I now have a scenario where I can have massive amounts of human data on development and underdevelopment from different sources and locations, however because of reasons stated above about the reliability of the data it can’t be analyzed as a collective and is then of very little use to us in terms of trying to locate developed and underdeveloped areas, this means that in terms of the question, “Is underdevelopment a problem caused by the human or physical environment?” It is very difficult to express with any certainty that underdevelopment is a result of purely human factors, however it may be said with some certainty through looking at these organizations data that human factors are a cause of underdevelopment but are by no means the sole reason. (See UNDP website for specific development index which back up statements in the above paragraph.)
There are many reasons for underdevelopment these occur as human factors, in situations such as; high birth rates, created because of a lack of educational resources, poor health care contraception and family planning advice because of poor infrastructure provided by the governments. There are also things like high infant mortality rates as well as high death rate in (LEDC) less economically developed countries to consider, these can be as a result of a countries low (GDP) gross domestic product caused by wars or shifts in the governments powerbase, into such things as dictatorships that are just looking to provide for the higherarcy of there society.
Human and Physical issues are apparent in items such as self inflicted famines, caused by a lack of educational knowledge of the land or of the crops, which can be seen as a cross between human and physical environmental reasons, it would also be the case in the following statement because famine although in this scenario being caused by it’s human environment could be triggered by a physical environment, e.g. long term climatic change or a short term weather influence such as a cyclone e.g. the Indian "Super Cyclone" that developed in the Bay of Bengal in October 1999 and became the strongest and deadliest cyclone in the region, it decimated crops, killed livestock and human life.
As well as this there is the case that disease could occur in both crops and livestock that because of a lack of knowledge and maintenance of infrastructure “human” or lack of water supply, soil infertility and land degradation “physical” is a trait of underdevelopment that would be caused by both environments.
“Health is an intrinsic human right as well as a central input to poverty reduction and socioeconomic development. Cost-effective interventions for controlling major diseases exist, but a serious lack of money for health and a range of system constraints hamper global and national efforts to expand health services to the poor. The high burden of preventable diseases in poor countries and communities calls for strategic planning of investments across health and health-related sectors to improve the lives of poor people and promote development.” This is one of the fundamental base statements from the (WHO) world health organization, (available online – see references). I believe that it suggests that at least the human reasons in terms of disease and ill health in underdeveloped parts of the world could be irradiated by developed countries providing underdeveloped countries with a far higher support level in terms of financial and humanitarian aid, in a bid to reduce global inequalities.
It is possible to see that human underdevelopment can have a direct effect on its surrounding physical environment, for example; if there is a sudden change in weather that is unexpected and unplanned for, in human terms because of lack of education and ultimately underdevelopment, a famine could occur as a direct result of the human inability to plan for a physical change, therefore making underdevelopment both a human and physical problem. The same could be said for a drought, it is something that affects all parts of the world but its impact varies according to the level of development as well as the duration of the drought, again human interlocked with physical.
There are many different physical reasons that could cause underdevelopment; these are things such as climate, relief, drought, fertility and soil type, volcanic activity, water availability and the location of the water-table. All of these physical features are potential causes of underdevelopment, they all add to potential physical location problems and can be caused by both human involvement in terms of land degradation and lack of planning; i.e. crop rotation to prevent the soils from becoming infertile and mineral deficient, as well as being caused naturally because of global location, i.e.; close to volcano’s or arid infertile land with poor water availability and poor climatic conditions such as the Sahell region of northern Africa..
Underdevelopment can be, as has been stated above, measured within the context of the “Human Development Index” which obviously only takes into account human issues such as income per capita, life expectancy at birth as well as educational attainment – which is measured by adult literacy rates and average number of school years per person. From this index we can determine what other factors are apparent in underdevelopment, there are many regions that are underdeveloped by definition of the development index who’s natural resources are massively under utilized for example The Democratic Republic of Congo (formally Zaire), where the wealth from copper mines was channelled into the pockets of President Mobutu and his followers rather than being spread to the mass of the people, this gives yet another twist to the human debate as can be seen in this example, corruption may be a severe and main cause in underdevelopment that may trigger events such as governmental collapse, war and ultimately famine leading to the reduction and degradation of physical resources showing yet again the idea that underdevelopment is linked between human and physical.
In the twentieth century, countries such as Brunei, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have high average incomes due to there ability to develop due to physical factors in there geographical surroundings, however on the other hand there are other (MEDC’s) more economically developed countries that have developed despite a lack of natural resources, for example Japan and Singapore, is it therefore fair to say that these countries based there development on human resources? I.e. the ingenuity and innovation of there populations? Although the above paragraph refers to developed countries I believe that it shows a good parallel in that development is caused by both physical and human environments and therefore isn’t it likely to be the case that the same should apply for undeveloped area’s as well?
In conclusion, although in some areas human issues can be seen to cause physical change, human underdevelopment can also be seen to occur because of a direct consequence of its physical environment. Underdevelopment is caused by an environment but what causes the environment to be how it is? Is it human reasons or is it physical reasons? In my opinion it’s both, Human and Physical factors are combined and are therefore both the cause of an undeveloped environment.
References:
Ken Addison, Ken Atkinson & Peter Smithson, 2003 Third Edition – Precipitation & Evaportransporation - Fundamentals of the Physical Environment. London - P85.
Michael Bradshaw, Peter Daniels, Denis Shaw & James Sidaway. 2001 First Edition – Alternative Geographies of Development and Inequality – Human Geography Issues for the 21st Century – London – P275 – 277.
Ian Cook, Bob Hordern, Helen Mc Gahan & Penny Rilson 2000 – What is Development – Geography In Focus – Chapter 2 P 72 – 74.
Hyper Dictionary – 2000 / 2003
http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary
Date Accessed – 20th/10/2003.
The World Health Organization – 2003
Http://www.who.int
Date Accesses – 22nd/10/2003.
(UNDP) – United Nations Development Programme
http://www.undp.org
http://www.undp.org/hdr2003/pdf/hdr03_HDI.pdf
Date Accessed – 25th/10/2003.
Word Count: 1481, (excluding referencing).
