Human geography: populations, water and cities

Fictional regions A and B each cover 2,000 km2. A has 800,000 people, of whom 600,000 occupy a 200 km2 coastal plain. B has 200,000 people. Over one year A records 16,000 births, 8,000 deaths and net migration +2,000; B records 3,000 births, 2,000 deaths and net migration -2,000. (a) Calculate average densities, A's coastal-plain density and both annual population growth rates using opening populations. (b) Explain plausible physical, economic and historical controls on these distributions. (c) Evaluate why average density, total population growth and pressure on resources are not interchangeable, and why these invented regions cannot establish current global patterns.

Two fictional snapshots for one country give crude birth/death rates per thousand of 38/18 in year A and 14/9 in year B. Its population shares aged 0-14, 15-64 and 65+ change from 40%,55%,5% to 20%,65%,15%. Assume the working-age definition is 15-64. (a) Calculate natural increase rates and total age-dependency ratios. (b) Place the snapshots tentatively in a demographic-transition narrative and explain why falling mortality may precede falling fertility. (c) Evaluate impacts of youthful versus ageing structures and two limitations of the model, including migration. Explain why a smaller total dependency ratio does not mean old-age dependency fell.

Real source brief: Singapore's National Library dates the shift to a policy encouraging larger families to 1 March 1987, replacing the earlier two-child policy. China's State Council portal describes the 2021 third-child policy and proposals to reduce childbearing, childcare and education costs. These are historical policy descriptions, not evidence of subsequent success. (a) Compare the motivations and instruments in the two countries, distinguishing a regulatory limit from incentives or services. (b) Explain how housing costs, gendered care burdens, employment and personal reproductive choices can mediate response. (c) Design a fair evaluation of relative success in one country using dated fertility, age structure, implementation and rights evidence. State what remains impossible to conclude from these two briefs.

Consider fictional people crossing international borders: A takes a six-month farm contract intending to return; B joins a spouse intending to settle permanently; C flees persecution and has an asylum claim awaiting determination; D has been recognised as a refugee. (a) Classify economic/social motivation, temporary/permanent intention and forced displacement where supported. (b) Explain why C and D are not identical administrative descriptions and why time spent abroad alone cannot reveal motive. (c) A survey reports 120 temporary workers, 80 family settlers and 50 people with protection-related moves among 250 distinct respondents in mutually exclusive survey categories. Calculate shares, then evaluate why these categories conceal mixed motives and cannot establish any individual's legal status.

In a fictional aquifer, annual recharge is 24 million m3, pumping is 30 million m3 and groundwater discharge to a river is 6 million m3. Assume no other flows and use change in storage=inflows-outflows. A new paved development reduces recharge by 4 million m3/year with other flows unchanged for this bookkeeping comparison. (a) Calculate both annual storage changes and the extra depletion. (b) Explain how precipitation, geology and seasonality affect usable surface/groundwater patterns, distinguishing stock from renewable flow. (c) Explain how urban paving, irrigation, dams and deforestation can alter transfers or stores, and why the fixed-discharge assumption may fail as this real-world system adjusts. Evaluate physical versus infrastructure-related water scarcity.

A fictional town has 100,000 residents using 120 litres per person per day, industry using 3 million litres/day and irrigation using 5 million litres/day. The plant actually treats 22 million litres/day safely, but only 18 million litres/day reaches users after distribution losses. Assume daily demand figures are comparable. (a) Calculate total demand, the delivered-water deficit and distribution loss as a percentage of treated water. (b) Evaluate how drought, contamination, salinity and treatment capacity affect quantity versus quality. (c) Calculate the new balance if household use falls to 100 litres/person/day and industry cuts use by 20%, irrigation unchanged. Compare demand management, leak reduction and new supply, including affordability and who bears restrictions.

A fictional country has 4 million urban and 6 million rural residents at time A. At time B these totals are 4.8 and 7.2 million. Between B and C, 0.3 million residents are added to the urban population through natural increase, 0.4 million through net rural-urban migration and 0.5 million through boundary reclassification. Assume no other urban change. (a) Calculate the urban share at A/B and urban absolute/percentage growth. (b) Calculate the urban total at C and distinguish urban growth from urbanisation; explain why the national urban share at C cannot be found from the urban data alone. (c) Explain attraction/pressure factors, natural increase and reclassification, and evaluate housing, infrastructure and labour-market effects without assuming all growth comes from migration.

A fictional city plan places a commercial core beside a rail terminus, an old factory corridor downstream, newer offices beside an orbital interchange, expensive housing on a serviced ridge and lower-rent housing on a floodplain. These are invented locations, not a real city case. (a) Draw and label the pattern and explain accessibility, land value, environmental quality and historical path dependence as possible controls. (b) Compare a concentric-zone explanation with sectoral/multiple-nuclei explanations and identify evidence that could contradict each. (c) Evaluate income, discrimination, tenure, planning and community networks as explanations of residential segregation; propose a map-based test and explain why a land-price map alone cannot show household preference or consent.

A fictional retailer compares a central site costing 0.9 million currency units in annual rent plus 0.2 million deliveries, with an edge site costing 0.4 million rent plus 0.35 million deliveries and 0.1 million extra utilities. Ignore all other cost differences in part (a). (a) Calculate the annual private-cost difference. (b) Explain why offices, factories and retailers might relocate for different reasons, considering access, technology, land needs and planning. (c) Evaluate central-area decline/regeneration, edge traffic, worker accessibility and displaced uses; identify two missing pieces of evidence that could reverse a recommendation based solely on the cost calculation.