Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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1(b) Write a short note on equatorial westerlies.
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1(c) Explain the extent and causes of coral bleaching in
the Great Barrier Reef.
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1(d) Discuss the impact of changes in the Pleistocene on
the distribution of plants and animals.
In the Pleistocene, the climate was characterised by alternations of cold and warm episodes, the
more recent cycles being marked by the advance and recession of continental ice-sheets. Unlike
continental drift, these climatic oscillations did not radically alter the major orders of plants and
animals already established by mid-Tertiary times, but they did have an important effect on the
distribution of species within each of the world's plant and animal regions. In the lists of Pleistocene
fossil plants and animals from various parts of the world, there appears to be little evidence of
extinction or evolution except among the vertebrates; rather, the geographical ranges of species
have often changed markedly.
There are two ways in which Pleistocene climatic change has affected distributions: by directly
causing repeated equatorward and poleward migrations of plants and animals with each cold and
warm stage respectively; and by indirectly creating and disrupting land bridges through associated
glacioeustatic changes of sea-level, as between Britain and continental Europe, and between Asia
and North America at the Bering Straits. In the latter case, the existence of a land corridor during
glacial episodes and the early part of interglacial periods probably explains why the plant life of
Alaska and eastern Siberia is strikingly similar, even to the extent of possessing many identical
species.
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2(a) Discuss the control exerted by tectonics in the
development of drainage systems.
Tectonic controls can be exerted on the development of drainage systems in two ways. Active
tectonic controls involve the response of fluvial systems to ongoing tectonic activity. Such controls
are most evident in tectonically active environments, but even in apparently tectonically quiescent
regions drainage systems can be significantly affected by active tectonic controls. Such controls
include faulting as well as the tilting and deformation of the ground surface.
Passive tectonic controls (also sometimes referred to as structural controls) operate through the
influence exerted by previous tectonic activity on subsequent drainage development. These controls
are usually more subtle than those arising from active tectonism and are more difficult to unravel
because later erosion may have removed much of the evidence of pre-existing structures. Passive
controls most commonly operate through the effect that previous tectonic activity has on the
structural organization (disposition and arrangement) of lithologies of varying degrees of resistance.
Some of the worlds most spectacular regional scale landforms arc fold terranes which have been
partially eroded by drainage systems Although the distinction between active and passive controls is
a useful one, it is important to emphasize that both kinds frequently operate together in influencing
the development of drainage systems. A drainage network in a sedimentary terrane which is being
actively folded will both respond directly to the ongoing ground deformation and to the
arrangement of alternating weak and resistant beds exposed as the folds are progressively eroded.
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2(b) Discuss the concept of air masses and explain the
characteristics of major air masses of North American
continent.
A body of air, usually 1,000 miles or more across, which has assumed uniform characteristics,is
called an air mass. Within horizontal layers, the temperature and humidity properties of an air mass
are fairly uniform. The depth of the region in which this horizontal uniformity exists may vary from a
few thousand feet in cold, winter air masses to several miles in warm, tropical air masses.
Weather within an air mass will vary locally from day to day due to heating, cooling, precipitation,
and other processes. These variations, however, usually follow a sequence that may be quite unlike
the weather events in an adjacent air mass.
Source Regions
Areas in which air masses originate are called source regions. Because the atmosphere is heated
chiefly from below and gains its moisture by evaporation from Earths surface, the nature of the
source region largely determines the initial characteristics of an air mass. An ideal source region
must meet two essential criteria.
First, it must be an extensive and physically uniform area. A region having highly irregular
topography or one that has a surface consisting of both water and land is not satisfactory.
The second criterion is that the area be characterized by a general stagnation of atmospheric
circulation so that air will stay over the region long enough to come to some measure of
equilibrium with the surface. In general, it means regions dominated by stationary or slow-
moving anticyclones, with their extensive areas of calm or light winds.
Regions under the influence of cyclones are not likely to produce air masses because such systems
are characterized by converging surface winds. The winds in lows are constantly bringing air with
unlike temperature and humidity properties into the area. Because the time involved is not long
enough to eliminate these differences, steep temperature gradients result, and air-mass formation
cannot take place.
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2(c) Provide a reasoned account of the sea level changes
of the past.
Global or eustatic sea level has fluctuated significantly over the earth's history. The main factors
affecting sea level are the amount and volume of available water and the shape and volume of the
ocean basins. The primary influences on water volume are the temperature of the seawater, which
affects density, and the amounts of water retained in other reservoirs like rivers, aquifers, lakes,
glaciers, polar ice caps and sea ice. Over geological timescales, changes in the shape of the oceanic
basins and in land/sea distribution affect sea level. In addition to eustatic changes, local changes in
sea level are caused by tectonic uplift and subsidence.
Over geologic time sea level has fluctuated by hundreds of meters. Today's interglacial level is near
historic highs and is 130 meters above the low level reached during the Last Glacial Maximum
19,00020,000 years ago.
Observational and modeling studies of mass loss from glaciers and ice caps indicate a contribution to
sea-level rise of 0.2 to 0.4 mm/yr averaged over the 20th century. Over this last million years,
whereas it was higher most of the time before then, sea level was lower than today.
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Changes through geologic time
Sea level has changed over geologic time. As the graph shows, sea level today is very near the lowest
level ever attained (the lowest level occurred at the Permian-Triassic boundary about 250 million
years ago).
During the most recent ice age (at its maximum about 20,000 years ago) the world's sea level was
about 130 m lower than today, due to the large amount of sea water that had evaporated and been
deposited as snow and ice, mostly in the Laurentide ice sheet. Most of this had melted by about
10,000 years ago.
Hundreds of similar glacial cycles have occurred throughout the Earth's history. Geologists who
study the positions of coastal sediment deposits through time have noted dozens of similar
basinward shifts of shorelines associated with a later recovery. This results in sedimentary cycles
which in some cases can be correlated around the world with great confidence. This relatively new
branch of geological science linking eustatic sea level to sedimentary deposits is called sequence
stratigraphy.
The most up-to-date chronology of sea level change through the Phanerozoic shows the following
long-term trends:
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3(a) Discuss the causes and consequences of
environmental degradation and highlight the related
conservation measures.
Environmental degradation is one of the largest threats that are being looked at in the world today.
The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction characterizes environmental
degradation as the lessening of the limit of the earth to meet social and environmental destinations,
and needs. Environmental degradation can happen in a number of ways. At the point when
environments are wrecked or common assets are exhausted, the environment is considered to be
corrupted and harmed. There are a number of different techniques that are being used to prevent
this, including environmental resource protection and general protection efforts.
Environmental issues can be seen by long term ecological effects, some of which can demolish whole
environments. An environment is a unique unit and incorporates all the living and non-living
components that live inside it. Plants and creatures are evident parts of the environment, but it also
includes the things on which they depend on, for example, streams, lakes, and soils.
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A rupture in the environmental surroundings provides for them a chance to start growing
and spreading. These plants can assume control over nature, eliminating the local greenery.
The result is territory with a solitary predominant plant which doesnt give satisfactory food
assets to all the environmental life. Whole environments can be destroyed because of these
invasive species.
2. Pollution: Pollution, in whatever form, whether it is air, water, land or noise is harmful for
the environment. Air pollution pollutes the air that we breathe which causes health issues.
Water pollution degrades the quality of water that we use for drinking purposes. Land
pollution results in degradation of earths surface as a result of human activities. Noise
pollution can cause irreparable damage to our ears when exposed to continuous large
sounds like honking of vehicles on a busy road or machines producing large noise in a factory
or a mill.
3. Overpopulation: Rapid population growth puts strain on natural resources which results in
degradation of our environment. Mortality rate has gone down due to better medical
facilities which has resulted in increased lifespan. More population simple means more
demand for food, clothes and shelter. You need more space to grow food and provide
homes to millions of people. This results in deforestation which is another factor of
environmental degradation.
4. Landfills: Landfills pollute the environment and destroy the beauty of the city. Landfills come
within the city due the large amount of waste that gets generated by households, industries,
factories and hospitals. Landfills pose a great risk to the health of the environment and the
people who live there. Landfills produce foul smell when burned and cause huge
environmental degradation.
5. Deforestation: Deforestation is the cutting down of trees to make way for more homes and
industries. Rapid growth in population and urban sprawl are two of the major causes of
deforestation. Apart from that, use of forest land for agriculture, animal grazing, harvest for
fuel wood and logging are some of the other causes of deforestation. Deforestation
contributes to global warming as decreased forest size puts carbon back into the
environment.
6. Natural Causes: Things like avalanches, quakes, tidal waves, storms, and wildfires can totally
crush nearby animal and plant groups to the point where they can no longer survive in those
areas. This can either come to fruition through physical demolition as the result of a specific
disaster, or by the long term degradation of assets by the presentation of an obtrusive
foreign species to the environment. The latter frequently happens after tidal waves, when
reptiles and bugs are washed ashore.
Of course, humans arent totally to blame for this whole thing. Earth itself causes ecological issues,
as well. While environmental degradation is most normally connected with the things that people
do, the truth of the matter is that the environment is always changing. With or without the effect of
human exercises, a few biological systems degrade to the point where they cant help the life that is
supposed to live there.
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1. Impact on Human Health: Human health might be at the receiving end as a result of the
environmental degradation. Areas exposed to toxic air pollutants can cause respiratory
problems like pneumonia and asthma. Millions of people are known to have died of due to
indirect effects of air pollution.
2. Loss of Biodiversity: Biodiversity is important for maintaining balance of the ecosystem in
the form of combating pollution, restoring nutrients, protecting water sources and
stabilizing climate. Deforestation, global warming, overpopulation and pollution are few of
the major causes for loss of biodiversity.
3. Ozone Layer Depletion: Ozone layer is responsible for protecting earth from harmful
ultraviolet rays. The presence of chlorofluorocarbons, hydro chlorofluorocarbons in the
atmosphere is causing the ozone layer to deplete. As it will deplete, it will emit harmful
radiations back to the earth.
4. Loss for Tourism Industry: The deterioration of environment can be a huge setback for
tourism industry that rely on tourists for their daily livelihood. Environmental damage in the
form of loss of green cover, loss of biodiversity, huge landfills, increased air and water
pollution can be a big turn off for most of the tourists.
5. Economic Impact: The huge cost that a country may have to borne due to environmental
degradation can have big economic impact in terms of restoration of green cover, cleaning
up of landfills and protection of endangered species. The economic impact can also be in
terms of loss of tourism industry.
Conservation Measures
Approaches
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International environmental agreements
Many of the earths resources are especially vulnerable because they are influenced by
human impacts across many countries. As a result of this, many attempts are made by
countries to develop agreements that are signed by multiple governments to prevent
damage or manage the impacts of human activity on natural resources. This can include
agreements that impact factors such as climate, oceans, rivers and air pollution. These
international environmental agreements are sometimes legally binding documents that have
legal implications when they are not followed and, at other times, are more agreements in
principle or are for use as codes of conduct. These agreements have a long history with
some multinational agreements being in place from as early as 1910 in Europe, America and
Africa. Some of the most well-known multinational agreements include the Kyoto Protocol
and others.
The areal extension of human activities, however, is not suitable in itself for either a quantitative or
a qualitative evaluation of anthropogenic geomorphological impact on the Earths surface because
the influence of economic activities related to each land-use type may extremely differ from each
other. Built-up areas, covering less than 2% of the continents, for instance, suffer the most intensive
surface modifying activity from humans. Comparing, for example, natural fluvial to anthropogenic
erosion for the United States, it can be noticed that human activities move much more earth;
moreover, there are significant geographical differences between the two types of erosion: while
fluvial erosion is in close connection with relief, the most intensive anthropogenic impact occurs in
highly urbanized and in mining areas.
The quantity of the earth moved during and by various human activities seems to be the most
appropriate index for the estimation of the extent of human impact on the Earths surface. This
estimation, however, is not simple at all. On the one hand, some human activities (forest clearing,
tillage, grazing, etc.) characteristically alter topography in an indirect way, i.e. by modifying natural
erosion processes; on the other hand, there are no correct statistical data concerning the amount of
the earth moved by direct anthropogenic geomorphological activities (urban construction, road and
railway constructions, mining, etc.). Moreover, the different estimations for the efficiency of
anthropogenic and natural geomorphological processes may differ from each other by orders of
magnitude.
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A summary estimation of human geomorphological impacts for the 1970s was published by Nir
(1983). By a critical review of statistical and literature data, he concluded that, on the basis of the
anthropogenic erosion rate, agriculture could be regarded as the most significant of Earths surface
modifying human activity. To demonstrate the shocking mass of 173 billion tons, he mentioned that
the River Huang He, one of the muddiest rivers in the world, carries about 1.5 billion tons of silt per
year, i.e. the estimated quantity eroded by anthropogenic geomorphological activity is more than
one hundred times higher.
Polar jet
The thermal wind relation does not explain why the winds are organized in tight jets, rather than
distributed more broadly over the hemisphere. One factor that contributes to the sharpness of the
polar jet is the undercutting of sub-tropical airmasses by the more dense polar airmasses at the
polar front. This causes surface low pressure and higher pressure at altitude. At high altitudes, lack
of friction allows air to respond freely to the steep pressure gradient with low pressure at high
altitude over the pole. This results in the formation of planetary wind circulations that experience a
strong Coriolis deflection and thus can be considered 'quasi-geostrophic'. The polar front jet stream
is closely linked to the frontogenesis process in midlatitudes, as the acceleration/deceleration of the
air flow induces areas of low/high pressure respectively, which link to the formation of cyclones and
anticyclones along the polar front in a relatively narrow region.
Subtropical jet
A second factor which contributes to jet sharpness is more appropriate for the subtropical jet, which
forms at the poleward limit of the tropical Hadley cell and to first order this circulation is symmetric
with respect to longitude. Tropical air rises to the tropopause, mainly because of thunderstorm
systems in the Intertropical Convergence Zone, and moves poleward before sinking; this is the
Hadley circulation. As it does so it tends to conserve angular momentum, since friction is slight
above the ground. In the Northern Hemisphere motions are deflected to the right by the Coriolis
force, which for poleward (northward) moving air implies an increased eastward component of the
winds[26] (note that leftward deflection in the southern hemisphere also leads to eastward motion).
Around 30 degrees from the equator the jet wind speeds have become strong enough that were the
jet to extend further polewards the increased windspeed would be unstable; thus the jet is limited.
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Polar night jet
The polar-night jet stream forms only during the winter months, i.e., polar nights, of the year in their
respective hemispheres at around 60 latitude, but at a greater height than the polar jet, of about
80,000 feet (24,000 m). During these dark months the air high over the poles becomes much colder
than the air over the equator. This difference in temperature gives rise to extreme air pressure
differences in the stratosphere, which, when combined with the Coriolis effect, create the polar
night jets, racing eastward at an altitude of about 30 miles (48 km). Inside the polar night jet is the
polar vortex. The warmer air can only move along the edge of the polar vortex, but not enter it.
Within the vortex, the cold polar air becomes increasingly cold with neither warmer air from lower
latitudes nor energy from the sun during the polar night.
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4(b) Analyse the role of surface and subsurface processes
in hill- slope development.
Gravity, flowing water, and temperature changes are the main forces behind hillslope processes,
with the action of animals and plants being important in some situations. Weathering on hillslopes,
as elsewhere, includes the in situ conversion of bedrock into regolith and the subsequent chemical
and mechanical transformation of regolith. Several hillslope processes serve to transport regolith
and other weathering products. They range from slow and continual processes to rapid and
intermittent processes. Slow and continual processes fall into three categories: leaching, soil creep,
and rainsplash and sheet wash.
Leaching
Leaching involves the removal of weathered products in solution through the rock and the soil.
Solution is an efficacious process in hillslope denudation. It does not always lead to surface lowering,
at least at first, because the volume of rock and soil may stay the same. Solution takes place in the
body of the regolith and along subsurface lines of concentrated water flow, including throughflow in
percolines and pipes.
Rainsplash
Rainsplash and sheet wash are common in arid environments and associated with the generation of
Hortonian overland flow. There is a continuum from rainsplash, through rainflow, to sheet wash.
Falling raindrops dislodge sediment to form splash, which moves in all directions through the air
resulting in a net downslope transport of material. Experimental studies using a sand trough and
simulated rainfall showed that on a 5 slope about 60 per cent of the sediment moved by raindrop
impact moves downslope and 40 per cent upslope; on a 25 slope 95 per cent of the sediment
moved downslope. Smaller particles are more susceptible to rainsplash than larger ones. The
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amount of splash depends upon many factors, including rainfall properties (e.g. drop size and
velocity, drop circumference, drop momentum, kinetic energy, and rainfall intensity) and such
landscape characteristics as slope angle and vegetation cover. Rain power is a mathematical
expression that unites rainfall, hillslope, and vegetation characteristics, and that allows for the
modulation by flow depth. It is a good predictor of the detachment rate of fine-grained particles.
Rainflow
Rainflow is transport caused by the traction of overland flow combined with detachment by raindrop
impact, which carries them further than rainsplash alone. Sheet wash carries sediment in a thin layer
of water running over the soil surface. This is not normally a uniformly thick layer of water moving
downslope; rather, the sheet subdivides and follows many flowpaths dictated by the
microtopography of the surface. Sheet wash results from overland flow. On smooth rock and soil
surfaces, a continuous sheet of water carries sediment downslope. On slightly rougher terrain, a set
of small rivulets link water-filled depressions and bear sediment. On grassed slopes, sediment-
bearing threads of water pass around stems; and, in forests with a thick litter layer, overland flow
occurs under decaying leaves and twig. The efficacy of sheet wash in transporting material is evident
in the accumulation of fine sediment upslope of hedges at the bottom of cultivated fields.
Through-wash
In well-vegetated regions, the bulk of falling rain passes into the soil and moves to the water table
ormoves underneath the hillslope surface as throughflow. Throughflow carries sediment in solution
and in suspension. This process is variously called through-wash, internal erosion, and suffossion,
which means a digging under or undermining. Suspended particles and colloids transported this way
will be about ten times smaller than the grains they pass through, and throughwash is important
only in washing silt and clay out of clean sands, and in washing clays through cracks and roots holes.
Where throughflow returns to the surface at seeps, positive pore pressures may develop that grow
large enough to cause material to become detached and removed. Throughflow may occur along
percolines. It may also form pipes in the soil, which form gullies if they should collapse, perhaps
during a heavy rainstorm.
Mass wasting
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Rapid and intermittent hillslope transport processes involve mass wasting creep, flow, slide, heave,
fall, subsidence.
Bioturbation
Geomorphologists have until recently tended to dismiss the effects of animals and plants on hillslope
processes, this despite the early attribution of soil creep to the action of soil animals and plant roots.
However, animals and plants make use of the soil for food and for shelter and, in doing so, affect it
in multifarious ways. For instance, the uprooting of trees may break up bedrock and transport soil
downslope. Since the mid- 1980s, the importance of bioturbation the churning and stirring of soil
by organisms to sediment transport and soil production on hillslopes has come to the fore.
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5(a) Despite its flaws, humanistic geography has widely
contributed to human geography Explain.
Humanistic geography was subject to critique almost as soon as it emerged. To positivist
geographers (seeking explanation rather than understanding), humanism was merely subjective,
untestable, a matter of opinion, as one piece of research could not be replicated or falsified. To
others, its style was overly esoteric and abstract, producing what one critic called a Mandarin
dialect. To more radical geographers, as we shall see, it did not pay enough attention to systematic
and structural arrangements of power of oppression, exploitation, and domination (let alone
resistance to these). Humanists, they argued, inhabited a lofty plane of elitist assumptions drawn
from high art, classic literature, and elite culture in general.
Despite these critiques, however, it is clear that humanistic geography has had a profound influence
on human geography in the past 30 years. In many ways its insights have become taken for granted,
part of the very bedrock of the disciplinary common sense. Thematically, ideas surrounding space
and place, the emotions and senses, the body, and the performance of everyday life continue to be
important in human (particularly cultural) geography research. Humanism was a key influence on
the emergence of a reinvigorated cultural geography in the late 1980s. The critique of the notions of
objectivity and the scientific method has continued in different guises. The humanistic insistence on
the locatedness of knowledge in human consciousness has been central to this. This, in turn, has
been important in the acceptance of a range of qualitative methods including participant
observation, textual and visual analysis, and self-reflection which are now the principal way of
conducting research in human geography.
Few geographers now refer to themselves as humanistic. This may be due to both the critiques of
humanism from radical geographers more concerned with issues of power, domination, and
resistance, and the fact that many of the lessons of humanism have become taken for granted.
There are, however, some who continue to explicitly develop the notion of humanistic geography.
Some of its original pioneers continued to write within a humanistic framework. Others have
acknowledged the continuing salience of a humanistic framework within their work. More recently a
post-humanist geography has arisen which, rather than being against humanism, seeks to take
some of the insights of humanism into different orbits, ascribing forms of agency to animals and
non-sentient objects.
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to commonly used industrial metals such as chromium, nickel, zinc, molybdenum, tin, tungsten and
lead. Again, they are rarely found in extractable concentrations.
Supply and demand normally determine the market price of a commodity. As supplies shrink, prices
go up. As prices go higher, those who control the supply are tempted to sell. Mining companies see
high prices as an opportunity and attempt to develop new sources of supply.
With rare earth elements, the time between a mining company's decision to acquire a property and
the start of production can be several years or longer. There is no fast way to open a new mining
property.
If a single country controls almost all of the production and makes a firm decision not to export, then
the entire supply of a commodity can be quickly cut off. That is a dangerous situation when new
sources of supply take so long to develop.
In 2010 China significantly restricted their rare earth exports. That was done to ensure a supply of
rare earths for domestic manufacturing and for environmental reasons. This shift by China triggered
panic buying and some rare earth prices shot up exponentially. In addition, Japan, the United States,
and the European Union complained to the World Trade Organization about China's restrictive rare
earth trade policies.
India currently has a little over 2% share of global output of rare earths, but that still leaves it the
second largest producer after China. Kerala, Orissa and Tamil Nadu account for nearly 95% of the
countrys production of rare earths. India, according to the US Geological Survey, has 3.1 million
tonnes (mt) of rare earths reserves. India signed a deal to supply rare earths to Japan in 2011. This
deal comes after China banned exports of rare earths to Japan in protest against the detention of a
Chinese fishing boat captain who had strayed into Japanese waters that are claimed by China.
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components over the life of the General Plan. The three components of sustainability, and how they
are addressed in this General Plan, are defined below:
Environment
Environmental sustainability is accomplished by reducing the impact of human activities on the
natural systems that support the community. A major component of protecting the environment is
the wise utilization of land. Focusing Chicos growth within the Sphere of Influence will reduce
pressure to develop at the communitys edges where it would impact agricultural lands and foothills.
Growth consistent with the Land Use Diagram and policies in the General Plan will result in reduced
impacts on the environment, reduced contributions to global climate change, reduced reliance on oil
and other fossil-fuel sources, and decreased consumption of natural resources. Strategies in this
General Plan for protecting the environment include promoting compact, walkable, infill and mixed-
use development; focusing redevelopment along transit corridors and at other central locations;
protecting sensitive habitat, open space and agricultural lands; promoting the efficient use of energy
and resources; improving local air and water quality; directing waste diversion and reduction; and
establishing energy and water conservation measures in building, landscaping, and municipal
operations.
Economy
A sustainable economy is strong and resilient, environmentally conscientious, and accessible to the
entire community. To be sustainable, Chicos economy must be diverse in order to provide stability
through economic cycles. There must be jobs for a skilled local workforce in traditional, as well as
green, business sectors. It must generate tax revenue to fund quality public services for the
community and must continue to grow base-level businesses that export products and import
revenue. Strategies in the General Plan that promote a sustainable economy reside primarily in the
Economic Development Element and include fostering a positive climate for economic development,
providing an adequate supply of land, ensuring the readiness of physical conditions to support
development, targeting public investment to help attract investment and support local prosperity,
promoting local goods and services; creating partnerships within the region to generate jobs, and
ensuring a quality of life that makes Chico a desirable place to invest.
Social Equity
For the purposes of this General Plan, social equity means fair access to housing, transportation,
jobs, education, and recreation, and access for all residents to fully participate in the political and
cultural life of the community. Social equity is closely connected to the other two sustainability
components of economic vitality and environmental protection. It both depends on and supports a
local, diverse economy that provides a wide range of work and volunteer opportunities for people of
all ages and skills and a healthy environment with clean air and water, open spaces to recreate, and
protection from potential hazards. Strategies in this General Plan that promote social equity include
ensuring adequate housing for all age and income levels; providing an open government that values
public participation; celebrating arts and cultures; assisting the more vulnerable members of the
community; supporting the development and preservation of complete neighborhoods, promoting
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public health through protection from hazards and the provision of a safe multimodal circulation
system; and providing parks and quality public services to all members of the community.
Boundaries that predated the evolution of the cultural landscape are called antecedent boundaries.
They are the most common type to come across in the New 'World. Here international boundaries
were generally agreed upon at the conference table even before the concerned territory was fully
explored, and colonized, so that they are mostly straight line geometrical boundaries.
Those boundaries whose definition and demarcation had followed the evolution of the cultural
landscape are called subsequent boundaries. Such boundaries often conform to ethnic-cultural
divisions of the landscape specially the divisions of language and religion. Most boundaries in
Eastern Europe, and those between India and Pakistan, and India and Bangladesh belong to this
type. Certain subsequent boundaries are superimposed in nature. These were also drawn after the
cultural landscape had fully evolved. The difference lies in that the subsequent type conforms to the
cultural division between neighboring communities, and was decided upon through mutual
agreement.
The super-imposed type, in contrast, does not conform to the social-cultural divisions on the
ground. They were imposed upon the concerned communities, either by outside powers or the
overbearing unit between the two. Most colonial boundaries in Africa are of this type. Truce-line
boundaries also belong to this type.
A fourth type called Relic or Relict boundaries are those boundary lines which have currently lost
political function, but which may still be discernible in the cultural landscape. Such boundary lines
result when a smaller State is absorbed by a larger one, or when frontier boundaries between States
are abandoned and redrawn.
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5(e) Explain the geographical factors controlling world
population density.
There are a range of human and natural factors that affect population density. The tables below
illustrate this.
In this question, use the framework of cultural realms and show how each cultural realm is
centered around a particular religion.
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Occidental Realm (Christian Culture):
Occidental culture is the culture of the European society. It is influenced to a great extent by
Christianity. It has regional modifications on the basis of varying levels of industrialisation, political
and economic thought, colonisation, commercialisation, urbanisation, and development of transport
system, land development of social, political and economic institutions.
In many parts of the occidental culture, the impact of non-religious factors, particularly the effect of
modernisation, is so great that the religious values are sidelined. Post- industrial Europe is fast
emerging as a society where traditional values are nearly abandoned. The occidental culture covers
a vast area. It is further divided into six sub-regions considering the impact of regional environment.
(ii) Continental European culture is influenced by different political and economic thoughts, while
Christianity remains an important influence.
(iii) Mediterranean Europe includes countries lying to the south of the Alps. It is the region of
dominance of Christianity. To many geographers, the deep-rooted traditional social system is the
principal cause of limited economic development in countries like Spain, Portugal and southern Italy,
compared to countries of northern and western Europe which adopted necessary changes in their
social systems.
(v) Australian cultural realms are practically the offsprings of west European culture. Both are
inhabited by migrants from west Europe. There are only some regional differences.
(vi) Latin American culture is very similar to the Mediterranean culture. It is the only region of
occidental culture which lies in the tropics and is underdeveloped. It became a part of the occidental
culture as a result of conversion of tribes into Christianity. The colonial languages, Spanish and
Portuguese, have become the state languages. Regional architecture has been influenced by the
Spanish and Portuguese styles. Practically all countries maintain economic, cultural and social ties
with the Mediterranean countries.
The culture here is influenced by Islamic values. It covers a vast geographical area from Morocco in
the west to Pakistan in the east. The population is sparsely distributed due to inhospitable
environment. The coasts, river basins and oases have been the cradles of Arabian culture in this
realm. The British call it the Middle-East while the Germans call it a region of oriental culture. This
cultural realm lies between the traditional Indian culture in the east and the modernised European
culture in the west.
Islamic culture is highly orthodox and based on traditional beliefs, the impact of which can be seen in
high female illiteracy rates. These countries have very high per capita incomes, but the level of
modernisation is very low.
27
Indie Cultural Realm (Hindu Culture):
This is the culture of the Indian sub-continent. Baker called it a sub-continental culture, while D.
Stamp used the term paddy culture. This cultural realm is well-defined; it lies between Himalayas in
the north, Indian Ocean in the south and Hindukush Mountains in the west.
This cultural realm is characterized by joint family, village community, caste system, semi- feudal
land relations, subsistence agriculture, paddy farming, seasonal climate changes and agricultural
season coming at the same time all over the region. The culture of this region is greatly influenced
by Vedic values. Though the region is inhabited by various communities, the social system has the
hidden impact of Vedic cultural values.
This culture is basically a Buddhist culture with regional modifications. True Buddhist culture can be
seen in South Korea and Japan. Even these two countries have felt the impact of industrialisation,
urbanisation and modernisation. The culture of mainland China has modified the Buddhist system.
This culture was adopted after the Second World War.
South-East Asian Culture It is a transitional culture lying at a place where different cultures have
intermingled. Dominance of Buddhism can be seen in Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Influence of
Christianity can be seen in the Philippines and of Indie culture over islands of Indonesia. The Islamic
influence is evident in Malaysia and the Indonesian islands. No other region has such peculiarities.
This culture is also known as the Negro culture. It principally includes tropical Africa. Similar cultural
systems can be seen among the American Red Indians, Latin American tribes, Australian aboriginals
and several tribes of Asia-Pacific region.
Historian Toynbee has used the term marginalised culture for these traditional culture units. Some
geographers even include Eskimos under this cultural realm. Thus, it is a widely scattered cultural
realm characterised by marginalised and relatively isolated communities.
In the context of the above, there are two types of measures for human development breadth
measures and focus measures. The breadth measures, which may be termed Human Development
Accounting, encompass all indicators related to human development assessments and sometimes
28
can be represented by a dashboard. The focus measures, which are basically composite indices,
concentrate on some basic dimensions of human development.
Both types of measures have their respective values and limitations. Human Development
Accounting is required to make a comprehensive assessment of human development conditions in
any society, but it does not provide a single number to synthesize the state of affairs in some basic
dimensions. Composite indices, on the other hand, provide a single number, but cannot provide a
comprehensive picture of the state of human development in any situation. Focus measures are
extremely good for advocacy, for initiating healthy competition among societies and for raising
awareness, but not in providing a comprehensive picture. Breadth measures, on the other hand, are
good for painting a comprehensive picture, but not for providing a single number for drawing
attention.
It is in these perspectives that a composite measure like the Human Development Index (HDI) was
constructed. Three things prompted the Human Development Report Office to come up with such a
measure:
1. First, given that human choices are infinite, it was also recognized that at all levels of
development, the three essential ones are for people to lead a long and healthy life, to
acquire knowledge and to have access to resources needed for a decent standard of living. If
these essential choices are not available, many other opportunities remain inaccessible. The
HDI captures these basic dimensions of human development.
2. Second, if only breadth measures of human development are presented, people will look
respectfully at that dashboard, but then will revert to GDP per capita for a single measure of
development. The HDI would change that outlook.
3. Third, for measuring human well-being, one needs as vulgar a measure as income per capita,
but not as narrow a measure like income per capita which is blind to broader aspects of
human lives. The HDI provides that broader measure.
1. First, the HDI is not a comprehensive measure of human development. It just focuses on the
basic dimensions of human development and does not take into account a number of other
important dimensions of human development.
2. Second, it is composed of long-term human development outcomes. Thus it does not reflect
the input efforts in terms of policies nor can it measure short-term human development
achievements.
3. Third, it shares all the limitations of composite measures. But it is important to keep it
simple with minimum variables to ensure its acceptability, understanding and predictability.
4. Fourth, the HDI is an average measure and thus masks a series of disparities and inequalities
within countries. Disaggregation of the HDI in terms of gender, regions, races and ethnic
groups can unmask the HDI and can be and has been used widely for policy formulation.
5. Fifth, income enters into the HDI not in its own right, but as a proxy for resources needed to
have a decent standard of living. The issue with regard to income is how it is transformed
into the health and education dimensions of the HDI. Thus between income and the other
two dimensions of the HDI, the issue is that of transformation, and not of substitution.
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The HDI thus has a limited scope. It cannot provide a complete picture of human development in any
situation. It has to be supplemented with other useful indicators in order to get a comprehensive
view. Thus it is human development accounting, not the HDI, which can portray the complete
picture.
If a metaphor is used, human development accounting represents a house and the HDI is the door to
the house. One should not mistake the door to be the house and one should not stop at the door,
rather one should enter the house.
Improvements by MPI
The MPI seeks to improve upon the HDI by expanding the definition of development by improving
upon the parameters used to measure health, education and standard of living.
30
6(c) Discuss various strategies for correcting regional
imbalances.
31
32
33
34
7(a) The relationship between resource development and
population growth forms the core of population studies.
In this context discuss the major views expressed on the
issue.
Malthus Theory:
In his Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) Malthus argued that because of the strong
attraction of the two sexes, the population could increase by multiples, doubling every twenty-five
years. He contended that the population would eventually grow so large that food production would
be insufficient.
Human capacity for reproduction exceeded the rate at which subsistence from the land can be
increased. Malthus further wrote Population when unchecked increases in a geometrical ratio.
Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio.
Malthus contended that the worlds population was growing more rapidly than the available food
supply. He argued that the food supply increases in an arithmetic progression (1, 2, 3, 4, and so on),
whereas the population expands by a geometric progression (1, 2, 4, 8, and so on).
According to him, the population could increase by multiples, doubling every twenty-five years. He
said the gap between the food supply and population will continue to grow over time. Even though
food supply will increase, it would be insufficient to meet the needs of expanding population.
Moreover, the famine and other natural calamities cause widespread sufferings and increase the
death rate, which is natures check against population.
Malthus based his above arguments on mans two basic characteristics essential to the maintenance
of life:
It was the second which led people to marry at a relatively early age and would result in such a large
number of births that the population would double itself in few years if unchecked by misery and
vice.
35
1. Positive means: He spoke of famine (hunger), disease or war, pestilence and vicious customs
about women.
2. Negative means: He explicitly demanded artificial means of birth control and suggested as
an alternative that birth rate be decreased through preventive measures such as late
marriage (postponing marriage until later age), moral restraint, and chastity (abstinence). He
contended that without such restraints the world would face widespread hunger, poverty
and misery.
The positive and preventive checks which occur in human population to prevent excessive growth
relate to practices affecting mortality and fertility respectively. Malthus saw the tension between
population and resources as a major cause of the misery of much of the humanity. He was not,
however, in favour of contraceptive methods, since their use did not generate the same drive to
work hard as would a postponement of marriage.
Malthus argued that the positive and preventive checks are inversely related to each other. In other
words, where positive checks are very effective, the preventive checks are relatively less effective
and vice versa.
However, in all societies, some of these checks are in constant operation although in varying
magnitude of effectiveness. Malthus believed that despite these checks, the inability of increased
food supply to keep abreast of population increase always results in some kind of a situation of
overpopulation.
DOUBLEDAY, THOMAS
He postulated that man's increase in numbers was related inversely to the food supply. Thus, areas
with better food supply, according to him, shall record slow increase in their population. Doubleday
believed that in all societies, a constant increase in population takes place in areas with worst food
supplies, i.e., amongst the poorest. By contrast, in the area having good food supply and luxuries, a
constant decrease in population goes on. Between the two extremes, lie the areas, which have
tolerably good food supplies. In these areas the population is stationary. The probable basis of
Doubleday's general law seems to be the one that was later highlighted by Castro, whereby, Castro
found that higher intake of protein reduces the fecundity, while a low protein intake raises it. Castro
apparently tried to give scientific foundation to Doubleday's natural law of population growth. The
only comment needed on this theory is that there is no scientific basis for the belief that the density
of population, the proportion of protein intake or the relative abundance of calorie intake, have any
noticeable effect upon fecundity.
GEORGE, HENRY
He questioned the validity of the principle of basic antagonism between man's natural tendency to
increase his numbers and his ability to provide subsistence for them. He strongly advocated that
unlike other living things, the increase in man's number involved the increase in his food as well.
According to him, the danger to the existence of man arises not from the ordinances of nature but
from social maladjustments.
Marxs Thesis:
36
According to sociologists, the widespread poverty and misery of the working class people was, not
due to an eternal law of nature as propounded by Malthus but to the misconceived organization of
society.
Karl Marx went one step further and argued that starvation was caused by the unequal distribution
of the wealth and its accumulation by capitalists. It has nothing to do with the population.
Population is dependent on economic and social organization. The problems of overpopulation and
limits to resources, as enunciated by Malthus, are inherent and inevitable features associated with
the capitalist system of production.
Some authors distinguish absolute overpopulation (where the absolute limit of production has been
attained but standards of living remain low) from relative overpopulation (where present production
does not support the population but the production can be augmented).
Relative under population is more common than absolute under population. Indeed, absolute under
population is rarely seen and may be found in completely secluded societies where, the degree of
replacement of population is less than unity. Relative under population occurs due to insufficient
resource development. In developed economies, rural under population is more visible, whereas in
backward countries, under population is linked to high mortality rate.
37
It is a theoretically perfect situation difficult to estimate or define. The Penguin Dictionary of
Geography characterises optimum population as a situation when the number of individuals can be
accommodated in an area to the maximum advantage of each individual.
Thus optimum population yields highest quality of life, which means each person has access to
adequate food, water, energy and air of highest quality, adequate medical care, recreational
facilities and cultural outlets. In other words, optimum population permits the highest per capita
output; therefore the marginal productivity exceeds the average productivity whereby the rates of
growth of total production are the highest.
This work formed part of a transformation in cultural geography where geographers informed by
Marx (and others) sought to reinvigorate the world of cultural geography which had been
dominated, with little change in emphasis over 60 years, by the North American tradition of Carl
Sauer and the Berkeley School. The people who would come to be known as new cultural
geographers took elements of Marxist theory and mixed it with elements of the humanistic
tradition to think about the ways in which the cultural landscape is produced and then contested.
The key theorists these writers looked to were interpreters of Marx such as the British literary
scholar Raymond Williams and the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci as well as the art theorist
John Berger. They were also influenced by the new and dynamic discipline of cultural studies that
emerged in the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham. Between them, these
theorists had taken elements of Marxism and created an active role for culture in the radical critique
of society. This engagement included a thoroughgoing revision of the basesuperstructure model at
the heart of historical materialism.
Scholars such as Williams and Gramsci insisted on the link between the economic and the cultural
but were not so sure about the notion of one being determined by the other. These writers saw
the economic and the cultural as dependent on one another and argued that forms of struggle and
contestation in the realm of culture could be just as important as struggle over the forces and
relations of production.
The new cultural geography looked predominantly to the humanist and largely British wing of
Marxist thinkers such as Raymond Williams and E. P. Thompson, both of whom had challenged the
orthodoxies of hard-line historical materialism and the structuralism of much of European Marxism.
To Thompson, for instance, class was not so much a product of a particular objective position in the
38
relations of production but a form of consciousness developed in the cultural sphere. To Williams,
culture was the most important sphere of contestation between dominant and emergent cultural
formations. He saw the realm of culture as simultaneously a realm of production and labeled his
ideas cultural materialism. Here he is referring to Marxs dictum that it is not the consciousness of
man that determines their being, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.
This is a pithy assertion of the basesuperstructure model which relegates culture to a secondary
role in understanding society. To Williams, the problem with this formulation was not that it was too
materialist, but that it was not materialist enough.
These ideas were taken up by proponents of both cultural studies and the new cultural geography in
the 1980s. Culture suddenly became an arena of the political where various forms of domination and
resistance were enacted as the different maps of meaning of different social groups came into
conflict. Its proponents were willfully eclectic in their promotion of aspects of the world that were
ripe for enquiry.
New cultural geography quickly delved into many aspects of geographical existence. Perhaps the
most important has been the idea of landscape. Landscape has been the term most often
associated with the work of Carl Sauer and his colleagues and students at Berkeley. It had remained
mostly unscrutinized by sustained theoretical inquiry. Marxist-inspired geographers Denis Cosgrove
and Stephen Daniels used ideas from Marx as well as Raymond Williams, John Berger, and others to
produce a more theoretical account of landscape as the product of distinct social formations and as
a carrier of ideology. Under the influence of Sauer, landscape was seen as either natural or
cultural, with the cultural landscape, usually rural, being the result of the work of culture on the
natural landscape. Landscape was predominantly seen as a material topography that could be
mapped and accounted for. This approach had been brought into question by the Canadian
geographer James Duncan who described this approach to culture as superorganic. By this he
meant that culture, in traditional cultural geography, had appeared to operate at a level above and
beyond human life. Interestingly, Duncan was equally critical of Marxism which he saw as another
version of the superorganic which posited political-economic structures as motivations for human
action.
He divided cities in a set of concentric circles expanding from the downtown to the suburbs. This
representation was built from Burgess' observations of a number of American cities, notably
39
Chicago, for which he provided empirical evidence. The model assumes a relationship between the
socio-economic status (mainly income) of households and the distance from the CBD. Further from
the CBD, the better the quality of housing, but the longer the commuting time. Thus, accessing
better housing is done at the expense of longer commuting times (and costs). According to this
mono-centric model; a large city can be divided into six concentric zones.
a. Historical: The urban area expanded outwards from the original site which is where
the city centre is found today.
b. Economic: Rents and rates in the CBD became too expensive for people. In the
suburbs there was more land and it was cheaper. Only businesses could afford to
stay in the CBD, but even they needed to make the most of expensive land by
building upwards.
c. Concentrations of similar land uses: One part of the urban area may have all the
advantages for industrial location so that a lot of factories want to locate there; but
few people want to live next door to a factory, so the residential areas are located
elsewhere. Planners also prefer this segregation of land uses into definite zones.
40
Multiple Nuclei Model of Harris and Ullman
The model shows that, the cities may grow from not on CBD (Central Business District), but from
several independent growth poles, which are termed as nuclei. The advantages of this model lie in
its multi nuclei approach - many sources give slight variants on the model shown in the diagram,
since the model is rather flexible and adapts to local situations (the exact positions of the nuclei are
not important but only the basic trends) so it can be modified to match the city under consideration.
Main and Secondary Urban Poles and the Positioning of the Fringe Types
(Montreal Model, 2006)
41
The model that emphasizes the best field reality in the analysis of the rural-urban fringe is that of
Montreal city. It used the functional and structural features of the territorial-administrative units
within a metropolitan zone in order to settle the limits of different zones from the studied
perimeter. The model starts from the premises of studying the functions of the main urban pole, of
the secondary urban poles and of the rapport between them and the perimeter located between
them. It also makes the difference between the fringes of all studied urban centers, as well as of the
rural fringe.
The inner margin of the fringe is generally given by the contact with the town built-up surface,
through its outskirts, while the outer margin by the contact with the truly rural area. The initially
proposed model is a simple model, because it does not include either the suburbs variable included
in the periurban as independent human settlements with a greater density of the built-up surfaces
or the variable of inclusion of the secondary urban poles within the extended fringe through the
externalization of certain functions of the main urban pole.
However, the model allows us a better vision upon the concentricity of the belts and their space
succession. Consequently, it may represent a theoretical model for the initiation of the researchers
in identifying the aforementioned zones, for a better implementation of territorial planning and a
supporting instrument for decision makers.
Models that are more complex prove the difficulty in dealing with the argument because each case
is true. At the same time, all these presented models are correct as they represent only a starting
point in the analysis of the territorial systems, and especially of the rural-urban fringe. Difficulty
consists in precisely determining the zone because its functions are quite diverse and the mixed
character between rural and urban persists, aspect derived from the name itself.
These classical models, which were all based on North American cities in the first half of the
twentieth century, can be applied with some success to cities in other places at other times, for
example we saw how the models developed in 1940s and 1950s and modified in 1960s and 1970s. In
particular, Burgess' model works well to cities that grew very rapidly, due to massive immigration - a
42
characteristic of many North American cities. One can look at other variants of these models as
applied to British cities. Further, one can go on to look at models of cities in the less economically
developed countries, such as cities in Asia and Africa.
From these two concepts the lower and upper limits of goods or services can be found. With the
upper and the lower limits, it is possible to see how the central places are arranged in an imaginary
area.
43
The pattern of cities predicted by central place theory may not hold because of the failure to meet
initial assumptions.
1. Production costs may vary not only because of economies of scale but also by natural
resource endowments (i.e. not a homogeneous plain)
2. Transportation costs are not equal in all directions
3. Rural markets (initially households) are not evenly distributed
4. Non-economic factors (culture, politics, leadership) may be important but not evenly
distributed
5. Competitive practices may lead to freight absorption and phantom freight (other forms of
imperfect competition)
Large areas of flat land are rare, with the presence of relief barriers channelling transport in
certain directions - Government intervention can dictate the location of industry - Perfect
competition is unreal with some firms making more money than others.
People vary their shopping trends, not always going to the nearest centre q People or
resources are never perfectly distributed Christaller envisaged each centre with a particular
function whereas they have many which change over time.
Heilbrun wrote: "A hierarchy is by definition a systematic arrangement of the classes of an object."
In this case the object is economic centers, large and small. The central place hierarchy provides a
description of the relationship between a central place--higher order place--and its tributary areas--
lower order places. Once this hierarchy is pointed out, anyone can see it.
Central place theory does a good job of describing the location of trade and service activity. (It also
does a good job of describing consumer market oriented manufacturing.) Trade and service activity
has an increasing relevance as the U.S. economy shifts from manufacturing to services over time.
Small-town community economic developers can secure quite specific, relevant information about
what kind of trade or service enterprise will likely work, and what kind of enterprise will not likely
work in a given small community
Improvements by Losch
The German economist August Lsch expanded on Christallers work in his book The Spatial
Organization of the Economy (1940). Unlike Christaller, whose system of central places began with
the highest-order, Lsch began with a system of lowest-order (self-sufficient) farms, which were
regularly distributed in a triangular-hexagonal pattern. From this smallest scale of economic activity,
Lsch mathematically derived several central-place systems, including the three systems of
Christaller. Lschs systems of central places allowed for specialized places. He also illustrated how
some central places develop into richer areas than others.
44
Losch development of Christaller's theory allows for
Each product has a different threshold and size of market area (represented by K-values) depending
on the relative importance costs in its price. Thus there are more K functions than the K=3, 4, and 7
(as specified in Christaller's CPT). In all, there were 150 different K values (K=9, 12, 13, 16, 19, 21,
etc., in addition) each representing a different sized market area, i.e., the size of the hexagons varies
from one K value to another.
Losch sought to find a spatial structure that would be efficient for both the producer and the
consumer. Identifying a point, which could be the centre for each of the 150 different hexagonal
market areas, could do this. To identify it, Losch arbitrarily chose just one production centre from
the entire set of production points established on the plane. He then arranged the nets (hexagons)
so that this one centre was common to them all. Losch regarded this centre common to all 150
different market areas metropolis being the highest order centre of them all. Since it is a central
place for all 150 networks it will sell all 150 goods. To find the central places the superimposed all
the 150 hexagonal market areas (imagine 150 sheets of transparencies) and rotated the hexagons
around the central bringing them to rest where the maximum number of hexagons coincided.
The nets are arranged in such a manner that alternating sectors of 30 degrees angular size radiate
out from the metropolis. There are 12 such sectors arranged alternatively so that six sectors have
very many economic activities and six others have relatively few. Losch called these "city rich" and
"city poor" sectors but these terms are misleading. Each sector has the same number of
..production points (central points) but the number of activities varies between the two types of
sector. In other words, there are more higher order centres (in Losch's scheme these are centres
with a larger number of economic activities) in the activity rich sector than in activity poor sector.
Between the rich and the poor sectors are aligned the major transport routes.
Merits of the Loschian Economic Landscape Despite the cloudiness of some Losch's statements,
there is no doubt that he produced a spatial organisation of production centres whose from is very
appealing. Losch himself saw this spatial pattern of economic activities as having several advantages.
In particular he claimed that the total distance between production points are minimised, and
therefore, both the value of shipment and the length of transport routs needed to satisfy the
demands of the system are reduced. At the same time, because the largest number of production
locations coincide, maximum purchases can be made locally. Losch's economic landscape both
maximise the number if firms operating within the market and minimises aggregate transportation
costs.
Unlike Christaller, Losch's scheme allows for the existence of specialised production centres.
The latest data show that only nine countries on the continent are on track to reach the MDG target
of cutting hunger and malnutrition in half by 2015. The nutrition status of children under five is
generally accepted as one of the best indicators of extreme poverty, and improved nutrition is a
prerequisite for reaching other MDG targets in education and health. Therefore, nutrition status is a
priority area needing urgent policy attention for socio-economic development in Africa.
Ending hunger and malnutrition will require decisive actions in several areas. One important area is
to engage the general population and especially the poor, women, children, the elderly, people
living with HIV and other vulnerable populations in successful food and nutrition security
programmes. Such programmes can help them diversify their diets through improved agriculture
(growing a variety of food crops) and livestock production. This should be accompanied by
strengthening nutrition education and nutrition actions in primary health care settings, schools and
youth programmes. Governments are urged to initiate and scale up social protection programmes
focused on food and nutrition security for the most vulnerable and to institute micronutrient
supplementation and fortification schemes. Efforts aimed at sustainable food and nutrition security
specifically targeting the most vulnerable groups must remain a priority in emergencies. New and
effective therapeutic and supplementary feeding techniques should be used.
46
Spatial science, positivism, and quantification all came under significant theoretical attack (mostly
from human geographers) from the late 1960s onward. There had always been some regional
geographers who never accepted the claims of spatial science in the first place. But by the end of the
1960s new theoretical directions, based in both a humanistic tradition and more radical (mostly
Marxist) theory, began to reject spatial science for new reasons. By the early 1980s it was quite hard
to maintain a commitment to some pure form of spatial science, such was the weight of the
onslaught against it. Many books on theory in geography are accounts of post-positivist theory as
though spatial science has nothing to offer the student of geography in the twenty first century. This
is a mistake.
There are many ways in which the traditions surrounding spatial science continue to be important.
1. First of all, the legacy of the quantitative revolution is implicit in pretty much all of
human geography today. Before the 1950s it would have been almost impossible to
write a book on theory in geography. Geographers, generally, simply did not think of
what they did as theory. Bunges Theoretical Geography and Harveys Explanation in
Geography were two books which explicitly argued for the importance of theory in
geography. Their notion of what constituted theory was itself a product of positivist
thinking and was therefore fairly narrow and unrecognizable to contemporary human
geographers who write about theory.
2. The second legacy of spatial science was the development of a focus on quantitative
methods that has remained strangely hegemonic in a discipline where very few people
actually practice them.
3. The third legacy is an interest in space and the spatial. Harvey, Bunge, Haggett, and
others involved in the promotion of spatial science were keen to move away from a
focus on regions (or areal differentiation) and to refocus on spatial relations. Space
became an important part of the geographical theoretical vocabulary. Although there
have been many developments in the ways in which space has been theorized (and
spatial science perspectives on space can seem quite nave in hindsight), the discipline
owes much to spatial science for the focus on space as a geographical phenomenon.
4. The fourth legacy is a focus on movement and process. Crowes early call for a modern
progressive geography asked geographers to move away from their obsession with the
topography of things and to look, instead, at the dynamic nature of human space
relationships. Spatial scientists followed Crowes lead and developed a considerable
body of work on movement and process. It is only recently that this focus has been
rediscovered.
5. Finally it should be underlined that spatial science never died. Many geographers still
practice spatial science in one form or another. There are whole journals dedicated to its
continued existence. Some departments continue to be marked by their interest in
quantitative methods. And there should be no doubt that spatial science has its place in
contemporary geography. It can tell us much that is important.
With the advent of high-powered computers and models based on fuzzy logic there has been a
resurgence of quantitative modeling across the social sciences. Geography has been no exception.
The merging of quantitative methods and GIS science has led to an interest in geocomputation.
47