Geog a Blog

Some of our Geog a Blog team attended a very interesting lecture at the Royal Geographical Society on Water Security, covering many important aspects of this ever-growing issue facing many parts of the world. We were lucky enough to have the opportunity to talk to the speaker, Professor Chad Staddon and give our views and opinions whilst hearing more about the topic. During the talk, there were six main areas covered which included: the definition of water security and what it means to many people, some background on the issue including climate issues, how population affects the water security and consumption patterns. Some information about the international water security network, a few varied and interesting case studies and a look at how we can reframe the definition of water security in order to attempt to be more satisfied with the definition it has been given. Water security is “the capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of accept...

Europe has been central in determining in how the environment has been managed in the UK over the last 45 years. Leaving the EU could therefore result in a fundamental shift in this management. Once Brexit has occurred, regulations relating to the environment will be able to diverge from EU standards, and in theory this could lead to much better policies which avoid current criticisms, such as the distortions caused by the Common Agricultural Policy. However, such a positive change is far from an inevitability. The environment isn’t included in the twelve principles adopted by the government to guide its approach to Brexit (Lucas 2017) and aside from this apparent lack of political motivation to make positive changes, there are a number of barriers to better environmental governance. Firstly, the EU environmental framework provides the threat of sanctions which stimulates action, and with limited accountability to the electorate through the UK electoral system (the environment rarely ...

17 th  of August is the ancient valentine’s day in Chinese culture, when couples meet each other annually on a bridge consisting of sacred birds. On this very day, however, the country is having concerns about marriage and birth rates.  Ever since the 1980s, China has been implementing the infamous “one-child policy”. Despite its controversial violations to human rights, the policy is estimated to have cut the population by 0.4 billion, causing a 4-year-delay for the world’s population to hit 6 billion.  Now, shockingly, China is set to reverse all its previous efforts. Source: the UN population projection 2015 According to Xinhua Daily, China is expecting a ‘population breakdown” by the end of the century, when the population will have dropped below 0.6 billion from its current level of 1.4 billion. Every year, the elder population (above 60) increases by 10 million nationally. Following Japan, problems regarding an ageing society and...

Following a nice lie in until 6 am we embarked on a journey to the golden circle. First, we were met by an impressive Rift Valley and wandered down some lengthy fissures where we were able to count the number of past eruptions by looking at the basaltic layers. We learnt that the Atlantic Ocean is 60 million years old due to the creation of new land from the constructive plate boundary that is the mid-Atlantic ridge. Iceland is the only part of the mid Atlantic ridge that is above sea level and it estimated to be about 25 million years old but due to the creation of new land the rocks are thought to be less than 16 millions years old. We also saw salmon in the clear blue waters ready for breeding season. At this point the torrential rain started so we headed speedily back to the warm coach. The next stop on our tour was a geyser. The monumental eruptions were truly a sight to behold. The strong smell of sulphur hit us as we wandered over. The bubbling water underneath the earths surfa...

Having woken up in the early hours in the morning, the Geography trip gang was raring to go after a lovely continental breakfast at the Fisherman’s Village accommodation area. We set off on the coach on the way to our first point of interest for the day which was Seljalandsfoss waterfall, in which we were all able to walk behind it, experiencing its powerful vapour. It was here we learnt that it is a relict cliff that was formed by eustatic change of sea levels. Following on from this we made our way to the Sólheimajökul, a glacier tongue that lies south of the Myrdalsjökull Glacier. Having put on metal crampons, harness, a helmet and a large ice axe, we were all ready to go. The adverse weather conditions were a challenge but thankfully we all had the gear to keep warm and safe. At the top of the glacier we were able to drink the glacial water which was 100 years old, and some of us took part in an old Viking tradition, a Viking Push-up over a running stream and drinkin...

After a pleasant journey on wow air we descended through adverse weather conditions into the barren depths of Iceland. We were wowed at first by the bright orange scrub and lack of vegetation and were then informed that the fields we in fact created by two types of lava, pahoehoe and aa-aa. The aa-aa type was more jagged and broken, and the pahoehoe lava fields   were more smooth with ripples. We learnt how to date lava fields, as the advancement of the vegetation succession gave a clear indication of the age of the new crust.   We visited a small geyser on the way and learnt that their water is naturally heated by hot magma and carried through pipes stretching up to 25km long (in which time the water only cools by 3 degrees Celsius). They were zig-zag shape rather than straight to allow for movement in the case of earthquakes, showing how the country has adapted to is hazards. We then re-entered the coach, and on the way to the beautiful blue lagoon we drove past some ...

Both physical and human factors play key roles in determining population change, as they both affect fertility rates, child/infant mortality rates and death rates. Fertility rate is the number of children born per woman per 1000, and is key when observing change in birth rates. Infant mortality rate is the number of infants (aged 0-1) dying per 1000, and child mortality rate is for children under 5. Many factors influence these rates and thus affect population change, such as soil fertility, anti/pro-natalist policies and healthcare. However, some factors have a greater effect than others. Physical factors such as climate play an important role, because they can determine how much agriculture occurs in an area. Rainfall, temperature, wind velocity and levels of solar insolation all determine food productivity, type of farming system adopted and which species are selected for cultivation. The more agriculture there is in an area, the higher the birth rate usually is, especially w...

Paul Collier has spent years studying why some countries manage to pull themselves out of poverty, and why some fail and find themselves stuck at low levels of development. In 'The Bottom Billion', Collier discusses his findings and outlines four poverty traps; all of the 58 countries that he has categorized as belonging to the 'bottom billion' are currently or have recently come out of at least one of these traps.   The first of the four traps is the conflict trap . This is a very significant trap as 73% of countries in the bottom billion are in a civil war or have recently experienced one. Civil war causes poverty and low incomes, as the average civil war costs a country and its neighbours $64 billion, and likewise poverty and low incomes increase the chance of a civil war; a vicious cycle is created causing countries to spiral deeper into poverty. Collier outlined what the main risk factors of civil war were: low incomes, slow economic growth, and dependence...

   There has been a focus on sustainable development since the release of  the Brundtland Report in 1987. The report defines Sustainable Development as “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The most recent global agreement is the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The EU subsequently published its own matching agenda for  sustainable development  in 2016. The UK is currently bound by both. In 2015 the UK referendum committed the UK to Brexit, the largest economic and political hiatus since the Second World War. To explore the issues our leaders should be concerned with I will evaluate what the UK has agreed to in relation to sustainable development, how much focus  sustainable development has  had in Brexit, the implication of the type of Brexit on sustainable development goals and the UK’s commitment to sustainable development in two key policy areas, ...