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  Sustainable development assignments
         
Housing - Brazil         Food security report Water supply
             

Food security report

  
"Physical and human processes can be linked to explain the deficit of food production at a regional scale." WJEC specification
A brief reminder of the brief!
  • The objective is to write a report on Food security issues in Sub-Saharan Africa, concentrating particularly on the Horn of Africa. You should assume the rôle of a House of Commons researcher preparing a background briefing which will made available to MPs. (You should therefore assume the reader wants to get the maximum amount of information in the minimum amount of time and has no specialist knowledge of geographical issues.)
  • The 'briefing' should include the following sub-sections: Physical factors (including desertification); Economic factors; Technological factors; Political factors; Case studies; Possible strategies to overcome food deficit.
  • The report should include selected maps, diagrams and tables. Please don't pad out the briefing - each must be there for a good reason.
  • You should use your module booklets (particularly 3 ' Food Security and Sub-Saharan Africa'), outline maps, atlases, your textbook, library books and internet .
  • You should include two case study countries. One must be Ethiopia and the other may be another country from the Horn of Africa or a country with a contrasting experience (such as Ghana).
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) Essential resource for this topic. Press releases always worth a look. http://www.fao.org
Sub-Saharan Africa Global Information and Early Warning System on food and agriculture (GIEWS) reports on food supply situation and crop prospects. http://www.fao.org/giews/english/eaf/eaftoc.htm
December 2002 GIEWS report on Sub-Saharan Africa  http://www.fao.org/giews/english/eaf/eaf0212/page00.htm
CROP PROSPECTS AND FOOD SUPPLY POSITION IN INDIVIDUAL COUNTRIES (situation December 2002)  http://www.fao.org/giews/english/eaf/eaf0212/page14.htm
Interactive map with summaries for individual countries Dec 2002 http://www.fao.org/giews/english/eaf/eaf0212/page02.htm
BBC news page summarising the crisis. Links to stories for Horn of Africa (Ethiopia), West Africa and Southern Africa. Clickable guide to Africa's famine trail. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/africa/2002/famine_in_africa/
Links: Food security   Sub-Saharan Africa      

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Water supply  
The Colorado is perhaps the most controversial river in the United States.  It provides 25 million people with drinking water and also enough water to keep 3.5 million acres of farmland in production.  Other uses include industrial, recreational, and electric power generation.  The river is highly regulated with 83 reservoirs in the upper basin and 10 reservoirs in the lower basin. The links for the Colorado assignment. Colorado
   

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Housing - Brazil - problems and solutions
  • Page numbers refer to the associated resource booklet.

Rio de Janeiro case study (Read pp4-9)

  
  The links for this assignment: Brazil - Urban issues Housing  
  1. Brazilian cities have a severe housing shortfall. This is a long term problem. Outline why favelas have become towns in their own right. [5]
  2. Using the maps on pages 8 and 9, describe the distribution of favelas in greater Rio de Janeiro and account for it (quoting map evidence). [5]
  1. Using the table on page 7, comment on the undernoted issues.
    You should compare:
    a) favelas with the city as a whole, and  
    b) the top ten favelas with the bottom ten.  
   
  • Clean water
  • Waste disposal
  • Overcrowding
  • Education
  • Average incomes

[20]
  1. Compare Botafogo with Iraja (refer to table on page 7 and map on p9). [5]
  2. What problems are there with using a quality of life index? [5]

Solutions (p10, pp13-14)

    
Write a background briefing comparing 'top down' and 'bottom up' approaches which could be used to tackle Rio's housing problems.
  • Make a recommendation as to which approach(es) are likely to be most effective. [20]
     

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