Environment and resources
H2 Geography - syllabus 9173, 2027
Explain sustainable development, resource limits and choices about energy, shared rivers and extraction.
- Sustainable development
Sustainable development meets needs today while protecting future people's ability to meet theirs.
- Measuring SDG progress
An indicator measures a condition, while a target states the improvement wanted by a certain date.
- Barriers to sustainable development
A good long-term plan can fail if people cannot pay for it, agree on it or accept how its costs are shared.
- Ecosystem services and change
Ecosystem services are the benefits people get from nature, and damaging an ecosystem can cut several benefits at once.
- Renewable resources and depletion
Renewable means able to be replaced within human timescales, not impossible to use up.
- Resource availability and reserves
How much of a resource is available depends on what is known to exist and what can be extracted today.
- Population and resources
Population pressure can reveal environmental limits or spur new ideas, but total supply does not show who can actually get it.
- Solar power and energy security
Solar power can replace fossil fuels, but reliable electricity needs a system that also works when the sun is weak.
- Hydropower and its trade-offs
Hydropower can supply low-carbon electricity when needed, but its benefits depend on river conditions and how its impacts are managed.
- Transboundary water conflict
When a river crosses borders, one country's use can change the amount, timing and quality of water in another.
- Managing shared rivers
Cooperation on shared rivers works best when countries share reliable data, agree on rules and have reasons to keep them.
- Extractive industries and their impacts
Mining and drilling can bring money to one place while leaving the environmental and social costs in another.
- Managing extraction impacts
Managing mining impacts needs rules, money and accountability from before approval to long after the mine closes.
- Named examples: Environment and resources
A named place with a date or figure, linked to your point, turns a general answer into a developed one.
What you will be able to do
I can explain sustainable development, how its three dimensions depend on each other, and where they conflict.
Syllabus 9173, Topic 1.1, 1. Understanding Sustainable Development. What is sustainable development?
Taught in Sustainable development, Named examples: Environment and resources
I can use SDG indicators to measure progress and explain why measuring it is hard.
Syllabus 9173, Topic 1.1, 1. Understanding Sustainable Development. How do we know that there is progress towards sustainable development?
Taught in Measuring SDG progress
I can explain the economic and political barriers to sustainable development.
Syllabus 9173, Topic 1.1, 1. Understanding Sustainable Development. What are the challenges that might limit the progress towards sustainable development?
Taught in Barriers to sustainable development
I can explain the four types of ecosystem services and how demand and damage change their value.
Syllabus 9173, Topic 1.1, 2. Environment and Resources. Why is the environment important?
Taught in Ecosystem services and change
I can tell renewable from non-renewable resources and explain how reserves are classed and when supply runs out.
Syllabus 9173, Topic 1.1, 2. Environment and Resources. Will our supply of provisioning services ever be depleted?
Taught in Renewable resources and depletion, Resource availability and reserves
I can evaluate Malthus and Boserup on whether resources can support population growth, and explain unequal access.
Syllabus 9173, Topic 1.1, 2. Environment and Resources. Are there adequate provisioning services to support population growth?
Taught in Population and resources
I can evaluate solar power and hydropower as ways to replace fossil fuels securely and sustainably.
Syllabus 9173, Topic 1.1, 3. Managing Resources. How do we manage the use of renewable energy sources?
Taught in Solar power and energy security, Hydropower and its trade-offs
I can explain how shared rivers cause conflict between countries and evaluate how such conflicts are managed.
Syllabus 9173, Topic 1.1, 3. Managing Resources. How do we manage conflicts over transboundary water resources?
Taught in Transboundary water conflict, Managing shared rivers
I can explain the impacts of extractive industries and evaluate how they are managed.
Syllabus 9173, Topic 1.1, 3. Managing Resources. How do we manage the extraction of non-renewable resources by the extractive industries?
Taught in Extractive industries and their impacts, Managing extraction impacts