and education services
Few facilities
Natural disasters
Civil war
Pull Factors Summary:
More jobs
Higher wages
Better living conditions
Better education and health services
Better facilities
Less chance of natural disasters
Consequences of Urbanization
Not enough infrastructure (negative).
Residents forced to be resourceful (negative).
Slums (negative).
More opportunities for some but greater inequality (negative).
Habitat loss (negative).
Deforestation (negative).
Other bad consequences for the environment (negative).
More housing opportunities (positive & negative).
Urban Issues
Urban Sprawl:
Population expansion leads cities to expand into larger geographical areas.
Mega cities often have the highest unaffordable housing prices.
Takes up land previously used for agriculture.
Leads to car-dependent cities causing pollution.
Displaces animal habitats.
Urban Heat Island:
Cities replace natural lands with surfaces that heat up quickly.
Increases energy costs for AC.
Leads to air pollution, heat-related illnesses, and mortality.
Extreme heat events more common, affecting vulnerable populations.
Traps heat strongly, leading to incidents like the 2021 heat dome in Vancouver.
Overcrowding & Overpopulation:
High housing prices make homeownership unattainable for many.
Alternatives like sleep pods are used to share a room.
Landlords divide apartments into studios.
Opportunity = Inequality
8.3 Case Study Analysis – Green Cities: Singapore
Singapore is considered one of the greenest cities in the world.
Cleaned polluted areas over decades.
National Parks Board builds new parks and protects existing spaces.
Encourages youth to improve Singapore's environmental status.
Views environmentalism as a social issue, promoting community collaboration.
Keep Singapore Clean Campaign (1968) - Lee Kuan Yew
First independent campaign after British colony.
Aimed to improve quality of life and attract tourists/investors.
Increased cleaning and health services.
Emphasized that environmental responsibility extends to everyone.
High social and educational standards are necessary to maintain a clean and green city.
Values Identified
Environmentalism: “We must create a public awareness of everyone’s duty to keep Singapore clean.”
Organization: “Everybody can see the point of a neat home- and healthy children. But responsibility stops too often at the doorstep.”
Community: “The road shall not be littered. Drains are not dumping ground for refuse. The public park is your own garden."
Health: “Only people proud of their community performance- can keep up with high personal and public standards of hygiene."
Equality: “No refuge for the wealthy who can live unaffected by the standards of the poor.”
Language & Encouragement
Increased citizens’ nationalism to incentivize cleanliness.
Pitted Singapore against other countries and cities in Asia.
Encouraged treating common areas as personal property and considering others.
Addressed Problems
City must be cleaned and greened again.
Build up Singapore Reputation in the world.
Stop littering.
Improve Hygiene in public spaces
Singapore’s Urban Design Plan
Reasons for Adding Green Spaces
Encourages community events and social interaction.
Regulates heat in big cities to cool them down.
Creates homes for wildlife.
Any size of greenery space has a cooling effect on the space around.
Addressing Needs
Creates social space
Attracts tourism
Habitats for wildlife
Encourages physical activity and a health city
Improves air quality
Lowers heat risks by cooling down the environment
8.4 Carrying Capacity and Migration
Carrying Capacity: Maximum population an area can support.
Dependency Ratio: Ratio of age-population, comparing workforce to non-workforce.
Biocapacity: Ecosystem's ability to reproduce biological materials and handle waste.
Population Profile
Reveals age/gender structures needed for government services planning.
Population pyramids visualize population and compare structures of countries.
Dependency Ratio
Compares workforce (15-64) to non-workforce (0-15, 65-100).
Working-age individuals feel societal burden.
Lower birth rates mean fewer people to care for the elderly.
Increases pressure on financial resources if the dependent category grows.
Canada’s Population Trends
Birth and death rates have dropped.
Population is aging.
Strains social and medical services (long-term care).
Increased cost of medical technology.
Provides replacement workers and economic growth but adds government service demands.
Nutritional Density of Land
Various Regions of the world have different farmland productivity
Fraser Valley has rich soil but a short growing season.
Measures nutrition in calories produced from land.
Carrying Capacity & Ecological Footprint
Maximum population an area can support.
Measure and reduce carbon footprint to promote environmental awareness and action.
Biocapacity
Measures the biologically productive area to sustain ecological footprint.
Represents Earth's capacity to provide enough resources.
Demand exceeding biocapacity leads to ecosystem imbalance.
Migration Issues
Accreditation: Challenges in professional status for skilled immigrants.
Brain Drain: Skilled immigrants find challenges getting equivalent jobs.
Different countries have different standards for education and working so when immigrants come from other nations, they can have their qualifications not recognized
Migrants have trouble getting high paying jobs and now they must work in entry level positions
Their home countries lose valuable human capital affecting society and economy.
8.5 Sustainability & Development
Feeding a Growing Population
Requires large amounts of land and water.
About 70\% of water is used for agriculture.
Improved living standards increase meat and dairy consumption.
Deforestation creates grazing land, energy is needed to ship food, and leads to resource depletion.
Weather pattern challenges, urban settlements reaching into farmland, and local vs. corporate farms.
Genetically modified crops rely on herbicides, damage the environment, and pose long-term health concerns.
Clearing Forests
Half of Earth's forests were cleared or degraded since modern agriculture started.
350 square km are cleared daily for agriculture, grazing, timber, and settlements.
Face industrial pollution.
Environment cannot neutralize acidic content, harming plants, animals, and ecosystems.
Globalization and economic growth lead to wasteful consumption and resource abuse.
Without trees, soil erodes, causing mudslides, water quality decline and marine ecosystem decline.
Floods are more common when there are no trees to absorb and release rainfall
More wild animal attacks on urban territories occur because wildlife habitats are destroyed because of deforestation
Ozone Layer
Layer above the stratosphere.
Contains atmospheric gases, including greenhouse gases.
Regulates Earth's temperature, disrupted by human activities, leading to depletion and global warming.
O_3 (ozone) blocks UV rays.
1978 observation revealed ozone thinning, especially over polar regions.
International Treaties
Montreal Protocol
Purpose: Phase out ozone-depleting chemicals.
Successes: Almost all chemicals controlled were phased out by 2009.
Challenges: Replacement with HCFCs; complete elimination of HCFCs is future goal.
Kyoto Protocol
Purpose: Stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations.
Mechanism: Set emission limits, created carbon credit system.
*Do you think a system of carbon credits is needed/beneficial?Challenges: Canada didn’t meet targets and faced ~$14 billion in penalties.
Paris Agreement
Purpose: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Goals: Legally binding treaty to hold global temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius.
Progress: Submission of updated national climate action plans every 5 years.
Results: Global efforts to cut methane emissions.
Significance of International Climate Agreements
Foster global cooperation, set shared goals, ensure accountability, and mobilize resources.
Promote progress in renewable energy and adaptation.
Traditional and Ancient Knowledge
Offers valuable insights and practices for addressing climate change.
Provides sustainable land management techniques and resilient food systems
8.6 Globalization and Standards of Living
Globalization: Spreading of ideas, info and culture around the world through advances in communication, technology and travel
Human Development Index
Life expectancy
Literacy rate
GDP per capita (total value of goods and services produced in a country in one year/population)
Millenium Development Goals
Tried to close the gap in living standards
Hoped to address growth, poverty reduction and sustainable development
Improved physical and mental health
Environmental sustainability
Equality for both genders and people in different
Challenges in Measuring Living Standards
Some countries have different lifestyles (making goods at home, local trade and bartering rather than currency)
GDP may also not be accurate- wealth of a country if often not distributed evenly, average income figure does not reflect GDP per capita
Some countries will have more concrete data to show for exports, imports and services
Varies in Quality of Life
Health, nutrition, life expectancy, literacy rate and status of women/children determine quality of life
Someone living in poverty in Canada will have different access to gov’t. programs and services than someone in an LMIC (lower middle-income country)
Globalization
*Countries that have good infrastructure like China and India, can increase their standards of living
Process & Reasons
Connecting different areas of the world
Business, organizations and countries begin operating on an international scale
Often results in manufacturing and outsourcing to other countries (cheap labor, fewer environmental protection policies)
Rises the standards of living in developing countries
Positive Impacts
More accessible/free trade, cheaper goods and access to technology
Increases standards of living in developing countries
Allows businesses to source raw materials inexpensively
Can present more jobs in countries when needed and have goof effect on those international economies
Allows for competitive prices for consumers and more variety (not just products but for things like food)
Negative Impacts
Jobs being outsourced means jobs being lost locally
Workers in developed world must compete on international job market- must incentivize with lower wages
Unions and workers may be powerless against corporations (lower pay vs. losing jobs to less expensive labor market)
Garment industry in Bangladesh employs about 4 million people, average workers earn less in 1 month than a US worker earns in 1 days
May increase negative impacts of child labor and poor families away for school to work (increases illiteracy rates)
Often exploitative and not protective of local communities
Inequality and Poverty
Burden of poverty typically has hardships on women and children
Many developing countries have male-dominated societies (women and children have lower status, legal rights and legal system may allow them to be considered property)
Developing worlds say literacy rate is lower among women than men and education can be considered a luxury
Demographers conducted research to show that economic development and fertility rates connected
Better educated women tend to marry later and have fewer children, education and literacy impact understanding of contraception, immunization, clean eater and nutrition
Children are often the first victims of underdevelopment
Famine, disease and war prey on the most vulnerable
May have lack of access to education leading to exploitation through child labor
Breaking Cycles of Poverty
Cycles of poverty are created when families don’t have the resources to meet basic needs
People are forced to spend their lives struggling to meet needs and have limited opportunities to resolve, staying in poverty
Often passes on to the next generation
Women’s economic stability and independence helps break the cycle of poverty for themselves and their children for future generations
*Women of color, single mothers and women with disabilities are at higher risks for gendered poverty
Globalization (How, When and Why)
Since the start of civilization, trade and circulation of goods have been occurring
With greater technology, more travelling and advanced trading routes have been established
Globalization can have adverse effects as it also brought rise to spread of slavery
Rapid advancements in communication and transformation make transfer of goods more rapid