Environmental Science

Human Population Change and the Environment

- Individuals of a given species are part of a larger organization called a population.

- Populations exhibit characteristics that are distinct from those of the individual in them.
- Some of them features characteristics of populations but not individuals are birth and death rates, growth rates,
and age structure.
- Understanding human population change is important because the size of the human population is ventral to
most of Earth’s environmental problems and their solutions.

Population Ecology

- The branch of biology that deals with the number of individuals of a particular species found in an area and how
and why those numbers increase or decrease over time.

How do population Change in Size?

- On a global scale, this change is due to two factors:

o Birth rate (b) – the rate at which individual organisms produce offspring
o Death rate (d) – rate at which individual organisms die
- Growth rate (r) of the population is the birth rate (b) minus the death rate (d)
o Growth rate “r” – the rate change (increase or decrease) of a population’s size, expressed in percentage
per year.
- If more individuals in a population are born than die, the growth rate is more than zero, and population size
increases
- If more individuals in a population die than are born, the growth rate is less than zero, and population size
decreases.
- If the growth rate is equal to zero, births and deaths match, and population size is stationary, despite continued
reproduction and death.
- Dispersal – movement from one region or country to another
o Immigration – individual enters a population and increase in its size
o Emigration – individual leaves a population and decrease its size.
- The growth rate “r” of a local population must take into account birth rate (b), death rate (d), immigration (i),
and emigration (e)
- The growth rate equals (birth rate minus death rate) plus (immigration plus emigration)
- R = (b – d) + (i + e)

Maximum Population Growth

- Biotic potential – the maximum rate at which a population could increase under ideal conditions
- Factors that affect biotic potentials:
o The age which reproduction begins
o The fraction of the life span which an individual can reproduce
o Number of reproductive periods per lifetime
o Number of offspring produced during each period of reproduction
- These factors, called life history characteristics, determine whether a particular species has a large or a small
biotic potential.

Exponential Population Growth

- The acceleration population growth that occurs when optimal conditions allow a constant reproductive rate.
- J Curve
o When a population grown exponentially, the larger the population gets, the faster it grows.
o Regardless of species, whenever a population grown at its biotic potential, population size plotted
versus time gives the same J-shaped curve
o The only variable is time.

Environmental Resistance and Carrying Capacity

- Organisms don’t reproduce indefinitely at their biotic potentials because they are restricted by environmental
limits, which are collectively called environmental resistance.
- The environmental conditions might worsen to a point where the death rate exceeds the rate of reproduction,
and as a result, the population decreases
- Thus, the environment controls population size: As the population increases, so does environmental resistance,
which limits population growth.

Carrying Capacity

- The largest population a particular environment can support sustainability (long term), if there are no changes in
that environment.
- Over longer periods, environmental resistance may eventually reduce the rate of population growth to nearly
zero. This levelling out occurs at or near the environment’s carrying capacity (K).
- In nature, carrying capacity is dynamic and changes in response to environmental changes.

- A population nearly stabilizes at carrying capacity but it’s size may temporarily rise than K
- Then it will drop back or below to K which will lead to population crash (An abrupt decline from high to low
population density when resources are exhausted)
Human Population Patterns

- It took tens of thousands of years for human population to reach 1 billion, a milestone that took place around
1800.
- It took 130 years to reach 2 billion (in 1930), 30 years to reach 3 billion (in 1960), 15 years to reach 4 billion (in
1975),
- 12 years to reach 5 billion (1987), 12 years to reach 6 billion (in 1999), and 12 years to reach 7 billion (in 2011).
- Thomas Malthus – British economist
o He pointed out that human population growth is not always desirable—a view contrary to the beliefs of
his day and to those of many people even today.
- Our world population was 7.3 billion in mid-2015, an increase of about 98 million from 2014.
- The population growth is due instead to a dramatic decrease in the death rate (d), which has occurred primarily
because greater food production, better medical care, and improvements in water quality and sanitation
practices have increased life expectancy for a great majority of the global population

Projecting Future Population Numbers

- Human population has reached a turning point

- Our world growth rate is increasing but the growth rate has declined slightly over the past several years from a
peak of 2.2% per year in the mid1960s to the current growth of 1.2 % per year.
- The UN and world bank projects that the growth rate will continue to decline and will eventually reach zero
population growth by the end of 21 st century
- Zero population growth – the state which the population remains the same size because birth rate equals death
rate
- Exponential growth will of human population will end
- Human population will reach 9.7 billion in 2050 with a 95% likelihood between to 10.2 billion
 - Earth’s carrying capacity – 4 to 16 billion
o The main unknown factor in any population growth scenario
- What will happen to the human population when it approaches Earth’s carrying capacity?
o Optimists suggest that a decrease in the birth rate will stabilize the human population.
o Some experts take a more pessimistic view and predict that our ever-expanding numbers will cause
widespread environmental degradation and make Earth uninhabitable for humans as well as other
species.

Demographic of Countries

- Demographics – the applied branch of sociology that deals with population statistics
- Highly developed countries has lower birth rate
o Infant mortality rate – the number of deaths of infants under age 1 per 1000 live births.
- Per person GNI PPP is a country’s gross national income (GNI) in purchasing power parity (PPP) divided by its
population.
- It indicates the amount of goods and services an average citizen of that particular country could buy in the
United States.
- There is a high average per person GNI PPP in the United States--$55,860—as compared to the worldwide figure
of $15,030.
- In moderately developed countries such as Mexico, Thailand and most South American countries birth rate and
infant mortality rate are higher compared to highly developed countries but are decreasing
- Moderately developed countries have a medium level of industrialization, and their average per person GNI
PPPs are lower than those of highly developed countries.
- Less developed countries, such as Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Niger, Ethiopia, Laos, and Cambodia, have the
shortest life expectancies.
- The lowest average per person GNI PPPs, the highest birth rates, and the highest infant mortality rates in the
world
- Replacement level fertility – a number of children a couple must produce to replace themselves
- Total fertility rate – the average number of children born to each women

Demographic Transition
 - The process whereby a country moves from relatively high birth and death rates to relatively low birth and
death rates.
- Demographers recognize four demographic stages based on their observations of Europe as it became
industrialized and urbanized
- During these stages, Europe moved from relatively low birth and death rates, as a result of industrialization.

Age Structure of Countries

- The number and proportion of people at each age in a population

- A population’s age structure helps predict future population growth.

Stabilizing World Population

Culture and Fertility

- The values and norms of a society—what is considered right and important and what is expected of a person—
are all a part of that society’s culture.
- A society’s culture, which includes its language, beliefs, and spirituality, exerts a powerful influence over
individuals by controlling behavior.
- Religious values
o Several studies done in the United states point to differences in TFRs among Catholics, Protestants, and
Jews
o In general, Catholic women have a higher TFR than either Protestant or Jewish women, and women who
don’t follow any religion have the lowest TFRs of all.

The Social and Economic Status of Women

- Evidence suggests that the single most important factor affecting high TFRs may be the low status of women in
many societies.
- An effective strategy for reducing population growth, then, is to improve the social and economic status of
women
- Education increases the probability that women will know how to control their fertility. It also provides
knowledge to improve the health of the women’s families, which results in a decrease in infant and child
mortality.
 Family Planning Services

- Socioeconomic factors may encourage people to want smaller families

- Family planning services provide information on reproductive physiology and contraceptives, as well as on the
actual contraceptive devices available, to people who wish to control the number of children they have or to
space out their children’s births.
- Family planning programs are most effective when they are designed with sensitivity to local social and cultural
beliefs.
- Family planning services don’t try to force people to limit their family sizes; rather, they attempt to convince
people that small families (And the contraceptives that promote small families) are acceptable and desirable.

Family Planning Services

- In recent years, the governments of at least 78 developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the
Caribbean have taken measures to limit population growth.
- Most countries sponsor family planning projects, which are integrated with health care, education, economic
development, and efforts to improve women’s status.

Population and Urbanization

- Urbanization – a process whereby people move from rural areas to densely populated cities.

Environmental Problems of Urban Area

- Brownfields – areas of abandoned, vacant factories, warehouses, and residential sites that may be
contaminated from past uses
 - A well-planned city actually benefits the environment by reducing pollution and preserving rural areas
- Compact Development – design of cities in which tall, multiple-unit residential buildings are close to shopping
and jobs, and all are connected by public transportation.

Urbanization Trend

- 53% of population lives in the city

- Greater in highly developed countries
- 77% in developed countries
- 48% in less developed
- Each week the world’s cities increase by approximately one billion people
- Currently, most urban growth in the world is occurring in developing countries, whereas highly developed
countries are experiencing little urban growth
- In contrast, the fast pace of urban growth in developing nations has outstripped the limited capacity of many
cities to provide basic services.
- It has overwhelmed their economic growth (Although cities still offer more job possibilities than rural areas).
- Consequently, cities in developing nations generally face more serious challenges than cities in highly developed
countries.
- These challenges include substandard housing (slums and squatter settlements) poverty; exceptionally high
unemployment; urban violence; environmental degradation and increasing water and air pollution, and
inadequate or nonexistent water, sewage and waste disposal.
- Rapids urban growth also strains school, medical, and transportation systems
- Virtually all environmental problems are exacerbated—and sometimes triggered—by rapid population growth,
so urbanization challenges society to develop solutions to burgeoning environmental issues while addressing the
vast needs of urban populations.

Reference:
•HASSENZAHL, D. M. (2017).VISUALIZING
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE.S.l.: WILEY.