GEOG 2400 GEOGRAPHY OF WORLD DEVELOPMENT

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GEOG 2400 - GEOGRAPHY OF WORLD DEVELOPMENT

• Development and Environmental Issues

Spring 2002
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Environment and Development

• Population growth and urbanization will place
  increasing burdens on the local and global
  environment in the coming decades.
• Perhaps 4 billion extra people will be living in
  the developing nations by 2050.
• Some 150,000 people a day are being added to the
  total urban population which is expected to top 5
  billion by 2025.
• Between 40-60 of this is from migration, the
  rest from natural increase.
• Many LDC cities grow at 5-7 per year, doubling
  every 10-14 years.

Source WRI 1998
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• Over 40 of Bolivias urban population live in a
  single giant city (called a Primate City) La
  Paz - much of it ramshackle suburbs of recent
  immigrants struggling to provide basic services.

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Geographical Push and Pull

• A similar process exists in developing nations
  that occurred in the industrialized nations since
  the Industrial Revolution.
• Pull factors include the prospect of jobs and
  higher incomes and the perceived higher material
  standards of urban living compared to rural life.
• Push factors include rural poverty, lack of
  services and infrastructure, lack of land for
  farming by the children of farmers, declining
  availability of farm laborer jobs, environmental
  damage from erosion and natural disasters, and
  the impacts of warfare or civil unrest.

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Increasing concentrations

• Where will all the resources come from to provide
  for the needs of all these additional people?
• What environmental impacts will result from this
  population growth and the increasing
  concentration of people in dense urban centers?
• By 2015, there are expected to be 33 megacities
  with populations exceeding 8 million, and 27 of
  these will be in the developing world.
• The number of million-people cities will grow
  from 270 in 1990 up to 516 by 2015, almost all of
  these new giants in the developing nations.

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• Lagos, Nigeria, is one of Africas largest cities
  and rapid growth outpaces the infrastructure of
  roads, water and sewer systems, solid waste
  handling and electrical power supplies.

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Urban environmental challenges

• Water supply and sanitation - sewage and
  industrial effluents are released into water
  sources and existing supplies become inadequate,
  necessitating massive investments in new
  reservoirs and pipelines new systems will be
  2-3 times more expensive than existing ones.
• Watersheds urban land use expands onto nearby
  watershed lands, introducing contaminants and
  causing deforestation and erosion that fills
  reservoirs with sediments.
• Solid waste management - even poor urban
  communities produce large quantities of waste and
  often it is dumped within the urban fabric or
  burned adding to pollution. Toxic and household
  wastes are frequently mixed.

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Declining air quality

• Air pollution - this exceeds health standards in
  many developing country cities and can be far
  worse than the mythical Los Angeles.
• Both indoor and outdoor air pollution are
  problems.
• It is expected to get significantly worse and an
  increasing contributor to morbidity.
• Air pollution in some Chinese cities is currently
  among the highest ever recorded worldwide, 10
  times WHO health standards - SO2, TSPs and lead
  are acute.
• The World Bank estimated that the negative
  effects of air and water pollution alone can be
  valued at around 8 of GNP or more than 50
  billion.

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C02 output on the rise

• China generates 75 of its commercial energy
  using coal and adds some 10,000 megawatts of
  power each year.
• China has become the second largest producer of
  greenhouse gases after the USA.
• Energy supply - by 2020, the world demand for
  energy could increase by 54-98, with only some
  2-4 coming from renewable sources.
• The other 96-98 expected to be from fossil fuels
  (esp. coal). This adds to air pollution and the
  potential for global warming.
• According to WRI 2001, world electricity
  generation rose 32 from 1987-97, much faster
  than the increase in population.
• Developing country electricity generation rose by
  99 from 1987-1997.
• Average per capita CO2 output was 3,900 kg in
  1997 many developing nations have ratified the
  Kyoto Protocol and many of the industrialized
  nations have not.
• Table 18 of HDR 2002 shows 1997 levels but not
  rates of change yet.

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Coastal resources at risk

• Wetlands, coral reefs and mangrove forests are
  all at tremendous risk from expanding cities at
  the coastal fringe.
• Wetlands are filled for housing, industry and
  dumps, increasing the risk of flooding and
  problems of pollution.
• Coral reefs are dynamited, cyanide is used for
  fishing and the inflow of silt and nutrients
  blocks out light, reduces oxygen and raises
  temperatures, killing the living reefs.
• Mangroves are cut down for firewood, converted to
  housing, marinas or shrimp farms, thus removing
  natural protection from hurricanes and
  eliminating nursery grounds for economically
  important fish and shellfish.

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Deforestation

• Population growth requires the increased use of
  firewood for fuel, lumber for building and
  export, and greater land for the growing of crops
  by rural populations (slash and burn) and for
  commercial farming to supply urban populations
  and for export.
• It is calculated that roughly two football fields
  worth of tropical forest are chopped down every
  second, mostly in Asia and Latin America, to make
  way for other activities or for logging.
• More than 20 of world tropical forest cover was
  eliminated from 1960 to 1990, mirroring the kinds
  of deforestation rates carried out by the
  developed nations in their early days of
  development.
• Moreover, some 500,000 hectares (over a million
  acres) of non-forest farmland are converted to
  urban land each year in the developing nations.