World's Population Explosion

            What is the world's population explosion and why do some people believe it to be an important world issue?.

             What is the population explosion and why did it occur?.

             A population explosion is when a population increases at a rapid rate so the world population explosion is where the world population is increasing at an extremely rapid rate. This is a natural process.

             The demographic transition model says that birth and death rates change over time due to economic and social developments.

             figure 1: line graph showing the demographic transition model of the UK.

             Figure 1 shows the demographic transition of the UK. It shows how, at first both death rates and birth rates are high, then, from about 1750 to 1870 birth rates remain the same but death rates fall, resulting in a rapid population growth. From about 1890 to 1950 birth rates began to decline steadily while the death rates continued to fall. From 1950 there has been a general decline in birth rates so they are almost equal to the death rates and growth rates and so growth rates are close to zero ( in 1997 the rate of natural increase was 0.2%). Although most EMDCs have reached this point where both birth rates and death rates are low, the majority of ELDCs have not. e.g. India has a birth rate of 29/1,000, a death rate of 10/1,000 and a growth rate of 1.9% (in 1997) compared with the UK's birth rate of 13/1,000, death rate of 11/1,000 and growth rate of 0.2% (in 1997). .

             The growth of the population depends on a number of factors such as availability of resources and food and water. This can be seen in food chains in nature. e.g. the lynx is a predator of the hare. If the hare population decreases then so will the lynx population and visa versa. This is shown in figure 2.

             Figure 2 A Line Graph Showing the relationship .

             Between the Hare and Lynx Population.

             This also applies to the human population and to other factors. e.g. If there was insufficient water supply then the human population would decrease.

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