THE CORE – DEFINITIONS

POPULATION IN TRANSITION

1. Exponential growth – an increasing or accelerating rate of growth2. Annual growth rate – found by subtracting the crude death rate from the crude birth

rate and then expressed as a percentage (%)3. Crude birth rate (CBR) – the number of births per 1,000 people in a population4. General fertility rate (GFR) – the number of births per 1,000 women aged 15-49 years5. Age-specific birth rate (ASBR) – the number of births per 1,000 women of any

specified year groups6. Standardized birth rate (SBR) – a birth rate for a region on the basis that its age

composition is the same as for the whole country7. Total fertility rate (TFR) – the average number of births per 1,000 women of

childbearing age8. Infant mortality rate (IMR) – the number of deaths of children less than one-year old

per 1,000 births9. Child mortality rate – the number of deaths in children under the age of 5 per 1,000

children 10. Crude death rate (CDR) – the number of deaths per 1,000 people in population 11. Life expectancy – average number of years that a person can be expected to live,

usually from birth, if demographic factors remain unchanged 12. Population structure or population composition – any measurable characteristic of

the population. This includes age, sex, ethnicity, language, religion and occupation of the population

13. Older dependency ratio (ODR) – the number of people aged 65 and over for every 100 people aged 20 to 64

14. Family planning – attempts to limit family size 15. Migration – the movement od people involving a change of residence. It can be

internal or external (international) and voluntary or forced. It is usually for an extended period (more than a year) and does not include temporary circulations such as commuting or tourism.

16. Remittances – transfer of money or goods by foreign workers to their home countries17. OECD – organization of economic co-operation and development, largely composed

of developed countries18. Refugee – a person fleeing their home country in order to escape danger19. Asylum seekers – people who seek refugee in another country 20. Illegal immigrants – people who enter another country without permission and plan

to remain there21. Economic immigrant – a person seeking job opportunities22. Internally displaced persons (IDPs) – those who have fled their homes but continue to

live in their own countries23. Tenure – the way in which the rights, restrictions and responsibilities that people

have with respect to land (and property) are held

DISPARITIES IN WEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT

1. The Human Development Index (HDI) – a composite measure of development. It includes 3 basic components of human development: longevity (life expectancy), adult literacy and average number of years’ schooling, standard of living-income adjusted to local cost of living

2. CIS – commonwealth of independent states, made up of the former Soviet republics3. LEDCs – less economically developed countries 4. NIC – newly industrializing country 5. Core and periphery – the concept of a developed core surrounded by a undeveloped

periphery. The concept can be applied at various scales6. Gross national income (GNI) – the total value of goods and services produced within

a country, together with the balance of income and payments from or to other countries (now used in preference to gross national product (GNP))

7. MEDCs – more economically developed countries8. Asian tigers – 4 economies (Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan) that

were the first NICs, and were associated with very high growth rates and industrialization between the 1960s and 1990s

9. Fair or ethical trade – trade that attempts to be socially, economically and environmentally responsible. It is trade in which companies take responsibility for the wider impact of their business. Ethical trading is an attempt to address failings of the global trading system

10. Export processing zone (EPZs) – labour-intensive manufacturing centres that involve the import of raw materials and the export of factory products

11. Free trade zones – zones in which manufacturing does not have to take place in order to gain trading privileges; such zones have become more characterized by retailing

12. Purchasing power parity (PPP) – the measure of average earnings in relation to local prices; how much you can buy for your money

PATTERNS IN ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY AND SUSTAINABILITY

1. Global warming – the increase in temperatures around the world that have been noticed over the last 50 years or so, and in particular since the 1980s

2. The greenhouse effect – the process by which certain gases (water vapour, methane, carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons) allow short-wave radiation from the sun to pass through the atmosphere and heat up the earth, but trap an increasing proportion of long-wave radiation from the earth. This radiation leads to a warming of the atmosphere

3. The enhanced greenhouse effect – the increasing amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as a result of human activities, and their impact on atmospheric systems, including global warming

4. Planetary albedo – refection from the earth’s surface 5. Global climate change – the changes in the global patterns of rainfall and

temperature, sea level, habitats and the incidence of drought, floods and storms, resulting from changes in the earth’s atmosphere, believed to be mainly aused by the enhanced greenhouse effect

6. Soil degradation – a severe reduction in the quality of soils, often through soil erosion, salinization and soil exhaustion (loss of soil fertility)

7. Physical water scarcity – lack of available water where water resource development is approaching or has exceeded unsustainable levels; it relates availability to demand and implies that arid areas are nor necessarily water scare

8. Economic water scarcity – lack of water where water is available locally, but not accessible for human, institutional or financial capital reasons

PATTERNS IN REASOURCE CONSUMPTION

1. Ecological footprint – the theoretical measurement of the amount of land and water a population requires to produce the resources it consumes and to absorb its waste, under prevailing technology

2. Reserves – resources that are accessible and usable 3. Resources – anything useful to humans such as soil, oil, water and minerals4. Peak oil production – the year in which the world or an individual oil-producing

country reaches its highest level of production, with production declining thereafter5. Energy security – a country’s ability to secure all its energy needs6. Energy insecurity – a lack of security over energy sources7. Geopolitics – political relations among nations, particularly relating to claims and

disputes pertaining to borders, territories and resources8. Cartel – an organization of people who supply the same good and join together to

control the overall supply of the product. The members of the cartel can force up the price of their good either y restricting its supply on the word market or by agreeing on a particular supply price and refusing to sell the good for any less

9. Recycling – the processing of waste so that materials can be reused10. Reuse – the multiple use of a product11. Reduction – using less of a resource12. Substitution – using one resource rather than another13. Landfill – the burying of waste in big pits