Technological Fix - Case Studies
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- Created by: ellie98
- Created on: 02-04-16 13:20
Hyperconnected Countries
- Considered hyperconnected if their Digital Access Index is over 75
- Includes countries such as:
- Japan
- South Korea
- USA
- UK
- Netherlands
- Canada
- These locations are key to the knowledge economy
- "An economy in which growth is dependant on the quantity, quality and accessibilty of the information available, rather than the means of production."
- Industries driving technological devlopment
- Very wealthy and so can afford to invest in other sectors (education, healthcare..)
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The Indian - African Union Summit
- At the end of the Indian-African Union Summit, in April 2008, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that India and Africa must meet their food needs through domestic production
-> promised to help Africa with technology to increase farm productivity - African leaders = ready for investment and technology from India's more mature economy
- Sharing of experiences and information on food storage and processing technologies
- This will encourage uptake of African and Indian developed technologies for farming and agricultural products
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CARFOCIAL, Andean Highlands, Columbia
- Farming community working with scientists to experiment with high-tech innovations
- Encourages Latin American farmers to adopt technology to increase yields and productivity
- Introduced in 1990 - a "local agricultural research committee" in San Basco, a village high in the Andes
- Led to a mini-boom in cultivation of maize there
- NGO funded project
- Success due to technological advances in maize selection and production shared with 114 farming families
- Acting as community based researchers for the International Center for Tropical Agriculture
- Encouraged poor farmers to adopt new technology and incorporate it into their farming
- Approach has involved farmers in both research + decision making
- Bottom-up approach
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Agro-Technology Park, Gannoruwa, Sri Lanka
- State of the art technology complex - ensures latest recommendations in crop cultivation and technology
- Generated by public institutions (government departments and universities) and private institutions - adopted by farmers
- The Park = leading research into rice development in Sri Lanka, including hybrid varieties and also organising their release into general cultivation
- GM crops
- Also houses technological research gardens and food technology centres
- Ensures food security increase and productivity increase for a larger income for the farmers
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High Speed Rail - Europe
- Took off in September 1981
- French Train a Grande Vitesse (TGV) started services between Paris + Lyon
- Today = 3,000km of high speed railway in europe - 970 trains + 100 million passengers a year
- Plans = build 6,000km more by 2020 - creating railway 'hubs'
- Railway holidays experiencing a renaissance
- Demand doubled in 2006 compared to 2005
- Eurostar - terminal at St Pancras opened in 2007
- London - Paris, Lillle and Brussles reduced by 20km
- Paris - Strasbourg reduced by 2 hours
- Paris - Basel and Stuttgart reduced by 1.5 hours
- Construction: Spain - Italy lines and Spain - Portugal and France under construction
- Rail tunnel under the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain to Morocco
- Europe could be linked to Africa by 2025
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High Speed Rail - Africa
- Due to begin operating in Morocco in 2013
- £1.5 billion rail line linking Tangier to Casablanca
- Cut journey time by 2hours and 10 mins (instead of 5hours 45minutes)
- Aims to carry 8 million passengers a day
- October 2007, Morocco and France signed agreement to allow French companies to design, build and operate the rail link -> similar tech to the TGV in France
- 1st African country to have high-speed rail
- ALGERIA
- SNTF rail operator plans to introduce TGV style trains - 8 lines in proposal
- 80km Gautrain line
- Expected to increase speeds to 180km/h (112mph) in 2010 - could be upgraded by another 12mph, to be classed as high-speed
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The Thames Barrier - London
- Cost £535 million, operational in 1982
- Expected to last until 2030
- Largest movable flood barrier
- Flood Risk Event: Barrier puts a wall of steel across the river, stopping incoming tide that would otherwise sweep up the Thames to Central London
- July 2007 - barrier operated 103 times
- Why protect Britain?
- 7 million population (12% of UK total)
- Highest population density
- Major international business centre
- Generates 20% of UK's GDP
- TECH USED: 9 concrete islands, 6 openings for vessels and 4 openings when no flood risk
- Main gates = 20m high, 3700 tonnes
- Computer software operates gates if there is a flood risk
- RISK OF FLOODING INCREASING: Global warming - rise in sea levels, predicted the flood defence will not withstand future flood surges
- NEW PLANS: Put forward in 2007 - new £20 billion flood defence scheme fo Lonodon, offering protection against a one-in-one-thousand year flood event
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Flood Protection - Dhaka
- Dhaka - capital of Bangladesh - 5,378,023 population
- Located on the floodplain of the Buriganga River - flat land, close to sea level
- Dhaka Integrated Flood Potection Project (DIFPP)
- Set up as part of the national Flood Action Plan - focused on structural measures - e.g building embankments and levees
- Set to cover 260km2 of Dhaka - Not enough money raised for this
- Started to protect the more densely populated western part of the city
- 1998 Floods:
- Proved engineering solutions on their own were not enough to protect Dhaka - water entered through buried sewage pipes and breached/incomplete flood walls
- Pumping stations were inadequate and couldn't cope with excess water
- Lack of coordination between flood protection agencies and drainage of the city
- $200million+ in repairs
- Disease spead throughout Dhaka, as drinking water was contaminated
- PHASE 2: AIMS: protecting eastern Dhaka (suffered the most damage), implement non-structural solutions (flood forecasting, warnings, land-use planning restrictions)
- Improving coordination between agencies and drainage
- Depsite this, Dhaka flooded again in 2004
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Access to Technology - Haiti
- High risk society which lacks the technology to manage these risks and improve life expectancy
NATURAL HAZARDS - Flooding from hurricanes regularly kill and lower life expectancy - e.g. Hurrican Jeanne killed 3,000 and destroyed crops
- Storms cause landslides, destorying homes and roads
- TECH REQUIRED: Warning and evacuation systems, storm shelters, flood control and slipe-stabilisation, afforestation programmes to reduce flooding and soil erosion
DISEASE - 54% of Haitians have access to improved water supply + 30% to improved sanitation
- Only 50% of children are immunised against measles
- 300/100,000 have TB + 6% of pop are HIV positive
- TECH REQUIRED: Clean water supply and sewage systems, nationwide vaccination, medical technology, drugs and education
MALNUTRITION - 2/3 of Haitians = farmers / 54% live on under 1$ per day / 45% = undernourished
- Infant mortality rate is high - 74/1,000 live births
- TECH REQUIRED: Farming tech to raise yields and income to improve food security and reduce child malnutrition + better transport to improve food distribution systems
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Ghana
- Population = 24.9 million
- Economic Issues: Trade pattern barely changed in 100 years - primary produce exports
- Imports = mainly manufactured goods
- Developing countries remain dependent upon developed nations for trade
- COLONIAL TIMES = world's largest producer of cocoa - global cocoa price dictated by Britain
- CURRENT - World's second largest producer of cocoa - prices decided in commodity trading exhanges in London and NY
- Dependant on varying supply / demand - Ivory coast = #1 producer
- High prices in Ghana mean buyers will purchase elsewhere
- Irregular income for workers, poor government planning - low tax returns for government
- Trade in primary goods keeps countries poor, because no value is added by processing - manufacturing
- WTO: Ghana joined in 1995, WTO abolishes subsidies, devlop free trade - these subsidies previously paid to farmers
- Farmers put out of work - produces can't sell as EU produce is cheaper
- Need aid and investment to develop - western countries supply this, wealth is created by employment - construction,manufacturing/developing primary products - wealh "trickles down" via job creation - MULTIPLIER EFFECT
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The Green Revolution + The Gene Revolution
- Both examples of attempts to boost agricultural output to meet the demands of a growing population
- Both are examples of leapfrogging
- THE GREEN REVOLUTION
- 1960s
- High yield varieties (HYVS) of crops were selectively bred from thousands of varieties to increase productivity
- To increase this further, new farming techniques using fertiliser, pesticides and irrigation were introduced
- THE GENE REVOLUTION
- 1990s
- GM crops were developed as a technological response to solving a huge problem, feeding an exponentially expanding population
- GM crops can be quickly tailored to meet specific needs: drought resistance, pest resistance
- This is achieved by altering DNA
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Unforseen Consequences - Green and Gene Revolution
- GREEN REVOLUTION
- SOCIAL POLARISATION - larger farmers who could afford fertilisers, machinery and labour benefitted most - smaller farmers lost out and many became landless labourers
- HYVs are vulnerable to new strains of disease, such as Ug99, a variety of black stem rust fungus discovered in Uganda in 1999, to which no known wheat variety is resistant
- DEPENDANCY - Without high inputs of fertiliser, water and machinery, HYV yields are very low therefore farmers became dependant on purchasing these inputs
- ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS - The widespread use of agrochemicals has led to eutrophication, while overuse of irrigation in arid areas has created salinisation of soils and water shortages
- GENE REVOLUTION
- Number of farms fell by 60,000 as the area of GM soybean tripled. Large farms benefitted from economies of scale, whereas small ones did not
- The cultivated area of maize and sunflower fell by more than 5 million hectares, reducing food security among the poor
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Death by DDT - Unforseen Consequence
- Synthetic pesticide DDT - unforseen consequence of its use
- From 1939 it was used to control malarial mosquitoes and as a farm pesticide
- In 1955 the WHO started a global malaria eradication programme based on the use of DDT
- Initial results = excellent
- However, DDT resistance began to appear in mosquitoes
- 1962: DDT blamed for a growing toll of wildlife deaths, through the process of biomagnification
- Birds of prey - especially vulnerable, as DDT ingested by creatures they fed on built up in their own systems, restricting their ability to lay viable eggs
- DDT banned in 1972 (US) and 1984 (UK)
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Pumpkin Tanks
- Developed as part of a World Bank sponsored water and sanitation programme
- Implemented 1995-1998
- Community Water Suuple and Sanitation Programme (CWSSP)
- Covers 3 districts
- Hundreds of tanks built where conventional supply (such as pipes and groundwater supply) are difficult to provide
- The tank has a capacity of around 5m3
- Can provide water in mountainous areas
- Water used for:
-Cooking
-Washing (clothes and personal)
Drinking (when boiled)
-Watering livestock - Only towards the end of the dry season (DEC - APRIL) does the tank dry up and the family has to walk to the spring
- Cost £77 to build
- Gives almost constant supply year round
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Akosombo Dam
- A Hydroelectric Dam, River Volta, South-East Ghana
- Construction caused part of the Volta River Basin to flood to create the Lake Volta
- Largest man made lake formed - cost $258 million - Built 1961-1965
- 3.6% of Ghana's total land was flooded
- Forced relocation of 80,000 people into 52 resettlement villages
- 1% of population resettled (mostly fishermen and subsistence farmers)
- Aim - to provide electricity to the aluminium industry
- Funded by - TNC Volta Aluminium Company (American) and Ghana's government (World Bank Loans)
- Provides electricity to Ghana and some neighbouring countries
- Ghana govertnment contracted to pay over 50% of the cost bu recieve only 20% of the electricity
- IMPACTS:
- Land surrounding the lake is not as fertile as the land underneath - farming loss
- Use of fertilisers increase - aquatic weeds grow - effects transportation
- Earthquake more common due to pressure on crust where lake water lies
- Loss of fishing + agriculture activities, loss of homes, social values lost
- Water borne diseases more common as vectors live alongside aquatic weeds (e.g. mosquitoes) - river blindness and malaria more common closer to lake
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