APPLE PAGES FORMAT! These were my revision notes I used for my A-Level Geography, where I attained an A grade. Please note, I used this as my basis for revision, and condensed these to flashcards, mind maps etc as part of my revision process. Format: Apple Pages
APPLE PAGES FORMAT! These were my revision notes I used for my A-Level Geography, where I attained an A grade. Please note, I used this as my basis for revision, and condensed these to flashcards, mind maps etc as part of my revision process. Format: Apple Pages
Volcanic Hazards:
The nature of vulcanicity and its relation to plate tectonics
Forms of volcanic hazard: nuées ardentes, lava flows, mudflows, pyroclastic flows, ash fallout, gases/acid rain, tephra
Spatial distribution, magnitude, frequency, regularity and predictability of hazard events
Impacts: primary/secondary, environmental, economic, social, political
Short and long term responses: risk management designed to reduce the impacts of the hazard through preparedness, mitigation, prevention and adaptation
Global Population Futures:
Health impacts of global environmental change: ozone depletion - skin cancer, cataracts; climate change - thermal stress, emergent and changing distribution of vector borne diseases, agricultural productivity and nutritional standards
Prospects for the global population
Projected distributions
Critical appraisal of future population-environment relationships
Introduction:
The environmental context for human population characteristics and change
Key elements in the physical environment: climate, soils, resource distributions including water supply
Key population parameters: distribution, density, numbers, change
Key role of development processes
Global patterns of population numbers, densities and change rates
Plate Tectonics:
Earth structure and internal energy sources
Plate tectonic theory of crustal evolution: tectonic plates, plate movement, gravitational sliding, ridge push, slab pull, convection currents, sea-floor spreading
Destructive, constructive and conservative plate margins
Characteristic processes: seismicity and vulcanicity
Associated landforms: young fold mountains, rift valleys, ocean ridges, deep sea trenches, island arcs and volcanoes
Magma plumes and their relationship to plate movement
Quantitative and Qualitative Skills:
Students must engage with a range of quantitative and relevant qualitative skills, within the theme landscape systems
These should include: observation skills, measurement and geospatial mapping skills and data manipulation and statistical skills applied to field measurements
Critical appraisal of the developing governance of Antarctica
Madrid Protocol
Whaling Moratorium (ICW)
The UN Environmental Programme (UNEP)
The International Whaling Commission (IWC)
The Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources
The Antarctic Treaty Agreement
The Antarctic Treaty System
**The Role of NGO’s in monitoring threats and enhancing protection of Antarctica
*** Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR)
Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC)
World Park Antarctica: Greenpeace
Desertification:
The changing extent and distribution of hot deserts over the last 10,000 years
The causes of desertification: climate change, human impact, animals
Distribution of areas at risk
Impact on ecosystems, landscapes and populations
Predicted climate change and its impacts
Alternative possible futures for local populations
The Concept of a Hazard in a Geographical Context:
Nature, forms and potential impacts of a natural hazards
Hazard perception and its economic + cultural determinants
Characteristic human responses and their response to a hazard incidence, intensity, magnitude, distribution and level of development
The Park model of human response to hazards
The Hazard Management Cycle
Fires in Nature:
Nature of wildfires
Conditions favouring intense wildfires: vegetation type, fuel characteristics, climate and recent weather and fire behaviour
Causes of fires: natural and human agency
Impacts: primary/secondary, environmental, social, economic, political
Short and long term responses: risk management designed to reduce the impacts of the hazard through preparedness, mitigation, prevention and adaptation
Arid Landscape Development in Contrasting Settings
The relationship between process, time, landforms and landscapes in mid and low latitude desert settings: characteristic desert landscapes
Environment, Health and Wellbeing:
Global patterns of health, mortality and morbidity
Economic and social development and the epidemiological transition
The relationship between environment variables (climate, topography + drainage) and incidence of disease
Air quality and health
Water quality and health
Management and mitigation strategies
Role of international agencies and NGO’s in promoting health and combating disease at the global scale
Deserts as Natural Systems:
Systems in physical geography: systems concepts and their application to the development of desert landscapes
Inputs, outputs, energy, stores/components, flows/transfers, positive/negative feedbacks and dynamic equilibrium
The concepts of landform and landscape, and how related landforms combine to form characteristic landscapes
The global distribution of mid + low latitude deserts and their margins (arid and semi-arid)
Characteristics of hot desert environments and their margins: climate, soils, vegetation (and their interaction)
Water balance and aridity index
The causes of aridity: atmospheric processes relating to pressure, winds, continentality, relief and cold ocean currents
Environment and Population:
Global and regional patterns of food production and consumption
Agricultural systems and agricultural productivity
Relationship with key physical environmental variables: climate and soils
Characteristics and distribution of two major climatic types to exemplify relationships between climate and human activities and numbers
Climate change and its affect on agriculture
Characteristics and distribution of two key zonal soils to exemplify the relationship between soils and human activities, especially agriculture
Strategies to ensure food security
Population Change:
Factors in natural population change: the demographic transition model, key vital rates, age-sex composition; cultural controls
Models of natural population change and their application in contrasting physical and human settings
Concept of the Demographic Dividend
International migration: refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants - environmental and socio-economic causes, processes
Demographic, environmental, social, economic, health and political implications of migration
Systems and Processes:
Sources of energy in hot desert environments: insolation, winds, runoff
Sediment sources, cells and budgets
Geomorphic processes: weathering, mass movement, erosion, transportation, deposition
Origin and development of landforms in mid and low latitude deserts: aeolian - deflation hollows, desert pavements, ventifacts, yardangs, zeugans, barchans and sief dunes; water - wadis, bahadas, pediments, playas and inselbergs
Distinctively arid geomorphic processes: weathering (thermal fracture, exfoliation, chemical weathering, block + granular disintegration
The role of wind: erosion (deflation + abrasion), transportation, suspension, saltation, surface creep, deposition
Sources of water: exogenous, endoreic + ephemeral, the episodic role of water, sheet flooding and channel flash flooding
Seismic Hazards:
The nature of seismicity and its relation to plate tectonics
Forms of seismic hazard: earthquakes, shockwaves, tsunamis, liquefaction, landslides
Spatial distribution, randomness, magnitude, frequency, regularity, predictability of hazard events
Impacts: primary/secondary, environmental, economic, social, political
Short and long term responses: risk management to reduce the impacts of hazard through preparedness, mitigation, prevention and adaptation
Storm Hazards:
The nature of tropical storms and their underlying causes
Forms of hazard: high winds, storm surges, coastal flooding, river flooding and landslides
Spatial distribution, magnitude, frequency, regularity, predictability of hazard events
Impacts: primary/secondary, environmental, social, economic, political
Short and long term responses: risk management designed to reduce the impacts of the hazard through preparedness, mitigation, prevention and adaptation