Examine the strategies used in the transfer of capital between core and peripheral areas

Geography HL Essay: Examine the strategies used in the transfer of capital between core and peripheral areas. There are various strategies which are made use of when transferring capital between the core and peripheral areas. These are mainly loans and debt repayment, remittances, foreign direct investment and the repatriation of profits. Loans and debt repayment is used worldwide in which the developing countries collectively owe $2.3 trillion to foreign creditors. The advantages brought by such a transfer of capital between core and peripheral areas is the opportunity countries get to finance necessary resources in order to build up and develop themselves by improving their education and housing in Sub-Saharan Africa for example. The total money owed has however been cut due to the HIPC plan which reduced the 218$ billion owed to $180 billion. As a result of these loans and repayments, food, clothing, housing, medicines and medical care became cheaper and simultaneously, their quality improved since earlier times. This as a result makes it easier and better for LEDCs to afford such resources, benefiting their standard of living and development of their economy. The loans and debts still however need to be repaid, and as a result countries will need to pay interest on this and pay back the principal. Even bad loans will have to be repaid, and especially for LEDCs this can

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  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: Geography
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Changes in Tourism

Geography Essay- Factors Affecting Tourism Describe the changes in the growth in tourism in recent decades. Explain the factors responsible for this. In the 1950s, there were 25.5 million of international tourist arrivals and mostly were Europeans, which were 16.8 million arrivals. However, in the 1990s, international tourist arrivals increased to 455.9 millions. The significant changes were 280.6 million arrivals were from middle-east and 57.7 million arrivals were from Asia-pacific. First of all, transportation is one of the major factors seriously affecting each country's tourism because countries without high efficiency of transportation, it would lower tourists preferences to visit a specific country. For instance, development of the High-speed rail industry in Europe attracts more tourists from Europe continent of even internationally because High-speed trains were also quite fast, which can travel more than 250km/h in average. And travelling by trains was relatively cheaper compared to travel by planes because roundtrip tickets from London to Paris in Euro star cost $1575.6 HKD. However, air roundtrip tickets from London to Paris cost $2484 HKD in British Airways. Secondly, development of infrastructure- both roads and airports in More Economic Developed Countries (MEDCs) and Less Economic Developed Countries (LEDCs) were improving, which allowed more large sizes of

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  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: Geography
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Aral Sea Case Study

ARAL SEA CASE STUDY The Aral Sea in definition can be best described as a basin in Central Asia that is located between Kazakhstan, northern Karakalpakstansan and in a generous region of Uzbekistan which is in the South [Fig. 1]. This map accurately depicts the significance of the Aral Sea in a regional scale as there are only two countries bordering the sea as opposed to a cluster of countries (whereby the significance would be national) and thus only two countries with immediate contact with the basin. The Aral Sea was a creation made in the location where two major rivers in the name of Amu Darya and Syr Darya met. In previous years, The sea was declared as the fourth largest inland sea but has been steadily shrinking and drying up since the 1960's due to diversion of the Amu and Syr Darya as means of water supplements for Soviet Union irrigation projects. These drastic actions have impacted both the safety of the drinking water in the area as well as the health of the locals. In the year of 1981, the decision of the diversion of Amu and Syr Darya was officially declared by the Soviet Union as means of irrigation for the desert where the growth of rice, cotton, cereals and melons would be attempted. This decision was a branch in the plan of developing the cotton industry as becoming one of the most major exports. Even though this plan had clear success with Uzbekistan

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  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: Geography
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Describe and explain how the improvement in transport over the last 50 years has increased the global interactions between countries.

Describe and explain how the improvement in transport over the last 50 years has increased the global interactions between countries (10 marks) Transportation is one of the main influences of the development of global interactions between countries. Over the years, transportation allows urban areas to expand, permit regional economic development and overcome the effect of distance -further developing universal communication. There are many forms of transport -road, rail, ocean, air and pipelines. In this essay, by comparing both ocean and air transportation and analysing the various advantages, we can see how the improvements in transport over the last 50 years has increased the global interactions between countries. First of all, although water transportation is considered to be quite expensive, however, it is fairly at a reasonable price as ocean shipping is able to bear more cargos than other forms of transport. The higher capacity enables more goods to be shipped at once which further improves trading activities, making it faster and more efficient. Besides that, free ports are available now in certain countries which attract more imports that can be manufactured into goods that are than exported without having to pay duties or tax. This allows more trading activities to take place without having to fuss over taxes and other additional payments. Moreover, more imports

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  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: Geography
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Kobe and pakistan earthquake essay

The 1995 Kobe Earthquake and The 2005 Pakistan Earthquake A huge earthquake took place in Japan at 5:46am, on January 17th 1995. The earthquake had a local magnitude of 7.2, and lasted for about 20 seconds. The epic-center of this earthquake was less than 20km below Awaji-shima, an island near the city of Kobe, a port city. The earthquake occurred between convergent plate boundaries, the Eurasian Plate and Philippines Plate, and as a result of the collision of these two plates the pressure built up and then suddenly got released, and the Earthquake shockwaves traveled to Kobe. The Hanshin earthquake caused about 5,100 deaths, mostly in Kobe. Highways, roads, homes, railroads, ports and other infrastructures were destroyed, also trains on minor lines were derailed. Main water ways bursted and there were fires evolving everywhere. These caused disruption of traffic, affects on economy, water suspension, and disrupted heat and gas areas around Kobe. However, what caused such a severe damage of the city of one of the most highest earthquake-prepared countrys, was that the city of Kobe is close by water, therefore is on soft land. Secondly, the focus was relatively shallow. Engineering was another reason. A huge amount of the houses in Kobe were built before the development of strict seismic codes (1981). They had old wooden frames, heavy clay tiled roofs, and were closely

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  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: Geography
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LEDCs are more vulnerable to hazard events than MEDCs. Discuss.

"LEDCs are more vulnerable to hazard events than MEDCs. Discuss." Natural hazard events occur all throughout the world and subject many people to negative impacts, however in different degrees due to certain factors which depend on the countries affected themselves. Impacts of such hazard events can be classified into three categories, namely social, economic and environmental impacts. These impacts can vary spatially or temporally - depending on the area subjected as well as the span of time the disaster lasts for, affecting assessment of vulnerability. Vulnerability is defined as the conditions that increase the susceptibility of a community to a hazard or to the impacts of a hazard event. Deciding whether some impacts are greater than others in terms of vulnerability is difficult due to this variation, however the extent of impact is often influenced by the wealth of the area which the hazard event is subjected upon - LEDCS are less economically developed, and usually have little capital to start off with, leaving even less on the technology that is often more readily available in MEDCs, the more economically developed countries, making the population in the former already more vulnerable than the latter. However, this does not prevent hazards from occurring in MEDCs and the monetary status of a country cannot influence the magnitude or frequencies of hazard events, two

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  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: Geography
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Tropical Rainforest Case Study

Sasha Zouev IB, 16/11/05 Tropical Rainforest Case Study, Amazonia Introduction Tropical rainforest, temperate coniferous and deciduous woodland forests are the three main categories of forest type. Tropical rainforests are considered a much richer species that the other two, and temperate vegetation is one that grows fastest. The rainforest ecosystem is very weak and easily unbalanced, making this type of forest more "permanently destroyed" than the other two. The importance of tropical rainforests lies within the fact that they are the earth's richest source of life as they play a vital part in the earth's natural cycles of soil, water and air through the process of photosynthesis. In this case study we will be looking closely at the tropical rainforest in the Amazonia region of South America. Where is this Rainforest? The term, Amazon rainforest, is used to basically talk about the moist and broadleaved region of what is known as the Amazon Basin, which is around 7 million km squared and covers areas of mainly Brazil, Colombia, Peru and many more South American countries. This rainforest accounts for around 50% of the world's remaining rainforests. Amazonian rainforests contain the biggest and most species-rich tract of tropical rainforest that there is to be found. It is the world's greatest natural resource - the most powerful and bio-actively diverse

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  • Level: International Baccalaureate
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Examine the causes and the effects of biodiversity loss in the Tropical Rainforests

Examine the causes and the effects of biodiversity loss in the TRF Biodiversity can be defined as the variety of all forms of life on earth (plants, animals and micro-organisms). The tropics are the richest areas for biodiversity as tropical rain forests contain over 50% of the worlds species in just 7% of the worlds land. They account for 80% of the world's insects and 90% of its primates. Even though biodiversity benefits us humans in countless ways we tend to be oblivious to this fact and instead, the biodiversity on earth is gradually diminishing. There are many reasons for the loss of biodiversity and the most prominent include Globalization & Cattle Ranching, Hydroelectric Power (HEP), Migration and Logging. Similar to how there are numerous causes for the loss of biodiversity, these causes also have many drastic effects. As mentioned in the introductory paragraph, globalization and cattle ranching is one of the major causes for the loss of biodiversity. Globalization can be defined as the world coming together for trading purposes. This contributes to the loss of biodiversity as globalization is directly linked with deforestation. For instances, huge global corporations like McDonalds own countless amounts of cattle which are often located in deforested areas. In addition to this, much forest land in the Brazilian Amazon is also deforested in order to enable the

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  • Level: International Baccalaureate
  • Subject: Geography
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Population Case Study - Japan

Sasha Zouev Geography IB, 13/09/05 IB Case Study: Japan (MEDC) Population, Distribution, Density Introduction: Japan is a great example of an MEDC with a particular population pattern and distribution. The country, located on the western edge of the Pacific Ocean lies to the east of Asia and is made up of about 3,000 smaller islands. There are several large main islands including, from top to bottom, Hokkaido, Honshu (the biggest), Shikoku and Kyushu. Japan is also interestingly rated 10th in the world by population count and has an area of about 377,835 km². The aim of this case study is to examine, section by section, the different factors that affect Brazilian population growth and distribution by looking at areas such as geographical positioning, politics, history, and generate some sort of conclusion Distribution: Japan's population is mostly concentrated alongside the south and west coast (figure 1). Japan's population density is ranked 18th in the world, and has assisted in advertising very expensive land prices. From the years 1980 to 1987, prices of land in the six largest cities nearly doubled. This prevents many poorer families from ever purchasing or renting housing in the central cities. Because of this, daily transportation for many workers became a real lengthy hassle. For example some daily commuters had to travel up to four hours total to reach

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  • Subject: Geography
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Pro-Natalist China's population policy

Introduction: China has the largest world population, and with most of its cities densely populated. It has a policy which is most recognizable globally, as it is the most rigid compared to any other countries, this policy admits only one child per couple, and due to this fact it is named as "One Child Policy." s Background information on the Population: What was the problem? Due to the high fertility rate, numerous disasters such as pressure on resources (water, food, medical care, and housing) and a virus such as SARS will not spread as fast if the population in China declines. Causes of High Fertility rate: Before 1949, before the communists came into power, china was at stage 1 of demographic transition model, and had between 5-8 children per family. By the time, birth rate, death rate, infant mortality rate were all relatively high, and with a low life expectancy. This shows that the population was increasing at an extremely slow rate. Consequently, large families were encouraged, as the government followed a pro-natalistic population policy. 0 years later in 1960, there was a dramatic increase in population with approximately 100 million people more; this determined a change in demographic transition model from first to second stage. In addition, as a result, there were improvements made in some medical services. Due to the death of Mao in 1976, the government

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  • Subject: Geography
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