Case Studies

Physical causes:

- 500mm/4 hours
- Confluence of Valency and Jordan Rivers
- Impermeable ground + steep slopes

Human Causes:

- Unprepared
- Building on floodplains
- Deforestation in Valleys

Short-term effects:

- Roads blocked 
- 100 cars swept away
- vistor's centre + B&B destroyed

Long-term effects:

- £20 million insurance claims
- 25 businesses properties destroyed
- Tourism (makes up 90% income) damaged relationship (cancellations)

Short-term Responses:

- Sand bags distributed
- RAF helicopters S&R

Long-term Responses:

- £4.6 million flood defence scheme 2008
- River bed lowered by 0.75m (on average)
- New defences (overflow valves) added

Physical causes:

- 80% Delta
- Cyclones frequently hit
- River silt raised river bed (increased soil erosion)

Human causes:

- Poverty (3 P's)
- Deforestation
- Global warming (Himalayan ice caps melting)

Short-term effects:

- 600 people killed
- 100,000 people effected by water-borne diseases
- Rice crop devastated

Long-term effects:

- $7 billion damage
- 30 million homeless

Short-term responses:

- water purifiaction tablets distributed
- free seeds given to farmers 
- temporary embankment repairs

Long term responses:

- Reducing deforestation
- Introducing flood warning systems
- Dams planned

Incentives:

- £1064 given for having a 3rd child
- 100% mortage paid + preferential treatment for 3 bed council housing
- 30% off public transport for 3 children families
- 3 years of paid parental leave
- Lowered retirement age, 3 children = 53 

Limited success:

- Birth rate still falling, just less rapidly

Aim:

- Try and decrease population density in Java + Bali

Background information:

- 240 million people living on 17,000 islands
- Sparsely populated islands: Sumatra + West Papua
- 2.5 million people moved

Incentives:

- Promise of farmland + equipment
- First 18months receive living allowance

Today:

- Very limited due to funds
- 250,000 wanted to move in 2010 but only 10,000 did (cost: $160million)

Economic:

- $7,000 per person to move
- funded by World Bank + Government

Environmental:

- Increased rate of deforestation in West Papua
- Overuse of resources as they try to pay for policy (logging, mining)

Social:

- Rivalry with Aeta tribes
- Poverty not solved just moved

Facts:

- In 2007 there were 607,000 job vacanies in the UK
- The Office of National Statistics suggested, since 1997: 1.67million jobs were created in the British economy and 98% filled by migrants

Positives:

- Remittances £1 billion

Negatives:

- Brain drain (500 doctors)
- Population fell by 0.3% from 2003-2007
- Shortage of workers = Slowed economy

Positives:

- Migrants adding £2.8billion to economy each year
- 63% Polish migrants 25-43 and 40% degree
- 10% located in rural areas, helping to support local services

Negatives:

- Migration set to increase population to 65million by 2016
- 2007, 42 rationally motivated attacks reported
- Migrants brought 32,000 dependents

Primary effects:

- 230,000 dead
- 2 million effected

Secondary effects:

- $11.5million damage
- 1.5 million homeless
- 700 killed by cholera (mainly children)

Immideate responses:

- UK disaster commitee raised £100 million
- 200,000 people received money/food for searching through rubble
- High tech sensor flown in from MEDCS (Dominican Republic/US)

Long-term responses:

- 3/4 buildings repaired
- 7,000 transmigrated from Port-au-Prince
- $100million World Bank Pledge (resettlement)

Primary:

- 6,434 dead
- 40,000 seriously injured

Secondary:

- 300,000 homeless
- $200billion damage
- 1 million without water for 10 days

Kobe:

- Subductive plate boundary

Haiti:

- Conservative plate boundary
- Fault runs through capital, Port-au-Prince

Causes:

- movement along fault close to subduction zone (Pacific plate and NA plate)

Formation of Tsunamis:

- Tectonic movement causing earthquake
- Epicentre on sea bed
- Sea is forced upwards
- Sea movement increases in amplitude and wavelength decreases as it get shallow

Sendai was the port city which was effected the most.

100,000 Japense Soldiers sent to help

Primary:

- Parts of Japan shifted 2.4 metres east
- Over 20,000 dead
- 3, 375 missing

Secondary:

- 5-8m upthrust along 180km of sea bed (Tsunami reached 39m in Miyalo city) 
- Hugh coastal flooding
- 200,000 people evacuated from Fukashima as Nuclear power plant effected
- $309 billion damage
- Gas lines ruptured + caught fire

Primary effects:

- 847 killed
- Ash cloud reached 22 miles into the air
- Pyroclastic flows reached 40-50mph

Secondary effects:

- 20 million tonnes of Sulphur dioxide released into stratosphere
- $500 million damage
- 1.2 million people displaced, moved to slums in Manila

Immideate:

- 750, 000 evacuated = great success for prediction 
- 18,000 evacuated from Clark Air Base
- Health advisories issues, people suffering from: asthma + sore eyes

Long-term:

- 10 billion peso fund set aside for aid + resettlement
- 5 stages of volcanic alert issued in papers/radio/tv delievered daily: done by N.G.Os. (1 = low level seismic disturbance, 5 = major eruption in progress)

Farming:

- Terraces built into valley sides (trap water)
- Subsistence farming (soya, maize)

HEP:

- Narrow valleys idea = cut cost + increase water velocity
- Melting snow fuels dam

Mining:

- Yanacocha gold mine (largest in world)
- Nearby town of Cajamarca population 30k - 240k in 2005
- Gold extracted using cyanide = water contamination

Tourism:

- Inca trail/ Machu Picchu
- Natural attractions

Soils:

- Thin, infertile soil = plants cannot root well + easily washed away
- Better at the valleys than slope
- Contaminated water from mining

Relief:

- Steep sided valleys = hard + expensive to build on 
- Low levels of oxygen in areas as reaches 7,600km in altitude
- cold climate = short growing period

Communication:

- Bad telecommunication
- Long emergency response times
- Poor infrastructure in areas

Effects:

• 87,000 dead
• 10,000km2 land destroyed
• 15cm of ash covering a 1,000km radius (1/3 effected would die)
• Volcanic Winter = Global tempertures fall by 12-15 degrees
• Constant snow fall for 3 years in NA, Asia, EU
• Crops fail = 40% World's population would starve

• 24,000 new homes: - 70% apartments = attracting economically active population
• Large scale projecy

• Smaller scale project
• 1990s
• £37.5 million project building new homes + improving existing ones
• Built mainly for working class families
• Combination of semi-detached + terraced housing
• Good transport links

Background information:

- 800,000 - 1 million people living in 1 square mile
- Most people live below $1 a day
- Squatter settlement = slum/favela but the land is not owned by the people on it

Problems:

• 25% of the population suffer from HIV/AIDS
• 100,000 orphans (high levels)
• 84% don't have access to clean water
• 40 people per standpipe (public tap)

Solutions:

• self-help scheme (flat-pack)
• site and service (pre-built)
• local authority (ikea)

Britsh charity creating cheap building materials such as: building blocks and roof tiles, they are part of a self-help scheme - trying to aid the people living slums improve their conditions

Adv: low cost

Disadv: might not know how to build

13 eco friendly rooms, with 2 full-time physicians and 6 clinicians

How Does It Help?

• Provides HIV/AIDs counselling 
• Providing youth friendly reproductive health clinics (educting young people)
• 40,000 visit the clinic each year

Centre for reproductive health and provides a safe place for adolescent girls, after 2 years the girls become Alumni and stay on helping to educate more girls.

How Does It Help?

• Increases the education of young girls making them less likely to encounter: HIV/AIDS, Prostitution, ****, Poverty

10,000 people were displaced from their homes after presidental election in which thousands of houses were burned to the ground.

How Does It Help:

• Creates a place of refuge for people were they are taught how to mediate violence, meaning that younger people are less likely to join gangs

Social Impacts:

• 3,200 children vacinated against the common flu
• 600 people accessed HIV care/treatment
• 315 members joined school based health clubs

Economic Impacts:

• 2,400 clients pay 415 shillings per month for garbage collection
• 35 youths are employed by this
• 17 small businesses graduated from GET-IT (computer based entreprenurship)

Air:

1984, Union Carbide factory exploded in Bhopal India.

• 8,000 killed instantly
• 20,000 killed over 20 years (in total)
• 50,000 left permenantly disabled

Shanghai, China. There is now 30,000 tonnes of waste created each day and industries are responsible for 70% of CO2 emissions

Water:

Ganges River, India. Contains: untreated waste, faeces, harmful chemicals. This is water in which people bath/play meaning water-borne diseases widespread.

General Waste:

• 4.5million new computers arrive in Mumbai each year + broken down by very poor for metal
• Releases lead and means people doing it have 10x more lead in blood = die sooner

Water:

Electrical crematoriums installed on the Ganges

Ganga action plan1986 attempted to clean Ganges of waste/disease it was partially successful

Water/general waste:

• The Huangpu and Suzhou rivers given $200million loan from WB to improve water quality.
• Solid waste disposal units installed in most houses, fertilisers is created and given to rural areas

Air:

• 55 flyovers built to try and reduce congestion in Mumbai and air pollution
• Mumbai has 58k taxis running on Natural Gas

• Small scale sustainable community
• Mixed-use housing: - 66 houses, 800 apartments (1-2 bed apt. + ground floor studio flats)
• Young economically active residents (majority)
• 'Chips' building = combined office space + apartments

LEEDS

• Provides english classes - greater chance of getting better job
• Provide basic working/job skills - greater chance of getting better job
• Community centres/ events, e.g. cultural events, food fairs - brings communities together 
• Encourage supermarkets to provide ethnically diverse products

• Introduced after the famine of 1959-1961, in which 35 million people died, there was a baby boom which was set to lead them into another famine

Incentives:

• 5-10% salary increase
• priority housing, pension and family benefits

Disincentives:

• 10% salary decrease
• Fine so large it would cause bankrupcy
• Have to pay for child's education and health care

Successes:

• Stopped the population doubling over 40 years
• Women can have successful careers without having to worry about childcare
• The predicted famine was avoided

Problems:

• 60 million more men than women
  
• Mass infanticide of girls 
• 15million orphaned girls

Changes since 1990:

• 2015, the policy has been relaxed to 2 children to try and raise Natural change to the Replacement rate
• Ethnic minorities can have more children to prevent the loss of the minority
• It is illegal to discrimate based on gender
• Sichuan Province EQ policy relaxed to 2 kids

• Located in South-east England
• Covers 2500 HA
• Managed by the City of London Corporation
• Leisure activities: horse riding, running and mountain biking

Management:

• Trees are being pollarded (cut to 2-5m)
• Large area declared as Site of Special Scientific Interest - protecting vegetation and animals found there
• Damaging activities such as mountain biking is being controlled - but bikers ignore signposts and continue to damage the area
• Replanting areas have been set aside - no public access

National Forest Policy:

• 1977 National Forestry Act aims:

1. Increase profit from trees => processing into planks
2. Increase research & conservation

• Selective Management System:

- 1-2 years before survey area to measure impacts and plan
- Felling done by government approved fellers
- After study to measure impacts

National Parks:

• Gov identify forest estates which become protected
  
• 10% forest land cannot be felled

Forest Stewardship Council:

• International organisation promoting sustainability
• FSC label = from sustainably managed source

Developing eco-tourism:

• See natural beauty without damaging the env = promoting sustainability
• Local materials used to create homes + renewable energy sources
• Local tour guide with small tour groups only

Logging:

• 1980 rampant logging = world's largest exporter of wood
• Illegal logging in Borneo on marginal land 

Energy production (HEP):

• $2 billion Bakun Dam, flooded 1000s HA forest, 230km2 destroyed
• 10,000 indigenous people forced out

Resettlement:

• Transmigration policy
• 15,000 HA felled for settlement + plantations

Fires:

• Slash & burn can cause wild fires

Information:

• Runs from NW India - Pakistan (same size as the UK)
• 30million people living there

Climate:

• Low rainfall 120-240mm per year
• Summer temp. in July reaches 53 degrees celcius

Economic opportunities:

• Rajasthan rich in minerals, Gypsum, limestone, marble
• Popular tourist destination

Challenges:

• Overgrazing + overcultivation = desertification (soil weaker = easily erode)
• Fire wood is decreasing rapidly as used in cooking
• Salinisation = soil fertility decreases (water evap. leaving layer of salt = poisonous to plants)

Sustainable Management:

• 1977, Desert Development Plan = conserve water, land, livestock
• Desert National Park 3,000 km2 of arid land + species protected
• Ber tree can survive with low rainfall + high temps + produce edible fruit

Information:

• Combined populations of Tucson + Phoenix doubled from 1.8 million to 3.6 million over 20 years

Economic opportunities:

• 70/80s lots of work as builders
• Large golf resorts (waiter)

Challenges:

• Mountains block moisture from reaching desert = low rainfall
• Water table decreasing rapidly as aquifers are being over used

Sustainable management: using wealth to overcome problem

• Dams on Colorado river conserve water + source of HEP (Hoover Dam)
• Irrigation canals created by Central Arizona Plan 500km long costing $4billion
• Water regulations to try and conserve water

UN Habitat

• Provides affordable electricity 1300 kenyan shillings/ £2.25 per house
• 15 year long project began in 2003 and plans to rehouse thousands of Kiberan residents done by the Kenyan Gov and UN
• In the first year 770 people were successfully re-housed in houses with all services

Help with local community projects