Earthquakes in MEDC's and LEDC's

A well-known principle states that the impact of earthquakes in LEDC's or Less Economically Developed Countries is generally more severe when compared with MEDC's or More Economically Developed Countries. This shall be illustrated by comparing the Kobe Earthquake in Japan of 1995 with the Kashmir Earthquake of 2005. The Kobe Earthquake occurred on Tuesday, January 17, 1995, at 05:46 JST in the southern part of Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. It measured 7.2 on the Richter scale and lasted for 20 seconds. The duration of the tremors was around 20 seconds long. The focus of the earthquake was located 16km below the epicentre, on the northern edge of the Awaji Island, approximately 20km from Kobe. The proximity to the city was a major factor of its widespread devastation. The ground moved 18cm horizontally and 12 cm vertically. The Kashmir Earthquake was caused by the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plate boundaries colliding. Its epicentre was located in Azad Kashmir near the city of Muzaffarabad. It occurred at 08:52:37 Pakistan Standard Time (03:52:37 UTC) on 8 October 2005. According to the authorities, 79000 people died. A major factor in the severity of the earthquake was the poor construction - a salient feature of LEDC's. The Indian Plate which was moving 40 mm a year north collided with the Eurasian plate and was forced beneath it. It measured 7.6 on the Richter Scale. As is

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Economics Coursework- Traffic Congestion

Economics Coursework- Traffic Congestion Traffic congestion is the build up of traffic preventing efficient movement. In the UK, traffic congestion is a major issue as it causes a lot of problems for example is there is a lot of congestion in cities as well as main roads in towns. In theory the problem of congestion is that there are high marginal social costs associated with congestion not paid by the driver. Also did you know that traffic levels on Britain's roads have risen by over 80% in the last 20 years. This is mainly due to the fact of increasing demands for a car. An example of traffic congestion is on Sunnybank Road in Mirfield. In the morning there is congestion going up towards Roberttown. There is a great volume of cars on the road and at a very slow speed and so there is a lot of traffic trying to come out of Mirfield. Problems of Congestion From a few people who I have asked in the survey which is located in the appendix. I have found out from taking comments that they have made and from my own knowledge that the traffic congestion on Sunnybank Road is a problem for drivers as well as people who live in that area. Comments of people in survey have been summarised in the explanations of the problems. On Sunnybank road every weekday morning there is a lot of congestion as it leads to Leeds and Huddersfield. A problem of congestion is that the journey times

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Sea Defence. Which is better: hard or soft engineering?

Which is better: hard or soft engineering? Hard engineering options tend to be expensive, short-term options. They may also have a high impact on the landscape or environment and be unsustainable. Hard engineering is the controlled disruption of natural processes by using man-made structures. An example of hard engineering is a sea wall, these walls are built on the edge of a coastline and made to protect the base of cliffs and also to limit the amount of coastal erosion on a cliff-face were land is being absorbed by the sea. These walls could also prevent coastal flooding. This type of hard engineering is good as it has many aspects and is effective. Disadvantages of creating a sea wall are that it is very expensive to build; the curves in the sea wall reflect the wave's energy back to into the sea, therefore the waves remain powerful. Another disadvantage is that the walls erode after time and the cost of maintenance is high. Another example of hard engineering is groyne, a groyne is a wooden barrier built at a right angle to the beach. Groynes are built to prevent the movement of beach material along the coast by long shore drift. This allows the build-up of a beach; beaches are a natural defence against erosion and also an attraction for tourists. Disadvantages of building a groyne are that it can be seen as unattractive and is also costly to build and maintain. A

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Mexico to USA Migration Case Study

MIGRATION GEORGE STANSFIELD CASE STUDY INTRODUCTION Migration is the movement of people from one area to another, be it across the road, or to the other side of the earth. Everyday over 2000 Mexicans try and cross the 2000km border that spans between Mexico and the USA. The immigrants walk for miles to try and illegally enter the country and for many it is a wasted journey as they are returned shortly after by the US border patrol police. The immigrants usually travel in groups of 10 and up, friends and families together as a large group. To try and make the journey easier they will often travel lightly, meaning they carry no heavy, but vital, supplies such as food and water. This often leads to things such as dehydration and death as they cross the hot and dry border. Another way the immigrants will try and gain access is through human smugglers, whereby the immigrants will pay the smugglers large sums of money to smuggle them across the border. Once across the border it's now a game of 'hide and seek' with the immigration officers. After crossing the border without being caught they will usually meet in some form of safe house, usually provided by the human smugglers. Once they are settled they will often rent houses in large groups so that can cut the costs dramatically and easily afford it. They can't stay for long though as eventually they would be caught,

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Discuss the negative impacts of Urbanisation

Discuss the negative impacts of Urbanisation Many small town dwellers and villagers had left their hometown for the cities in search of higher standard of living. This movement from rural areas to big cities is called urbanization. Thus, urbanization is the process by which there is an increase in the number and the proportion of people living in the urban settlements and the amount of industrialization of the settlement. It also refers to the increase in the size of land area occupied by urban settlements such as towns and cities. Although urbanization has brought about numerous positive impacts, it also has its share of disadvantages as well. The nature and scale of impact, be it positive or negative, will vary depending on the level of development of the country. The negative impacts of urbanization shall be discuss via the economic , environmental, social and cultural aspect. The main negative economic impact of urbanization is unemployment. With massive migration from rural areas, jobs in the urban area may not be created fast enough to meet the needs. Therefore, the first problem faced by newly arrived migrant in the urban area is finding a job. While it is true that opportunities exist in cities, it is also true that the competition for these opportunities is fierce as there are more demands for jobs than are available. This is made even more difficult because

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Dharavi Slum in Mumbai

Dharavi Slum in Mumbai - Slumdog Millionaire The slum in Dharvi gives a general impression of a highly poor quality of life, a place where those who dwell within are unable to succeed past the limited microeconomic system in place within the slum, be this trade of pottery, a key trade1, or that of a more illegal nature - alike that of drug trade and prostitution. Conditions within the slum are of an extremely poor nature, the high population density alone a major issue, with over one million inhabitants living in the cramped five hundred and fifty acre sprawl of built upon land. Living in brick and tin shanty's those who live within the area can expect to be vulnerable to variable and often violent weather, with the structural support of their weak established housing being tested and frequently failing, laying out those within to the elements. This alone leads to many prominent issues, be it that of quickly contracting illness due to weakened immune systems from the wet environment or developing sanitary illness such as the deadly trench foot- caused by consistent ground water and a poor level of hygiene People within the slum are subject to the typical quality of life that one who resides in any slum world over will experience, apart from perhaps one key element to the Dharavi slum that differs from many others; the large number of inner slum jobs. There is a strong

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The demographic transition model accounts for the rise and fall in population, the birth rate, death rate, population size and growth.

Population growth is ultimately decided by the amount of births and deaths, and the balance of the main inputs and outputs of population, inputs to the population being births and immigrants, outputs being the deaths and emigrants. The proportion to which is what really matters. The demographic transition model accounts for the rise and fall in population, the birth rate, death rate, population size and growth. Different cultures, society's and geographical places have different reasons for being either under or over populated. For example, the Philippines, a mainly catholic country, is very overpopulated, because of the religion of the vast majority of the country, they don't use contraception or family planning, and so families can end up having many more children than is the 'norm' for say England, where the average number of children per household is 2, whereas, in the Philippines the average number of children per house is 5, and so the population rises. However, in places like Canada, where the population is around 33,000,000 people, so why does Canada have a low population density? It's because Canada is such a large country, the whole population is distributed very sparsely and there are only 3.4 people in a km 2. Canada is in stage four of the DTM, this means that: * The birth rate is falling * The death rate is low * There is no population growth * And the

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Chinas One Child Policy: The good, the bad, and the ugly

China's One Child Policy: The good, the bad, and the ugly China's present population is approximately 1.2 billion, which is about one fifth of the earth's entire population. China has to feed 22% of the world's people on 7% of the world's land, which is a considerable task. China's one child policy was established by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979 to limit communist China's population growth. The one-child policy means that couples are only allowed one child in rural and urban areas. Parents with multiple births aren't given the same benefits as parents of one child. Many times the parents have to pay money to the government in order to get permission to have another child. The aims of the policy were to reduce the population rate of China. In the mid-twentieth century the population rate was 55 million (about the same as the UK's total population) every three years. To do this, families were restricted to 1 per family and the marriageable age was raised to 22 for men and 20 for women. Couples have to apply to be married and to have a child. Parents who have only one child get a "one-child glory certificate," which entitles them to economic benefits such as an extra month's salary every year until the child is 14, free education, priority housing and family benefits. Among the other benefits for one child families are higher wages, interest-free loans, retirement

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A study of tourism on Bourton-on-the-water

A study of tourism on Bourton-on-the-water Name: Ethan Penney Tutor Group: 11T Introduction My coursework is a study of tourism on Bourton-on-the-water. In this coursework I will investigate two hypotheses. These are; . Tourism has affected the goods and services available at Bourton-on-the-water. 2. Tourism has affected the environmental quality of Bourton-on-the-water. A hypothesis is an idea which can be tested based on geographical theory. To test these hypotheses we will use data collected from our Environmental Quality Survey and our Traffic count. To carry out this study, we visited both Bourton-on-the-water and Charlbury. I went round in a group of four people and we all came to an appropriate final conclusion on each of the questions/observations asked of us. However due to any inaccuracies, we will be given a set of results that are most correct in future, to help us analyse the data as accurately as possible. The reason behind using Charlbury statistics is to compare Bourton-on-the-water to them and hopefully they will show a contrasting pattern, therefore telling us whether my hypothesis is correct or not. Bourton-on-the-water is a major tourist town, with picturesque views set in the heart of the Cotswold's. It has a steady growing population today but the 1991 census tells us that there was a population of around 3500 people. Bourton-on-the-water is

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Debden Brook Rivers Cousework Analysis and Conclusion

Analysis and Conclusions In this section I intend to analysis my results and state whether my hypothesis were verified (proved correct) or nullified (proved incorrect) I will provide reasons as to why by showing a detailed analysis of actual figures from my graphs. In the second part of this section I will evaluate the results by looking at factors that could have affected the accuracy of my results and conclusions i.e. limitations. I shall look at ways in which my methods might have been improved. I must also look at the Bradshaw model and see if the characteristics of this specific river follow the general trend of his model. Hypothesis 1 - The Width of the River Increases with Distance Downstream This hypothesis was proved correct because figure one shows that the width of the river steadily increases with distance downstream. The water width of the river increased from 0.83m at site 1 (Debden Brook) to 1.95m at site 2 (Debden Brook) and 8.53m at site 3 (The River Roding). This is because streams generally carry more water in their channel as distance from the source increases because water is added to them from tributaries, however there are some exceptions (e.g. The River Mersey due to human activity). This will also increase lateral erosion as the water will be moving faster and carrying more load. As a result, the width increases. This hypothesis corresponds

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