Tutorial-2 Population Growth

1. World population in 1850 has been estimated at about 1 billion. World population reached 4 billion in
1975.

(a) Use the doubling time approximation to estimate the exponential rate of growth that would produce
those numbers

(b) Use the exponential growth equation to find the growth rate.

2. The worlds population 10,000 years ago has been estimated at about 5 million. What exponential rate
of growth would have resulted in the population in 1850 (1 billion)? Had that rate continued what would
the population have been in the year 2000?

3. The following statistics are for India in 1995: population 931 million; crude birth rate 29; crude death
rate 9; infant mortality 74.
Find (a) the fraction of the total deaths that are infants less than 1 year old;
(b) the avoidable deaths assuming that any infant mortality above 10 could be avoided with better
sanitation, food, and health care;
(c) the annual increase in the number of people in India.
For comparison the population growth rate was 16 million a year in 1985 and 2.8 deaths were avoidable.

4. Consider the following simplified age structure: all births are on the mothers twentieth birthday and all
deaths are on the sixtieth birthday. Total population starts at 290,000 (half males, half females) and is
growing at a constant rate of 3.5 % per year (Figure 1). Draw the age structure in 20 years. If the total
fertility rate is a single, constant value during those 20 years, estimate it!

Figure 1

5. A forest area has a carrying capacity of 7000 deer. At the current level of recreational hunting 300 deer
per year are taken during a 2-week hunting season. After the season, the deer population is always 2200
deer. Suppose, it is desirable to maximize the sustainable yield of deer from the forest:
(a) What should be the population size of deer in the forest?
(b) What will be the maximum sustainable yield of deer from the forest?
(c) If hunting were stopped so no further deer were taken from the forest, how long would it take for the
population size to reach the population (part (a)) that is necessary for maximum sustainable yield?