What this topic covers
Challenges in the human environment has 3 subtopics:
- Section A: Urban issues and challenges
- Section B: The changing economic world
- Section C: The challenge of resource management
← Back to topics
GCSE AQA Higher Geography · Topic 2 of 3
Challenges in the human environment – GCSE AQA Higher Geography revision notes
Choose a subtopic. Challenges in the human environment covers Section A: Urban issues and challenges, Section B: The changing economic world, and Section C: The challenge of resource management in GCSE AQA Higher Geography. 24 lessons in 3 subtopics.
Revise Challenges in the human environment for GCSE AQA Higher Geography, including Section A: Urban issues and challenges. 24 lessons across 3 subtopics.
24
Lessons
3
Subtopics
Challenges in the human environment lessons by subtopic
24 lessons, grouped by subtopic.
Section A: Urban issues and challenges
- Global Urbanisation and Urban Trends: Explain the global pattern of urban change, compare urban trends in HICs, LICs and NEEs, and understand why megacities have emerged.
- Causes of Urban Growth: Explain how migration and natural increase drive urban growth, especially in LICs and NEEs.
- LIC or NEE City Case Study: Location, Importance and Opportunities: Use a major LIC or NEE city case study to explain its location, importance and the opportunities created by urban growth.
- LIC or NEE City Case Study: Challenges and Urban Planning: Explain the challenges created by rapid urban growth in an LIC or NEE city and how urban planning can improve quality of life.
- UK City Case Study: Opportunities and Challenges: Use a major UK city case study to explain how urban change creates opportunities and challenges.
- Urban Regeneration, Urban Sprawl and Sustainable Living: Explain urban regeneration, the impact of urban sprawl and how sustainable urban living can be promoted.
Section B: The changing economic world
- Measuring Development and Quality of Life: Explain how development is measured and why different indicators and classifications are used.
- Causes and Consequences of Uneven Development: Explain why development is uneven and describe the consequences of these differences.
- Strategies for Reducing the Development Gap: Compare the main strategies used to reduce the development gap and evaluate how they work.
- LIC or NEE Case Study: Industrial Change and TNCs: Use a LIC or NEE case study to explain industrial change and evaluate the role of TNCs.
- LIC or NEE Case Study: Aid, Environment and Quality of Life: Use a LIC or NEE case study to explain aid, environmental impacts and changes in quality of life.
- Economic Futures in the UK: Explain why the UK economy has changed and what is meant by moving towards a post-industrial economy.
- Regional Change and the UK's Global Links: Explain regional change in the UK and describe the UK’s links with the wider world.
Section C: The challenge of resource management
- Food and Energy Demands: Explore the increasing global demands for food and energy, and their implications.
- Water Management and UK Resources: Understand changing demands and challenges related to water resources, and the overall resource picture in the UK.
- Global Food Patterns & Consumption: Explore global patterns of calorie intake and food supply, the reasons for increasing food consumption, and the factors affecting food supply.
- Strategies for increasing food supply.: Examine irrigation, aeroponics and hydroponics, the new green revolution, biotechnology, and appropriate technology, also the advantages and disadvantages of large scale agricultural development.
- Sustainable Food & Local Schemes: Discover the potential for sustainable food supplies, including organic farming, permaculture, urban farming, sustainable sources, seasonal food, and reduced waste. An example of a local scheme in an LIC or NEE to increase sustainable supplies of food is also considered.
- Global Water Patterns & Consumption: Explore global water surplus and deficit, reasons for increasing consumption, and factors affecting water availability.
- Large Scale Water Management: Understand how water is diverted and stored using dams, reservoirs, transfers, and desalination.
- Sustainable Water Management: Learn about water conservation, groundwater management, recycling, grey water and local schemes in LICs/NEEs.
- Global Energy Landscape: Explore the distribution of energy consumption and supply, the reasons behind increasing energy consumption, and factors affecting energy supply.
- Energy Sources: Renewable vs. Non-Renewable: Examine renewable and non-renewable energy sources, analyze the advantages and disadvantages of fossil fuel extraction, and delve into individual energy use and carbon footprints.
- Sustainable Energy Solutions: Investigate local renewable energy schemes in LICs or NEEs and consider strategies for energy conservation and increasing energy supply.
More in this course
Go back to the full GCSE AQA Higher Geography topic list, or practise this topic with past-paper questions.
Frequently asked questions
What is Challenges in the human environment?
Challenges in the human environment covers Section A: Urban issues and challenges, Section B: The changing economic world, and Section C: The challenge of resource management in GCSE AQA Higher Geography. 24 lessons in 3 subtopics.
What is Hinkley Point C?
Hinkley Point C is a planned nuclear power station in Somerset, UK, designed to provide reliable, low-carbon baseload electricity regardless of weather conditions. The Energy Sources: Renewable vs. Non-Renewable notes cover this in full.
Is nuclear power renewable?
Nuclear power is non-renewable because uranium is a finite resource extracted by mining. The Energy Sources: Renewable vs. Non-Renewable notes cover this in full.
Why is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam controversial?
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam causes tension because Ethiopia built it on the Nile, a transboundary river shared by eleven countries, while Egypt and Sudan depend on the Nile's downstream flow for agriculture and drinking water. The Global Water Patterns & Consumption notes cover this in full.
What is irrigation?
Irrigation is the controlled supply of water to farmland through channels, pipes or sprinkler systems, allowing crops to grow where rainfall is low or unreliable. The Strategies for increasing food supply. notes cover this in full.
What are food miles?
Food miles are the distance food travels from where it is produced to where it is consumed, and every kilometre adds to its carbon footprint. The Food and Energy Demands notes cover this in full.
What is an aquifer?
An aquifer is an underground store of water formed where permeable rocks, such as chalk and limestone, let rainwater infiltrate through pores and joints. The Global Water Patterns & Consumption notes cover this in full.
What is desalination?
Desalination creates fresh water by forcing seawater through membranes or heating it until the salt separates out. The Large Scale Water Management notes cover this in full.
What is grey water?
Grey water is relatively clean wastewater from domestic sources such as baths, showers and washing machines, but not toilets. The Sustainable Water Management notes cover this in full.