Environment and resources

H2 Geography - syllabus 9173, 2027

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Explain sustainable development, resource limits and choices about energy, shared rivers and extraction.

• Sustainable development

  Sustainable development meets needs today while protecting the ability of people in the future to meet theirs.

• Measuring SDG progress

  An indicator measures a condition; a target states the improvement sought by a given time.

• Barriers to sustainable development

  A useful long-term plan can fail if people cannot fund it, coordinate it or accept how its costs are shared.

• Ecosystem services and change

  Ecosystem services are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems; damaging the system can reduce several benefits at once.

• Renewable resources and depletion

  Renewable means capable of replenishment on human timescales, not impossible to exhaust.

• Resource availability and reserves

  Resource availability depends on what is known to exist and what can be extracted under current conditions.

• Population and resources

  Population pressure can expose environmental limits or encourage innovation, but total supply does not tell us who can obtain it.

• Solar power and energy security

  Solar power can replace fossil-fuel generation, but reliable electricity requires a system that also covers low-sunlight periods.

• Hydropower and its trade-offs

  Hydropower can supply low-carbon electricity and flexibility, but its benefits depend on river conditions and how impacts are managed.

• Transboundary water conflict

  A river crosses political borders, so one country's use can change another country's water quantity, timing and quality.

• Managing shared rivers

  Cooperation works best when countries share usable information, negotiate rules and have reasons to follow them.

• Extractive industries and their impacts

  Extraction can generate revenue in one place while concentrating environmental and social costs in another.

• Managing extraction impacts

  Mining management needs rules, money and accountability throughout operation and after closure.