General patterns of soil distribution on the globe. Dangerous waters

Determine the sentence in which both highlighted words are written CONTINUOUSLY. Open the brackets and write down these two words.

On Earth, even before the advent of man, events took place for millions of years that changed our planet: mountain ranges rising from sea waters were undermined by snow waters, and ALSO by glaciers that descended from mountain peaks.

In many countries, recreation areas are expanding (FOR) DUE to vast areas of former quarries: (FOR) EXAMPLE, in Greece it is planned to develop several quarries where sports fields, attractions and beaches will be located.

(C) FOR long hours, Andrei Rublev remained in the temple (ALONE) with his teacher Theophan the Greek, who revealed the secrets of painting to the icon painter.

The unique composition of the text is determined by variable repetitions, when the thesis (F)INITIALLY is formulated, and (FOR)THEN it is repeated many times.

The lightning flashed, and hordes of clouds rushed WHERE (IN) DISTANT.

Explanation (see also Rule below).

Let's give the correct spelling.

On Earth, even before the appearance of man, DURING (the preposition is written separately) millions of years, events took place that changed our planet: mountain ranges rising from sea waters were undermined by snow waters, and ALSO (the conjunction is written together: can be replaced by the conjunction I) by glaciers that descended from the mountain peaks

In many countries, recreation areas are expanding DUE to (the derivative preposition is written separately) vast areas of former quarries: FOR EXAMPLE, in Greece it is planned to develop several quarries where sports fields, attractions and beaches will be located.

FOR (derivative preposition) long hours, Andrei Rublev remained in the temple ALONE (the adverb is written together) with his teacher Theophan the Greek, who revealed the secrets of painting to the icon painter.

The unique composition of the text is determined by variable repetitions, when the thesis FIRST (the adverb is written together) is formulated, and THEN (the adverb is written together) is repeated many times.

Lightning flashed, and hordes of clouds rushed SOMEWHERE (-THAT, -EITHER, -SOMETHING are written with a hyphen) IN THE DISTANCE (the adverb is written together).

Answer: first, then.

Answer: first then|then first

Source: Demo version of the Unified State Exam 2016 in the Russian language.

Rule: Continuous, separate and hyphenated spelling of words. Task 14.

Continuous, separate and hyphenated spelling various parts speech.

According to the “Specification”, this task tests knowledge of the most voluminous, most diverse and therefore most complex material. In this section “References” the rules of school textbooks will be systematized, as well as supplemented with the information that is necessary for the successful completion of the Unified State Examination task and mastering practical literacy. The set of rules that will be analyzed is not accidental: the creation of the list was preceded by work on studying assignments from past years, FIPI Bank, as well as printed publications, the authors of which are the creators of KIMs (Tsybulko I.P., Egoraeva, Vasiliev I.P. and others ).

Table 1 contains words distinctive feature many is the presence of homonyms, that is, words that sound the same but have different spellings. To indicate parts of speech and explanations Abbreviations used:

noun - noun

number - numeral

adv. – adverb

places – pronoun

deepr. – participle

p/p - derived preposition

n/a – non-derivative preposition

v/s – introductory word

fe – phraseological unit

Table 1 is based on materials from Russian language teacher M.A. Kryukova. (website “Up to your ears in the OGE and the Unified State Exam!”)

Adverbs formed with a hyphen are written:

Semi- is always written together: crescent, half-year.

An equally important indicator is population density. This value represents the number of inhabitants per 1 square. km. The calculation of the population density of each country in the world is carried out excluding uninhabited territories, as well as minus vast expanses of water. In addition to the general population density, individual indicators can be used for both rural and urban residents.

Considering the above facts, it should be borne in mind that the population on the globe is unevenly distributed. The average density of each country differs quite significantly. In addition, within the states themselves there are many uninhabited territories, or densely populated cities, in which per square meter. km there may be several hundred people.

The most densely populated areas are South and East Asia, as well as the countries of Western Europe, while the polar regions, deserts, tropics and highlands are not at all densely populated. absolutely independent of their population density. When examining the uneven distribution of the population, it is advisable to highlight the following statistics: 7% of the globe’s territory occupies 70% of the total number of people on the planet.

At the same time, the eastern part of the globe occupies 80% of the planet's population.

It is advisable to highlight the countries with the lowest population density:

• Australia;
• Namibia;
• Libya;
• Mongolia;

Greenland is one of the countries with the lowest population density

And also countries with low density:

• Belgium;
• Great Britain;
• Korea;
• Lebanon;
• Netherlands;
• El Salvador and a number of other countries.

There are countries with medium population density, among them are:

• Iraq;
• Malaysia;
• Tunisia;
• Mexico;
• Morocco;
• Ireland.

In addition, there are areas on the globe that are classified as unsuitable for life.

As a rule, they represent areas with extreme conditions. Such lands account for approximately 15% of all land.

As for Russia, it belongs to the category of low-populated states, despite the fact that its territory is quite large. The average population density in Russia is 1 person per 1 sq. km.

It is worth noting that the world is constantly undergoing changes, during which there is a decrease in either the birth rate or the death rate. This state of affairs indicates that population density and size will soon remain at approximately the same level.

The largest and smallest countries by area and population

The largest country in the world by population is China.

The number of people currently in the state is 1.349 billion people.

Next in terms of population is India with a population of 1.22 billion people, then the United States of America: the country is home to 316.6 million people. The next largest country in terms of population belongs to Indonesia: today there are 251.1 million citizens living in the country.

Next comes Brazil with a population of 201 million people, then Pakistan, the number of citizens of which is 193.2 million, Nigeria - 174.5 million, Bangladesh - 163.6 million citizens. Then Russia, with a population of 146 million people and, finally, Japan, whose population is 127.2 million.

• Saint Kitts and Nevis with a population of 49 thousand 898 people;
• Liechtenstein, with a population of 35 thousand 870 people;
• San Marino, the number of citizens of the country is 35 thousand 75 people;
• Palau, a state in the Association of the United States of America, whose population is 20 thousand 842 people;
• with a population of 19 thousand 569 people;
• The Order of Malta, which consists of 19 thousand 569 people;
• Tuvalu with a population of 10 thousand 544 people;
• Nauru – the population of the country is 9 thousand 322 people;
• Niue is an island with a population of 1 thousand 398 people.

The Vatican is considered to be the smallest state in terms of population.

At the moment, only 836 people live in the country.

Table of population of all countries of the world

The table of the population of the countries of the world looks like this.

The world's population has already exceeded 6.6 billion people. All these people live in 15–20 million different settlements - cities, towns, villages, hamlets, hamlets, etc. But these settlements are distributed extremely unevenly across the earth's landmass. Thus, according to available estimates, half of all humanity lives on 1/20 of the inhabited land area.

The uneven distribution of population on the globe is explained by four main reasons.

The first reason is influence of natural factors. It is clear that vast areas with extreme natural conditions (deserts, ice expanses, tundra, highlands, tropical forests) do not create favorable conditions for human life.

The second reason is the impact historical features settlement of the earth's land. After all, the distribution of population across the Earth’s territory has evolved throughout human history. The process of formation of modern humans, which began 40–30 thousand years ago, took place in South-West Asia, North-East Africa and Southern Europe. From here people then spread throughout the Old World. Between the thirtieth and tenth millennia BC, they settled North and South America, and at the end of this period, Australia. Naturally, the time of settlement to some extent could not but affect the population size.

The third reason is differences in modern demographic situation. It is clear that the number and density of population is increasing most rapidly in those countries and regions where its natural growth is highest.

The fourth reason is impact. socio-economic conditions people’s lives, their economic activities, the level of production development. One of its manifestations may be the “attraction” of the population to the coasts of the seas and oceans, or more precisely, to the land-ocean contact zone.

The zone located at a distance of up to 50 km from the sea can be called zone of immediate coastal settlement.

22. International and internal migrations: causes, forms, scales and directions).

Population migration(from Latin migratio - relocation) is the movement of people across the borders of certain territories associated with a permanent or temporary change of place of residence. Sometimes the term “mechanical movements of the population” (as opposed to its natural movement) is also used to designate them.

Depending on which borders migrants cross - internal or external - migrations are usually divided into two large types: internal migrations And external (or international) migration. At the same time, to denote migration flows that are sent from a particular country, the term is used emigration, and for flows into the country – immigration.

International population migrations, in turn, are classified according to several various signs(criteria, directions) that determine the nature of migration.

Firstly, based on the time criterion, they are divided into

· permanent

· temporary.

Permanent (irreturnable) migration has the goal of acquiring a new permanent place of residence in another country, usually accompanied by a change of citizenship. The most common temporary migrations are seasonal, associated with a more or less short-term (within a year) departure to another country - for work, study, treatment, etc. Seasonal migrations also include nomadism and pilgrimage to holy places. As for international tourism, there are two points of view on this matter: according to one of them, such movements of people do not belong to the category of migration, and according to the other, they represent a special type of episodic migration. Sometimes they also talk about transitional temporary-permanent, migrations – for a period of one to six years. It can be added that if previously the world was completely dominated by permanent migrations, recently the relocation of people on a temporary basis has also become very widespread.

Secondly, according to the method of implementation, international migrations are divided into

· voluntary

· forced.

Voluntary migrations predominate among them, but the role of forced ones also cannot be underestimated. Their brightest historical examples may serve as a “transfer” from Africa to America in the 16th–19th centuries. tens of millions of black slaves, as well as the forced deportation to Germany of 9-10 million people from the countries it occupied during the Second World War.

Among the kind of voluntary-forced migrations we can apparently include those that have become so characteristic of our time forced migrations. While forced migration is based on orders from the civil or military administration, people mostly resort to forced migration themselves, but under the pressure of external circumstances - natural Disasters, man-made accidents and disasters, military operations, changes political system, human rights violations, etc.

Thirdly, in legal terms, international population migrations are divided into

· legal

· illegal.

Illegal (clandestine) migrants are people who enter another country illegally, without appropriate permission and registration. Since the second half of the 1970s. The world is experiencing a rapid increase in the number of illegal migrants. Back in the mid-1990s. illegal immigration was estimated at at least 30 million. The interest of the host country in this case lies in the fact that it receives an additional source of the cheapest labor resources. And the sending country expects to employ at least part of its unemployed and, moreover, to receive additional income (from money transfers) to the state treasury. In its most general form, the growth of illegal migration reflects the division of the modern world into rich and poor countries.

What are the reasons for external migrations?? According to experts in this field of knowledge, the main thing was and remains economic reason, i.e., the natural desire of people either to find a job at all, or to get a higher-paying job.

Along with economic ones, external migrations are often caused by political reasons(hence the word “political emigrant”). Examples of this kind are the emigration of almost half a million citizens, mainly intellectuals (Albert Einstein, Lion Feuchtwanger, Enrico Fermi and others) from fascist Germany and Italy, from Francoist Spain, in the mid-1970s. After General Pinochet came to power in Chile, more than 1 million people left this country. Political emigration on a large scale also took place in pre-revolutionary Russia and the USSR, in Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia and many other countries.

Other reasons for external migration include social, family, national, racial, and religious. For example, the formation of independent India and Pakistan on the territory of former British India, followed by the transformation of East Pakistan into the state of Bangladesh, led to the resettlement of a total of 18 million people. It was carried out mainly on a religious principle: Hindus went to India, and Muslims went to Pakistan and Bangladesh.

In the modern world, labor migration undoubtedly plays a leading role, ultimately determined by the search for a new place of employment outside one’s own country. The scale of labor migration is constantly increasing, contributing to its involvement in the global migration cycle. work force from more and more countries. Main incentive labor migrations– very large differences in the provision of countries with labor resources and, to an even greater extent, differences between them in wages. Labor migrates mainly from labor-abundant countries with high unemployment and low wages to labor-scarce countries with high wages. Not less than 2/3 labor migrants– people from developing countries who are looking for work in developed Western countries. Usually these are workers applying for low-paid, unskilled, low-prestige, hard, and often unhealthy work.

Of course, the demographic factor also has a great influence on labor migration. As a rule, migration flows are directed from countries at one or another stage of a demographic explosion to countries experiencing a demographic crisis and depopulation or approaching them. Examples of countries with the largest negative balance of external migration include Pakistan (-2.2 million), Bangladesh (-1.3 million), the Philippines, Thailand, Iran, Mexico (-500 thousand - 1 million), and examples of countries with the largest the positive balance of such migrations is the USA (+4.5 million), Germany (+3 million), Canada and Australia (+ 600 thousand).

Recently, in the literature, including geographical literature, more and more attention is paid to the study of the consequences of international migrations of the population (primarily labor), which, in turn, can be divided into positive And negative. At the same time, both consequences for countries supplying and receiving labor resources may be different.

In countries that supply labor, labor migration helps reduce unemployment and provides additional sources of foreign exchange income in the form of remittances from migrant workers to their families. After returning home, such migrants usually join the ranks of the middle class, using the money they earn to open their own business in their home country, and this, among other things, leads to the creation of new jobs. On the other hand, experience suggests that not all labor migrants, even temporary or permanent ones, return to their country. Many of them seek to hide their income. Moreover, in a foreign land, as a rule, they hardly improve their qualifications.

Countries receiving migrant workers face even more different kinds of problems. Of course, in this way they to some extent compensate for the lack of labor resources (especially in industries with low qualifications of employees) and receive some other economic benefits. However social problems labor migration, as a rule, only aggravates.

Only a portion of the migrant workers manage to obtain citizenship of the host country and become its full citizens. The rest have to be content with a so-called residence permit, which does not make them full members of society.

As for such a concept as "migration policy" then it has existed for a long time, but usually related mainly to internal migrations. Recently, migration policy has increasingly been extended to international migration. Many developed countries have already introduced anti-immigration cordons and are trying to repatriate at least some of the migrants who arrived earlier. However, migration policy also provides for a number of measures to better adapt migrants in host countries.

Main features of the geography of migrations

International population migrations were characteristic of most stages of human development and had a significant impact on this development itself, facilitating people’s adaptation to different conditions existence. The main features of the geography of international migration have changed over time.

In the 19th century the main focus of emigration was Europe, from which about 30 million people left for the USA, Canada, Australia, South America, South Africa. There were also significant migrations from China, mainly to Southeast Asia, and from India to some areas of Africa and South America. In the first half of the 20th century. (before the Second World War), previous trends and directions of migration were largely preserved. Europe again produced about 30 million migrants who went to approximately the same overseas regions. During the Second World War, forced and forced migrations prevailed. And after it, the geography of international migrations began to gradually change. Along with intercontinental migrations, intra-continental migrations also began to increase. Completely new centers of attraction and outflow of migrants have emerged, mainly due to economic factors.

First of all, attention should be paid to the fact that geographical shifts in international migrations occur against the background of their rapid quantitative growth. The first place in the total number of migrants is occupied by foreign Asia - the most populous region of the Earth. In terms of the share of migrants in the entire population, Australia and Oceania stand out as the most sparsely populated region. The main suppliers of migrants in the modern world are foreign Asia, Latin America and Africa, and the main receiving regions are North America, foreign Europe, Australia and Oceania.

The main directions of international (mainly labor) migrations:

1) migration from developing to economically developed countries;

2) migration within economically developed countries;

3) migration within developing countries;

4) migration from countries with economies in transition to economically developed countries.

Migration from developing to economically developed countries has been and remains predominant. These include primarily labor migration from Afro-Asian countries to Western Europe, from Latin America and Southeast Asia in the USA. A more specific example of this kind is the attraction of labor to South Africa from neighboring countries. Examples of migration between economically developed countries are the movement of labor resources from the countries of Southern Europe to the countries of Western Europe. Labor migrations within developing countries include flows of migrants from Northern and East Africa, from South, Southeast and East Asia to the Gulf countries

As a result, it can be argued that the main areas of attraction for migrants in the modern world are Western Europe, North America, the Gulf countries, Australia, South Africa, the newly industrialized countries of Asia, some Latin American countries, as well as Israel. The main suppliers of migrants are some countries of South (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh), South-East (Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand) and South-West (Iran) Asia, North and Tropical Africa, Southern Europe, as well as Mexico and some other Latin American countries.

Russia became a country of mass international migrations only before and after the collapse of the USSR. Emigration from Russia reached its maximum in 1990, when more than 700 thousand people left the country.

The influx of immigrants to Russia, which in the early 90s amounted to. XX century approximately 1 million people per year, then decreased to 500 and then to 200 thousand. Almost all immigrants arrive in Russia from other CIS countries and the Baltic countries, i.e., in the words of B. S. Khorev, they are “secondary” migrants, for reasons of economic, social, psychological, national nature, they did not adapt to the regions of the former Union and were forced to return to Russia. There is also an influx of temporary foreign labor into Russia in the amount of approximately 300 thousand people per year. Its main suppliers to the Russian labor market are five countries: Ukraine, Belarus, Turkey, China and the DPRK. But in general, the migration influx of the population only partially compensates for its natural decline.

23. Socio-economic and political consequences of migration.

See the first part of the previous ticket, where the classification of migrations is. It describes in detail what is what, what influences what, what is positive, what is negative and why.

24. “Brain drain” against remittances to the homeland.

In the second half of the 20th century. when characterizing international population migrations, another term began to be used - "brain drain" or “brain drain”. It means the migration of people in intellectual professions - scientists, engineers, medical and other specialists, creative intelligentsia, as well as potential workers in these professions (students, graduate students, interns). All of them can migrate for a long period of time, under contracts, or they can leave for permanent job with a change of citizenship.

Intellectual migration began at the turn of the 40-50s. XX century Then it went through several stages in its development, reflecting the stages of scientific and technological revolution itself and changes in the international situation.

First stage"brain drain" covered the second half of the 1940s, when defeated Germany Several thousand specialists in the field of physics, rocket science and other similar specialties were deported to the United States on a semi-forced basis.

Second phase- this is the 1950s, when a massive voluntary departure of talented scientists and university graduates began from Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and to a lesser extent from France, to the USA, as well as to Canada and Australia. As a result, only the United States in the 1950s. received an additional at least 100 thousand highly qualified specialists. And many scientific schools in Western Europe have become noticeably poorer. But in any case, the “brain drain” at this stage occurred from some economically developed countries to others.

Third stage covering the period from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, brought very great changes to the geography of international intellectual migrations. At this stage, developing countries, especially Asian, but also Latin American and African, became the main breeding ground for such migrations. According to some estimates, only in the 60-70s. XX century From these regions, 700–800 thousand specialists from developing countries moved to the USA, Great Britain, Canada and Australia - scientists, engineers, doctors, medical personnel, programmers, etc. The “brain drain” affected India to the greatest extent (engineers and doctors) , Philippines (nurses), as well as China, the Republic of Korea, Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria, and the countries of the West Indies. To this we must add tens of thousands of “defector” students from developing countries who, after completing their studies in the USA, Canada, and Great Britain, remained there without returning to their homeland. Needless to say, such intellectual emigration caused great economic, and not only economic, damage to underdeveloped donor countries. According to UN estimates, the financial losses of developing countries over the past 30 years have amounted to more than $60 billion.

Fourth stage, which began in the late 1980s and continues to this day. The “brain drain” at this time primarily affected the countries of Central-Eastern Europe and the CIS, from where mass emigration of scientists, technical specialists, and professional people began to the USA, Canada, Germany, Israel and some other countries.

In total, according to UN experts, during the post-war period (until the mid-1990s) “brain drain” led to the displacement of approximately 2 million people worldwide.

In the geographical and economic literature, attempts have been made more than once to study and explain the causes (factors, conditions) of “brain drain”. Scientists have come to the conclusion that the main reason for intellectual migration - as one of the types of labor migration in conditions of special attention to the quality of labor resources - is economic benefits, which intellectual migrants acquire in the new host country compared to the donor country.

A. Stoker in his book “The Work of Foreigners” gives the following example-comparison: Filipino nurses in their country can count on a monthly salary of $150, while in the USA their salary can be $2.5 thousand per month. However, not all highly qualified specialists leave for the sole purpose of making good money. Many are simply forced to leave their country because they cannot find work in their specialty or realize their scientific, technical and general intellectual potential. However, to this we must add a whole series non-economic reasons“brain drain” – social, racial-ethnic, political, etc.

As for the geography of this process, the United States had and continues to have a decisive influence on it, which was and remains the main center of attraction for intellectual migrants, attracting approximately 2/3 of their total number. Back in the mid-1960s. A new immigration law was adopted in the United States, stimulating the influx of specialists from developing countries. In the 1990s. a special amendment to the immigration law was adopted, increasing the quota for highly qualified specialists from former USSR up to 50 thousand people per year.

As a result, the share of immigrants among all qualified specialists in the United States is about 1/5, and among engineers - even 2/5. Since the cost of training one specialist is usually much higher in the United States than in other countries, this influx of intellectuals allows them to save many billions of dollars. It has been noted more than once that over the 100 years of the Nobel Prize's existence, approximately 400 people have become laureates, half of whom are in the United States. But many of the American laureates are emigrants, including first-generation ones (for example, world-famous economists who came from Russia - S. Kuznets and V. Leontiev).

Russia in the 1990s became one of the world's leading suppliers of intellectual personnel for abroad. As a result of the protracted socio-economic and political crisis, mass lack of demand, the inability to realize knowledge and experience in one’s own country, constant financial deficit, infrastructural insecurity of science and education, on the one hand, and the emergence of unprecedented openness, on the other, in the 1990s . Hundreds of thousands of scientists of various ranks, including promising young scientists, left the country. Most of them left for good, many on long business trips on all kinds of grants. The result of all these processes was that over the years of reforms the number of people employed in Russian science decreased by half. Such an outflow of scientists and specialists from the country not only causes enormous material damage to it, but also impoverishes its intellectual potential, thereby creating a real threat to national security.

25. Rural and urban population.

Geography of population studies the geographical features of the formation and development of populations and populated areas in various social, economic and natural conditions. It establishes patterns, primarily spatial ones, that determine the development of the structure, distribution and territorial organization of the population.

Although the characteristics of the population occupied a prominent place in the geographical works of ancient authors, population geography emerged as an independent scientific branch only in the 19th century, primarily in the form anthropogeography(Germany) and human geography(France).

Population geography is primarily an integral part of socio-economic geography. Hence it follows very close ties with social geography, economic geography, natural resources, political geography, regional studies, economic and social cartography, etc.

The scientific core of population geography should be considered the theory of settlement, which considers the settlement of people under the influence of socio-economic (level of development and location of production and non-production spheres), natural (relief conditions, climate, water supply, etc.) and demographic (type of population reproduction) factors. Population geography undertakes the study of the two main forms of human settlement - urban and rural, as well as settlement networks and systems, and in their interaction with all three factors mentioned above. In the West, population geography, more often called ecotics, also proceeds from the need for a broad approach to the subject of research, considering as a person’s “home” the entire hierarchy of possible habitats - from an apartment and a house to the entire Oecumene

The theory of settlement, as it should be, includes a number of separate scientific concepts.

The first example of this kind can be given concept of a unified settlement system(ESR). In Russian population geography, the USR is understood as a system of interconnected urban and rural settlements, united by transport and production connections, a common infrastructure, a common network of social and cultural service centers and recreational facilities. It is generally accepted that the concept of a unified settlement system was widely used in Soviet time to draw up General Settlement Schemes for the country.

Another example - settlement support frame concept, which forms the most significant and long-term part of the settlement, ensuring its integrity and sustainability. As a rule, the main key elements of such a framework are large cities and urban agglomerations, and if we are talking about a global framework, then supercities and megalopolises. But when considering individual areas, medium-sized and even small cities can act as central places.

In economically developed countries, which for two centuries have been implementing, one might say, a classical model of urbanization, its process has stabilized to a certain extent. The outflow of population from rural areas to cities is no longer massive, so the urban population is growing mainly due to its own natural increase. Moreover, as many authors note, in these countries there is a process deurbanization, that is, the outflow of the population - primarily representatives of the middle class - to the countryside. As a result, the growth rate of urban population in developed countries decreased in 2005 to 0.5%. Recently, urbanization in them has been predominantly "deep" manifesting itself in new forms of urban settlement - agglomerations, urbanized areas and zones, megalopolises, in the development of processes of suburbanization, urbanization.

Developing countries, having embarked on the path of urbanization only in the middle of the 20th century, are guided in many ways by a different model of this global process. We can say that they are, as it were, catching up, combining a demographic explosion with a phenomenal scale “urban explosion”. The latter is expressed here primarily in high and very high rates of urban population growth: on average they amount to approximately 2.8% per year, which is much higher than that of developed countries. Another important difference between this type of urbanization is that it spreads predominantly "in breadth" covering all new territories. And its main driving force remains the influx of migrants from rural areas, whom receiving cities cannot fully provide with either housing or work.

As a result of such differences in the unified urbanization process, many quantitative proportions that determine the relationship between developed and developing countries began to change in favor of the latter. Thus, the total number of urban residents in developed countries increased from 442 million people in 1950 to 925 million people in 2005, or more than doubled.

26. Zoning of rural settlement.

I don't know what should be here. Perhaps the second part of the previous question.

27. City criteria.

Difficulties in formulating the definition were reflected when distinguishing cities from others settlements. One of the most common approaches to this problem is formal, in which the main criterion is population size. This approach is used, for example, in Denmark, where a settlement with more than 250 inhabitants is considered a city.

However, most often it is combined with formal functional approach, which, in addition to the number of residents, takes into account the nature of their labor activity. Thus, in Russia, to give the status of a city, it is necessary that 75% of the residents of a settlement are employed in non-agricultural activities, as well as Population must be at least 12 thousand people.

There is no uniform methodology for identifying cities for all countries of the world, although the UN proposes that settlements with 20 thousand inhabitants or more be considered cities. Meanwhile, settlements with a smaller number of inhabitants than the threshold value are often called cities. As a rule, this is due to the preservation of the historical status of the city. For example, Vereya in the past it was a fairly large city, but over time it lost its importance and its population decreased to several thousand people.

Cities are divided by crowding(small, medium, large, large, largest, millionaire cities) and by functions(administrative, industrial, transport, scientific, trade, cultural, military, recreational). Most cities - multifunctional. However, there are cities that have a “specialization” - o bottom-functional. These include mining centers, resort cities, scientific centers, and some capitals.

Based on the nature of city-forming functions, cities are divided into central(service to the population and economy of the surrounding areas) and special(industry centers).

28. Forms of urban settlements.

Term "urbanization" appeared only in the second half of the 19th century, when, in fact, urbanization began in a more strict, scientific understanding of this term. Also in early XIX V. global urbanization rates were very low, one might say rudimentary, but then they began to increase - slowly at first, and then faster and faster

Three stages can be distinguished in the process of global urbanization.

Its first (initial) stage covered mainly the 19th century, and in the territorial aspect - Europe and North America. The second stage occurred in the first half of the 20th century. This stage is characterized by an acceleration in the growth of the urban population (from the table it is easy to calculate that during the entire 19th century it increased by approximately 170 million people, and in the first half of the 20th century by 518 million people) and the spread of urbanization to almost all regions of the world. Finally, the third stage corresponds in time to the second half of the 20th century. Typical for it is not just the acceleration of the growth rate of the urban population (an increase of 2188 million people), but also the emergence of such new qualitative parameters as the predominant growth of large cities, the formation of urban agglomerations, megalopolises, the spread of the urban lifestyle to the countryside, etc. On this stage, urbanization has finally become a global process, covering all regions of the globe.

It is this third stage with with good reason got the name "urban explosion" It is easy to see that it coincided in time with the demographic explosion. The characteristic features of the “urban explosion” can be defined as follows.

Firstly, this acceleration of growth rates urban population. Over the past few decades, it has increased annually in the world by 2.5–2.6%, and only in beginning of XXI V. this rate dropped to 2%.

Secondly, there is a rapid increase in the number big cities and their shares in the general and urban population. Statistics show that in 1900 there were approximately 360 cities in the world with a population of over 100 thousand people, in which a little more than 5% of the total population lived. By 1950, the number of such cities increased to 950, and their share of the world population increased to 16%. The corresponding figures for 2000 are approximately 4,000 large cities and 1/3 of the world's population.

Thirdly, this is the rapid growth in the number and role of urban agglomerations, which have actually already replaced the former “spot” city. There were only 185 large agglomerations with a population of more than 500 thousand people each in 1950, 340 in 1970, 665 in 1995. In 1950, 36% lived in them, in 1970 - 41, 5, and in 1995 - 47% of the total urban population of the world.

Fourth, this is even faster growth “millionaire” agglomerations. Information about them, based on international statistics, is provided in their latest works by E. N. Pertsik, Yu. L. Pivovarov, N. A. Sluka and some other authors. Regarding the number of such agglomerations, we refer to N. A. Sluka (Table 63), and regarding their location and share in the urban population of the world - to Yu. L. Pivovarov (Fig. 49 and 50).

The total number of “millionaire” agglomerations in the world is apparently already close to 400, and their share in the urban and general population has increased even more.

Fifthly, this is an increasingly clear manifestation of various forms of the process hyperurbanization. Here is the accelerated growth of ultra-large agglomerations, which are often called super cities, or megacities megalopolises.

29. Urban agglomerations, megalopolises.

B-Accelerated growth of ultra-large agglomerations, which are often called super cities, or megacities(UN demographers include cities with a population of more than 8 million people, but more often use the criterion of 10 million people). It is interesting that in 1950 New York was one of the super cities, in 1960 the super city of Tokyo was added to it, in 1970 - Shanghai, in 1980 there were already 5 such cities, in 1990 - 12 ( according to other sources, 10), and in 2000 their number reached 20. Here is the emergence of such forms of urbanized settlement as urbanized areas, urbanized zones, stripes (axes) of urbanization, and especially megalopolises.

Since the criteria for approaching this important concept have not yet fully formed, estimates of the total number of megalopolises vary greatly. Thus, the Athens center of ekistics (ekistics is the theory of the formation and evolution of human settlements) back in the early 1980s. identified 66 megalopolises in the world (including 43 established and 23 emerging) and predicted an increase in their number by the end of the century to 160. Along with this clearly maximalist approach, there are also minimalist ones. For example, according to one UN forecast, by 2000 there should have been 23 megalopolises in the world. And many scientists recognize only 6 megalopolises as fully established - Tokaido (Japan), Northeast, Lakeside and California (USA), English (Great Britain) and Rhineland (Germany). Although they also believe that a number of megalopolises in Canada, Brazil, India, China and other countries are in one or another stage of formation.

If we try to classify “millionaire” urban agglomerations by population, it turns out that in agglomerations with a population of 1 to 5 million people in 2005, 90% of all city residents lived, and in developing countries there were three times more of them. In the same year, there were only 22 inhabitants of between 5 and 10 million people, of which 16 were in developing and 6 in developed countries. The highest level of agglomeration with a population of over 10 million people each. There are also 22 of them in total. Of these super cities, 15 are located in developing countries, and 7 are in developed countries.

As for the distribution of large-city populations across individual countries of the world, in terms of the total number of “millionaire” agglomerations, the top five countries include China (50), the USA (50), India (34), Brazil (16) and Russia (15).

Finally, the question arises about regional differences in levels of urbanization (urbanization) in the modern world. The relationship between the two main groups of countries on this indicator is largely different, demonstrating the continued significant superiority of developed countries

Agglomeration criteria used

By agglomeration, the authors of the study understand the “actual city”, which is an area of ​​continuous development. To identify such urbanized areas of continuous development, the authors used a “light fingerprint” - an area of ​​artificial lighting in the city and its suburbs, which can be observed from an airplane on a clear night. In Australia, Canada, France and the UK, as well as the USA, national statistical offices identify similar urbanized areas. Only in Australia, as a criterion for belonging to an urbanized area, a population density threshold within the boundaries of a municipality of 400 people per square kilometer is used. In a number of cases, the authors of the study divided virtually fused urbanized areas into agglomerations that continue to be considered independent. At the same time, the authors proceeded from the fact that the urbanized area is essentially a central city and a continuously built-up suburban area connected to the central city by daily labor migrations. That is why the authors admit that in a number of cases the definition of the boundaries of agglomerations was conditional, because there was a need to “cut” with a border actually fused agglomerations, each of which nevertheless forms an independent zone of daily labor migration. Thus, the authors of the study had to separate the Japanese megalopolis of Tokaido, as well as the fused agglomerations of the Pearl River Delta in China, while the fused agglomerations of the cities of Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Dongguan were taken into account separately by the authors, and the agglomerations of the cities of Guangzhou and Foshan together.

30. Geography of the largest cities.

Classical urban geography - as one of the most important scientific directions - originated in our country back in the 30s. XX century during the formation of a regional school of economic geography. The most prominent Russian geographers also stood at its origins. After a period of some stagnation in the 60s and 70s. Urban geography has received a new intensive development in the works of urban geographers, whose work in most cases touches on both domestic and foreign issues related to cities.

For a long time, ordinary “spot” cities were subjected to such research, but as the process of urbanization deepened, the development of agglomerations, the emergence of suburbanization, urbanization, and hyperurbanization, complex and branched systems of cities of different ranks increasingly became objects of study. At the same time, some scientists believe that the concepts of “urban geography” and “geo-urbanism” remain, if not completely identical, then similar. Others (for example, Yu. L. Pivovarov) see a qualitative difference between them, believing that nowadays urban geography in its traditional sense has actually already grown into geourbanism, which is fundamentally different from it. One of its spin-offs was the already mentioned urban ecology.

Understood nothing.

31. The concept of “central places” by Walter Christaller.

In accordance with this theory, there is an optimal frame-network structure of settlements, which provides access to service sector facilities, the fastest possible movement between cities and effective management of the territory. The system of settlements has a certain hierarchy, the number of levels of which is directly proportional to the socio-economic development of the territory. As the hierarchy level increases, a settlement provides an ever-increasing range of services to an ever-increasing number of lower-level settlements.

The system of central places (the so-called “Kristaller grid”) has the shape of a honeycomb (adjacent hexagonal cells). The centers of some cells are nodes of a hexagonal lattice of a higher order, the centers of its cells are lattice nodes of an even higher order, etc. up to the highest level with a single center.

This model has been criticized for being unrealistic for several reasons. Firstly, such a geometrically correct one is quite rare, since many historical, political and geographical factors violate the symmetry and strict hierarchy of distribution; secondly, a numerical study of an evolutionary model based on Christaller's ideas showed that the symmetric distribution is unstable - small fluctuations are enough to create zones with a high concentration of activity and cause an outflow of population and a decrease in activity in other zones.

32. Zipf's rule.

In 1913, the German scientist Felix Auerbach, analyzing actual data on the ratio of the number of cities of different sizes, revealed a pattern that the population of a city and its serial number are in the following relationship: the population of any city is equal to the number of residents of the largest city divided by the serial number (rank) of the first . Auerbach's law was not widely known, however, soon a similar
pattern in the distribution of other species human activity was again
found by sociologist George Zipf (in another Russian transcription - Zipf), according to
after which it is now called the Zipf rank-size rule.

According to Zipf's rule, if the territory is an integral economic region, the population of the nth largest city is 1/n the number of residents of the largest city. - population of a city of rank r. Thus, if the population of the largest city (city with rank 1) of a hypothetical country is 1 million people, then the estimated population of the 2nd city is 500 thousand people, the 3rd is 333 thousand people, the 4th - 250 thousand
people, 5th - 200 thousand people. Deviations of the distribution of cities from the rank-size rule are associated with the history and characteristics of economic development, natural conditions, and violations of the natural course of the formation of state space. Particularly significant deviations from the ideal distribution exist in developing countries, where during the colonial period the Europeans transformed the territorial and economic structure of the economy that existed before their arrival. Majority of the largest cities
developing countries are located on the coasts and were founded by Europeans as
colonial capitals are gateways for economic development of the territory,
ports for the export of mineral raw materials and tropical agricultural products. All
the rest of the territory was deprived for a long time major cities, and often
cities in general. The lights of the capitals, where all modern technology was concentrated
industry, banks, education and culture of the Western type, and often almost
the entire urban population, attracted rural migrants from all over the country in search of
higher earnings and a better life. According to the schedule built
according to Zipf's rule, one can judge the distribution of cities and the formation
urban settlement system in which large, medium and small towns coexist
city, and, if appropriate statistical data is available, about the dynamics in
time of the urban settlement system of the study area. If in the country
there is only one large city where the bulk of the urban
population, the curve will have the appearance of a so-called primate
distributions. This type is typical for a country with a short history
economic development modern type, an undeveloped system of cities with
the dominant role of the only major city operating to a greater extent
outside, and not into the territory of the country. If a territory is characterized by high population density and is saturated with cities, then the actual curve will be located above the ideal one.

Again some kind of crap. It’s simpler, but still nothing is clear

Zipf's rule ("rank-size")

Model for calculating the population of any city in the country (hierarchy of cities). If the territory is an integral economic region, then the population of the nth largest city is 1/n the number of residents of the largest city.

33. World cities.

A global city is a city considered an important element of the global economic system. Such a city is usually of key importance for large regions of the Earth and has a serious political, economic or cultural influence on them.

In contrast to the concept of “metropolis,” which can also be used in relation to the center of a specific agglomeration or region, “global city” makes sense only within the framework of a system of cities throughout the globe. The term "global city" was first used by Saskia Sassen in her work The global city (1991) in relation to London, New York and Tokyo and contrasted with the term "megalopolis"; the term "world city" dates back to Patrick Geddes's 1915 description of cities with a disproportionate number of business meetings.

It should also be taken into account that, in fact, the population and importance of cities, including global ones, largely determine their agglomerations.

What is the difference between natural and economic resources? Which countries have almost all types of natural resources? How can you measure the national wealth of a country?

The role of natural resources in the life of society. The rise of humanity to the heights of socio-economic progress is closely connected with its use of various gifts of nature - natural (or natural) resources.

Human needs for different types of natural resources are not the same. Thus, without oxygen - an invaluable gift of nature - a person cannot live even for a few minutes, while without uranium and plutonium - sources of nuclear fuel - he has managed for thousands of years. The costs of developing natural resources are also different: sometimes they are minimal, but much more often the development of natural resources requires large investments, especially when it comes to the use of expensive equipment and technology, inaccessibility of deposits, etc.

Many natural resources, explored and extracted, become raw materials for a wide variety of branches of material production. In turn, raw materials involved in social production and repeatedly transformed in it are transformed into economic resources. Thus, the elements of nature, as a result of labor influence on them, appear before us in the form of tools, buildings, and material goods.

Modern industry in the world consumes huge amounts of raw materials. Its cost (including the cost of fuel and electricity) in the total costs of industrial production is about 75%. This circumstance poses very acute problems for many countries in providing basic types of raw materials.

Many natural resources (primarily oil, gas, coal) are gradually becoming scarce. This, of course, is a sad fact. But, firstly, not only have they not yet been exhausted, but they are far from fully identified. Secondly, extracted natural resources are still used inefficiently. Thirdly, discoveries in the resource sector that will be made in the coming decades are difficult to predict. After all, just “the day before yesterday” we knew nothing about electricity, “yesterday” we knew nothing about the huge reserves of energy hidden in atomic nucleus. There are many things we still don’t know today, although we are undoubtedly “surrounded” by forces about which we still do not have a clear idea. It is only necessary that the mental and productive activity of human society serve the benefit of all people on Earth, that it ennobles nature, helps it more fully reveal its capabilities, and does not leave behind a lifeless desert.

Along with the term “natural resources”, the broader concept of “natural conditions” is often used. The line separating one concept from another is sometimes very arbitrary. For example, wind can be considered as a component of nature, but at the same time it is also an important resource, primarily for energy production.

Natural conditions reflect all the diversity of the natural environment on our planet and are closely related to the history of mankind and its location. They have always influenced people's lives, and people have influenced the natural environment. Thus, a person cannot exist without using the resources of nature and in this sense is dependent on it. But at the same time, man is able to actively influence nature. This is the essence of the relationship between man and nature. Allocation of resources and provision of them in different countries. From previous geography courses, you know that natural resources are mineral, land, water, plant, etc. This is one of the types of their classification based on belonging to one or another range of natural phenomena. Natural resources are also divided into renewable and non-renewable, based on their intended purpose for a particular sector of the economy, by quality (i.e., the content of useful components in them), by the nature of formation (mineral, organic), etc. Distribution of natural resources by The planet is characterized by unevenness. This is explained by differences in climatic and tectonic processes on Earth and different conditions for the formation of minerals in past geological eras, etc. The reserves of individual types of natural resources are far from equal. As a result, not only between countries, but also large regions of the modern world, there are noticeable differences in the level and nature of their provision with natural resources. Thus, the Middle East is distinguished by large oil and gas resources, the Andean countries - copper and polymetallic ores, the states of Tropical Africa, which have large tracts of tropical forests, - valuable timber, etc. There are several states in the world that have almost all known types of natural resources . These are Russia, the USA and China. India, Brazil, Australia and some other countries, although inferior to them in terms of the “range” of natural resources, are highly wealthy compared to other countries. Many countries have large world-wide reserves of one or more resources. Thus, Gabon stands out for its reserves of manganese, Kuwait for oil, and Morocco for phosphorites. Of great importance for every country is completeness available natural resources. For example, to organize the production of ferrous metallurgy in a single country, it is very important to have resources not only of iron ore, but also of manganese, chromites, and coking coal. And if they are also located relatively close to each other, then this is a great success for the country.

There is not a single country in the world that does not possess certain natural resources. If there are few of them, and some of them do not exist at all, the state is not doomed to poverty. After all, the national wealth of any country can be measured not only by the totality of its material assets and reserves of natural resources, but also by people, their experience and hard work, the degree of use of their energy, knowledge and skill.

For example, Japan, which has achieved outstanding economic success, has very limited mineral resources, both in range and in quantity. It has only large reserves of sulfur and pyrites, while there is a sharp shortage of oil, natural gas, iron ore, rare metal ores, phosphorites, potassium salts, etc. In contrast to Japan, we can give examples of many states that have the richest mineral resources raw materials, but have not achieved great success in socio-economic development.

The uneven distribution of natural resources around the planet, on the one hand, contributes to the development of the process of international division of labor and international economic relations, on the other hand, it gives rise to certain economic difficulties in countries deprived of certain natural resources.

Scientifically based economic assessment of natural resources is of great importance in the process of environmental management. Its components are exploration, identification, inventory, as well as quantitative and qualitative assessment of natural resources. Unlike highly developed countries of the world, where a comprehensive assessment of such resources has already been carried out, in underdeveloped countries there is no such assessment yet. Meanwhile, without careful accounting of natural resources, without a well-functioning system of control over their consumption in all spheres of our life, without their utmost saving, we cannot hope for the “eternal” prosperity of mankind.

So, at all stages of the development of human society, natural resources were an important prerequisite for its socio-economic progress. However, their transformation into various economic resources ultimately depends on the person, on his diligence and talent.

Questions and tasks. 1. Is it possible to say that economic activity Is humanity largely a process of society's development of natural resources? Justify your answer. 2. What factors determine the distribution of natural resources on the planet? 3. Give examples of states that have rich natural potential, but, in your opinion, have not achieved great success in socio-economic development. 4. Using atlas maps, indicate the countries that have all the natural resources necessary for the development of the iron and steel industry. 5. Based on the analysis of atlas maps and appendix tables, supplement the text of this paragraph with examples.

Mineral resources

Will mineral resources remain for future generations? What is recycling of resources?

Distribution of minerals. Since time immemorial, man has widely used a variety of mineral raw materials.

Despite the implementation of resource conservation policies by many countries, the demand for mineral raw materials in the world is growing rapidly (by about 5% per year). This trend is explained, firstly, by a noticeable increase in demand for mineral raw materials in the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and secondly, by the rapid development of construction, where it is more difficult to implement a mode of saving materials than in industry.

The scale of use of mineral resources has increased enormously in recent decades. Mining volume from 1950 g. increased by 3 times, and of the entire mass mined in the 20th century. 3/4 of minerals were mined after I960. Today, the growth in consumption of mineral raw materials noticeably exceeds the increase in its proven reserves. At the same time, the supply of it to most countries is decreasing.

Every year more than 100 billion tons of various mineral raw materials and fuels. These are ores of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, coal, oil, gas, building materials, mining and chemical raw materials - more than 200 different types in total.

As you already know, the current distribution of the world's minerals is the result of the Earth's long geological history. In various places of the lithosphere formed

large, geologically isolated territories with certain groups of deposits associated with them. At the same time, fuel resources 1 of organic origin are confined to the margins and troughs of ancient platforms, while ore resources are most often found within platform faults and mobile folded areas of the earth's crust. Large accumulations of ore deposits formed as a result of tectonic processes are usually called ore belts. These include the Alpine-Himalayan, Pacific and other ore belts. Ore minerals are of enormous importance in the modern world, since metals (primarily iron) remain unsurpassed structural materials. In addition to various branches of material production, they are widely used in everyday life, in medicine, etc. The presence of ore minerals is a good prerequisite for economic development for any country. Iron is especially closely connected with the past, present and future destinies of humanity. Large reserves of long-developed iron ore raw materials are concentrated in the USA, China, India, and Russia. Geological exploration work carried out in recent decades has led to the discovery of many deposits

in the countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America. These include iron ores of the Amazon basin in Brazil, deposits in Liberia, Guinea, Algeria, etc.

Of the non-ferrous metals, the most common is aluminum. Its content in the earth's crust by mass is slightly less than 10%. Large reserves of aluminum raw materials (bauxite, etc.) are available in France, Italy, India, Suriname, the USA, West African countries, and the Caribbean. Our country is also rich in aluminum raw materials.

The main resources of copper ores are concentrated in Zambia, Congo (Kinshasa), Chile, USA, Canada, lead-zinc ores - in the USA, Canada, Australia.

Not all industrial countries of the modern world have a sufficient amount of metal ores and are forced to import them (Fig. 4). Thus, Japan does not have industrial reserves of the vast majority of ore minerals, Germany experiences an acute shortage of iron ore, Italy – in copper, France – in polymetallic ores, etc.

At the same time, a careful study of the maps of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy (see atlas) shows that the leading positions in reserves and production of a number of ore minerals are occupied either by developing countries or those that have recently left this “status”: Brazil and India - iron ore; Chile, Zambia, Congo (Kinshasa), Peru, Mexico - copper; Guinea, Jamaica, Suriname - bauxite; Gabon - manganese; Malaysia, Indonesia, Bolivia, Brazil, Thailand - tin, etc.

Among mineral resources, mineral chemical raw materials also play an important role in the modern world - sulfur, phosphates, potassium salts, building materials, refractory raw materials, graphite, etc. It is clear that the degree of occurrence of these resources in the earth's crust varies. Thus, building materials are found almost everywhere, while deposits of sulfur, phosphorites, and graphite are relatively rare. This circumstance, on the one hand, makes it possible to create a construction industry in almost every state, on the other hand, it significantly affects the economic specialization of countries.

The problem of depletion of mineral resources and ways to solve it. The most accessible mineral deposits in our time are rapidly depleted. Thus, intensive development of iron ore deposits led to the depletion of many deposits not only of the Old World, but also of the New World. The reserves of this ore in Lorraine (France), the Urals, and the Great American Lakes have become depleted. The copper ore resources of Zambia and Zaire have also become depleted. And the Pacific state of Nauru, once famous for its colossal reserves of phosphorites, has practically lost them.

Meanwhile, out of the huge volume of rock mass annually extracted from the bowels of the planet, no more than 20% is used for the production of finished products. As a result of such irrational environmental management, hundreds of billions of tons of various rocks have accumulated in dumps over many years. These technological “cemeteries” also contain billions of tons of ash from power plants and slag - waste from metallurgical plants. Many overburden rocks and mineral processing wastes are suitable for the production of a range of metals, chemical products, building materials - bricks, cement, lime, etc.

The rational use of mineral resources (the vast majority of which are non-renewable) presupposes the integrated development of fossil raw materials, that is, such that every gram of a substance taken from nature must be put into use.

Many reputable world scientists predict the advent of an era of recycling (i.e., reuse) of resources, when waste will become the main raw materials in the economy, and natural reserves will play the role of backup sources of supply.

The countries of Western Europe, the USA and especially Japan demonstrate examples of deep recycling of industrial and household waste. At the same time, their production of huge amounts of steel, aluminum, copper and other non-ferrous metals from recycled materials helps to save not only metal (and therefore mineral resources), but also energy. The automatic lines created in these countries are capable, for example, of “grinding” a car in a matter of seconds, sorting ferrous and non-ferrous metals, synthetic materials, and glass.

A significantly wider use of integrated processing of mineral raw materials, resource-saving equipment, low-waste and non-waste technology is also necessary in our country. This will create conditions for a more complete involvement of local types of raw materials into circulation and for the deep utilization of secondary raw materials.

Non-waste technology is a technology that ensures the most rational and comprehensive use of raw materials and energy in the cycle “raw materials – production – consumption – secondary raw materials”. At the same time, the normal functioning of the natural environment should not be disrupted (Fig. 5).

Of course, waste-free technology is the ideal model to which modern production. Achieving 100% wastelessness today is almost impossible. Therefore, a value of 90–98% is considered to be appropriate waste-free production, and 75–90% – low-waste.

The creation of waste-free and low-waste production is a complex process that requires solving a number of interrelated technological, economic, organizational, psychological and other problems. However, this is the future.

So, mineral resources are the most important source of diverse

raw materials for the global economy. They are placed on the Earth in accordance with its geological evolution. As a result of irrational use, many types of mineral resources today are either almost exhausted or severely depleted. Humanity is on the threshold of an era circulating use many mineral resources.

Questions and tasks. 1. Fill out the table “Classification of Mineral Resources”. 2. Highlight on the map the most significant ore belts of the Earth. 3. Study the main flows of mineral raw materials on the globe using atlas maps. Draw a conclusion (or conclusions) about their patterns. Indicate, by comparing atlas maps, which countries use their own ore and mining chemical raw materials to develop their manufacturing industries. 4. What, in your opinion, are the most typical features of mismanagement of mineral resources in the modern world? 5. Calculate how many years the world reserves of these minerals will last at the current level of their production, taking into account growth of 2% per year.

§ 5. Land resources

Is it worth plowing up all the soils of the planet? Is there a path to food abundance with a relative and absolute reduction in the land fund?

Structure of the world's land fund. Land resources are among those natural resources without which human life is unthinkable. There are as many of them on the planet as there is land, which, as is known, makes up 29% of the earth's surface. However, only 30% of the world's land fund is agricultural land, that is, land used by humanity to produce food. And the rest is mountains, territories bound by permafrost, deserts, glaciers, swamps, impenetrable jungles, taiga forests. For example, the vast polar spaces in Greenland, northern Russia, Canada and the USA (Alaska), the Sahara Desert, desert regions of Central Australia, the highlands of Central Asia, etc. are unsuitable for processing.

In addition, millions of hectares of land are occupied by urban and rural settlements, highways, power lines, various warehouses, bases and other facilities. As you remember, agricultural land consists of arable land, as well as land occupied by meadows and pastures. The share of arable land, meadows and pastures varies significantly across countries and continents depending on natural conditions, the degree of agricultural development of the territory and some other indicators (Table 1). The most valuable and fertile lands on the planet are about 1,5 billion hectares The largest tracts of agricultural landscapes are concentrated in the forest-steppe and steppe zones of the temperate zone and the humid zones of the warm and hot zones of the continents (Fig. 6). About half of all arable land in the world is concentrated in six countries - Russia, the USA, India, China, Canada and Brazil. At the same time, for each inhabitant of the planet there is an average of 0.28 hectares (including only 0.15 hectares in densely populated foreign Asia). In other words, in Asia 1 hectare feeds 7 people, Europe – 4, South America – 2, North America – 1.5 people. The true wealth of humanity is soil. Their formation lasted thousands of years, but the destruction of soils due to the careless attitude of humans towards them occurs in just a few years. Most often it is irreversible or difficult to correct. Reduction and expansion of the area of ​​cultivated land. One of the most alarming indicators of soil resource loss is the growth of deserts. The sands of the Sahara are advancing, the deserts of South-West Asia, North and South America are growing. At the same time, deserts are advancing on steppes, steppes - on savannas, savannas - on forests. The main reasons for the growth of deserts are the “overloading” of fields with agricultural crops and their improper cultivation, deforestation and overgrazing of livestock (Fig. 7).

Of course, the degradation of cultivated lands and their withdrawal from agricultural use occur not only as a result of desertification. They are also “threatened” by human settlements and industry (Fig. 8). Cities and villages, industrial plants, power lines and pipelines are quietly encroaching on arable land, which in turn is encroaching on forests and pasture lands. Every year, in many countries around the world, the number of territories destroyed by quarries and filled with dumps formed during the mining process increases. Many arable lands are flooded by the created reservoirs. The lands withdrawn from agricultural use account for about 6% of the land, and by 2000, according to experts, their area reached 15%.

At the same time, there are still many areas on Earth that are not used in agricultural production. We are not talking about virgin and fallow lands “forgotten” by man, but mainly about areas with a terrain inconvenient for agriculture (ravines, ravines, mountain slopes) or unfavorable conditions (wetlands, etc.). The development of such territories requires great caution, as it involves intrusion into vulnerable natural systems.

One of the ways to slow down the process of reduction of cultivated land (especially in small countries) is to increase the number of floors of residential and industrial buildings and expand underground structures. As the experience of reconstruction of Vienna, Paris, Tokyo and some other cities shows, it is advisable to locate shopping centers, museums, lecture and exhibition halls, train stations, refrigerators, and transport routes underground. On underground floors there can also be located scientific laboratories, power plants, institutes. The removal of urban buildings underground can already reduce the need for above-ground areas for construction by 10–12%.

We especially note the expansion of cultivable lands by humans at the expense of the sea. In the Netherlands, with the help of canal and dam systems, about 40% of their modern territory was reclaimed from the North Sea. Similar processes of “sliding” of settlements into the sea also take place in Belgium, France, Portugal, Japan, Canada, Singapore, etc.

Of course, the possibilities of expanding acreage due to the “advance” of land onto the sea are not that great. Nevertheless, for some states this is an important reserve for increasing the size of the land fund. The future will show to what extent the existing grandiose projects for increasing the area of ​​arable land at the expense of the sea will be viable.

A more reliable path to food abundance is to increase soil fertility and increase agricultural productivity in general. This requires both

mechanization of production processes, land reclamation and reasonable use of mineral fertilizers, as well as the widespread introduction of achievements in selection and breeding work. Much will also depend on successes in the field of chemical synthesis of food products (primarily protein substances), as well as the industrial cultivation of lower forms - microorganisms created through both selection and genetic engineering.

The struggle to preserve the planet's land resources is one of the most important tasks of humanity. It is necessary to stop the non-renewable loss of soil resources, carefully select forms of agricultural production, and improve farming standards. Land reclamation, i.e. restoration of soil cover after mining and construction work is completed, is of particular importance in the modern world.

Questions and tasks. 1. Explain the difference between the terms “land resources”, “soil resources”, “agricultural land”. 2. The share of arable area varies across countries. So, in Brazil it is about 4% of the country’s area, Australia and Canada - 5%, Argentina, China - 12%, USA - 18%, India - 51%, Hungary - 56%, Denmark - more than 70%. Explain the reasons for the differences. What cards are appropriate to use to justify the answer? 3. What environmental consequences arise from the irrational use of land resources? Where, in your opinion, lies the “cutting edge” of the struggle for the planet’s soils? 4. Group the countries listed below according to the following criteria: a) countries in the structure of agricultural land leading place occupies arable land; b) countries in which the leading place in the structure of agricultural land is occupied by meadows and pastures. Explain your choice: Commonwealth of Australia, Algeria, Hungary, Netherlands, Denmark, Libya, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia.

Freshwater resources

How much water is there on Earth? Is there plenty of fresh water? Is it possible to overcome water hunger on our planet?

The ratio of salty and fresh water. Water is the basis of life. It plays a vital role in the geological history of the Earth and the emergence of life, in the formation of the climate on the planet. Without water, living organisms cannot exist. It is an essential component of almost all technological processes. We can say that the main function of water is life-sustaining.

The vast majority of water on Earth is concentrated in the World Ocean. We should not forget that this is highly mineralized water, which is unsuitable not only for drinking, but also for technological needs. The population, industry and agriculture are in need of fresh water, the resources of which are not very large and constitute less than 3% of the total volume of the hydrosphere. However, if we exclude from this amount the ice of polar and mountain glaciers, which are practically still inaccessible for use, then the share of fresh water will become significantly smaller.

Reserves of easily accessible fresh water are distributed throughout the planet

not uneven. Thus, in Africa, only about 10% of the population is provided with regular water supply, while in Europe this figure exceeds 95%. This does not take into account the huge regional contrasts in water availability at the level of individual states, and the differences between dry and humid areas. These contrasts are explained primarily by the climatic uniqueness of different regions of the continents, the nature of their surface and other factors.

World water consumption. At the beginning of the 21st century. More than 4 million m3 of water is used annually for various economic needs. Let us pay attention to the sharp, almost uncontrollable increase in water consumption: only in the 20th century. Industrial water use increased approximately 20 times, agricultural use 6 times, municipal water use 7 times, and general use 10 times. An acute shortage of fresh water in certain regions has also arisen due to increasing pollution of the hydrosphere.

The largest water consumer in the world is agriculture (almost 2/3 of the total). The overwhelming majority of water here is used to irrigate irrigated lands, and only a small share is absorbed by plants; the rest of the water evaporates from the surface of irrigated lands, transpires by vegetation and drains into underground horizons.

Water consumption and its structure are different on individual continents. Largest

The water situation in large cities of the world, such as Paris, Tokyo, New York, Mexico City and some others, is becoming increasingly tense due to the growth of their population and the construction of new ones.

Ways to overcome fresh water shortage. IN There is a growing shortage of fresh water around the world. At the same time, water famine now threatens not only arid countries, but also countries and regions that are sufficiently supplied with water resources. This is due not only to the increased consumption of fresh water reserves, but also to the ever-increasing pollution of the hydrosphere. Unfortunately, in some countries (primarily developing ones), water pollution

volumes of water (almost 50%) are absorbed by the economy of Asian countries, but more than 4/5 of it is spent on agricultural needs. A similar picture (with much lower volumes of water consumption) is observed in South America and Africa. And only in Europe and North America are industrial and agricultural water consumption approximately equal.

industrial enterprises. In many large cities around the world, the city water supply operates periodically, for several hours a day (and in Singapore, for example, even water cards were introduced).

is still considered a cost economic growth. Wastewater treatment in the vast majority of countries in the world is extremely imperfect. Especially a lot of inorganic compounds “slip” through treatment facilities: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, mineral salts, including salts of highly toxic heavy metals.

One of the ways to overcome the growing shortage of fresh water

In ancient times, a person consumed 12–18 liters of water per day, in the 19th century. – 40–60 l, currently in developed countries – 200–300 l, in large cities – 400–500 l or more. A resident of New York consumes 1045 liters of water per day, Paris - 500 liters, Moscow and St. Petersburg - 600 liters, including industrial and municipal expenses.

However, for physical survival, a person needs only 2 liters of water per day; saving it for industrial and domestic needs, as well as stopping the discharge of industrial, agricultural and municipal wastewater into inland waters and seas.

Another way is to replenish missing water resources through the use of other sources. Such sources can be desalinated sea water, redistributed river flows, icebergs towed to areas of fresh water shortage. A significant amount of water can be obtained by collecting rain and melt water in underground storage facilities.

Groundwater is still poorly used in the world. Meanwhile, in many areas of the planet they are located quite close to the surface, as a rule, good quality. Even in the Sahara Desert, huge reserves of groundwater have been discovered that can make life easier local residents

Freshwater resources can be increased through the use of closed water recycling. At the same time, you can not only save a huge amount of water, but also utilize heat, which can be used to heat residential premises and industrial buildings

All the planet's water resources are interconnected by a grandiose natural process - the water cycle, covering the atmosphere, hydrosphere and earth's crust. Therefore, ill-considered human intervention in this complex process can lead to unpredictable results.

So, fresh water resources are extremely important for maintaining life on Earth. Their limitation, extremely uneven distribution over the earth's surface and growing pollution represent one of the most current problems modernity.

Questions and tasks. 1. There are many areas around the globe that experience excess moisture. These are the most humidified and richest areas in water resources. Use a physiographic map to indicate where they are located. What role do they play in the life of the planet? 2. The volume of fresh water in the world (with mineralization less than 1 g/l) is more than 28 million km 3, but humanity consumes only about 5 thousand km 3 per year. What are the reasons for his deep concern about fresh waters? 3. During the process of use, part of the withdrawn water is irretrievably lost through evaporation, seepage, technological binding, etc. In which sector of the world economy, in which countries and regions are such losses most significant? Why? 4. Which sector of the world economy is the leader in terms of the scale of recycled water supply and in which sector is it practically not carried out? Why? 5. Until recently, the production of 1 ton of products required the following amounts of fresh water, paper – 900–1000 tons, steel – 15–20 tons, nitric acid – 80–180 tons, cellulose – 400–500 tons, synthetic fiber – 500 tons , cotton fabric - 300–1100t, etc. What do you know about water consumption standards in other sectors of the economy? 6. Specify possible ways overcoming the global water crisis.

Forest resources

What is the unique role of the planet's forests? How are they placed? What is the threat to humanity from the ongoing destruction of the Earth's forests?

Inventory and placement. How are you

You already know that forest resources play a huge role in supporting life on Earth. They restore oxygen, preserve groundwater, and prevent soil destruction. Deforestation is accompanied by an immediate decrease in groundwater, which causes shallowing of rivers and drying out of soils. In addition, forest resources provide a variety of structural materials, and wood is still used as fuel in many areas of the world.

Less than 30% of the land is covered by forests. Wherein largest area forests have been preserved in Asia, the smallest in Australia. However, since the sizes of the continents are not the same, it is important to take into account their forest cover, i.e. the ratio of forested area to total area. According to this indicator, South America ranks first in the world (Table 2). In the economic assessment of forest resources, such an indicator as timber reserves acquires paramount importance. Asia, South and North America are ahead of it. Of the individual states, the leading positions in the world in timber reserves are occupied by four countries: Russia, Canada, Brazil and the USA.

At the same time, a large group of countries do not have forests, but woodlands. There are countries that are practically treeless and characterized by extremely arid conditions (Bahrain, Qatar, Libya, etc.).

The map of the world's forest resources (Fig. 9) clearly shows two belts that are enormous in length and approximately equal in size to forest areas and timber reserves: the northern forest belt and the southern forest belt. A feature of the species composition of trees in the northern zone is the sharp predominance of coniferous species here (especially in Russia), while in the southern zone they are practically absent.