Human settlement and population distribution. People tend to settle and cluster in places that have the resources they need to survive and thrive. The geographic factors that most influence where humans settle are water, soil, vegetation, climate, and landscape.
Full Answer
What is the relationship between settlement and population distribution?
Human settlement and population distribution. People tend to settle and cluster in places that have the resources they need to survive and thrive. The geographic factors that most influence where humans settle are water, soil, vegetation, climate, and landscape.
What factors affect settlement patterns?
Factors That Influence Settlement Patterns. Settlement patterns are the ways in which human settlements are distributed across the earth’s land, including the locations of cities, towns and even individual homes. Where people settle is determined by a wide range of factors related to both nature and human society.
What are the consequences of uneven resource distribution?
As a result, resources are distributed unevenly across the globe. What Are The Consequences of Uneven Resource Distribution? Human settlement and population distribution. People tend to settle and cluster in places that have the resources they need to survive and thrive.
What determines where people settle?
Where people settle is determined by a wide range of factors related to both nature and human society. Examining the reasons behind different settlement patterns is an important part of understanding the geography of the world we live in. One of the most basic factors affecting settlement patterns is the physical geography of the land.
How does natural resources affect patterns of settlement?
Natural factors such as terrain, rivers and sunlight influence the construction of settlements at both regional and local levels. This gives settlements certain characteristics of distribution, scale, hierarchy and morphology.
What influences a settlement pattern?
Settlement patterns are partly influenced by population pressure. In urban areas, there is a tendency for the slums to develop in areas which have been designated as flood-prone zones.
How does the environment affect settlements?
Settlement structure is a driver of environmental change as it influences the amount of natural land that is converted into human habitation, the demand for non-renewable natural resources and the production of pollution and waste.
What are the factors influencing settlement location?
Physical factors that influence the location of a settlement include ; Water suppy - settlements need water, Defence - building on high ground allowed people the chance to look out for enemies and Aspect & shelter and The economic factors include; Communications - settlements often located next to rivers that allowed ...
What are the 3 main physical factors that influence a settlement developing?
Physical Features Body of water (transportation routes, water for drinking and farming) Flat land (easy to build) Fertile soil (for crops)
How did the environment influence early settlement patterns?
European settlement patterns were influenced by geographic conditions such as access to water, harbors, natural protection, arable land, natural resources and adequate growing season and rainfall. Examine a variety of primary sources to determine why colonists were drawn to a particular region of the country.
How does economic factors affect settlement?
Economic factors, including household income and home ownership, have a significant positive correlation with settlement intentions, while social characteristics such as social integration and social identification also have a positive correlation with the settlement intentions of new-generation migrants.
What is the relationship between settlements and the environment?
There is always a negative relationship between the settlements and natural environment. Development or growth of unplanned settlement areas is always disadvantageous for natural environment. Lack of legal, cultural responsibilities and ethical aspects, devastation in natural environment is always stronger.
How do economic factors develop settlements?
Resources - Early settlers relied upon wood for fuel and building. A site close to woodland was there fore an advantage. Later, resources such as Iron ore, coal and bauxite encouraged the growth of settlements. Linear settlements grow in a line, often along roads, river valleys or the coast.
What are the factors that influence the types of rural settlement?
The factors that determine the type of rural settlements in India: (i) Physical features – nature of terrain, altitude, climate and availability of water. (ii) Cultural and ethnic factors – social structure, caste and religion. (iii) Security factors – defence against thefts and robberies.
What are the 3 types of settlement patterns?
There are generally three types of settlements: compact, semi-compact, and dispersed.
What are the three main patterns of settlement?
There are three main settlement patterns: nucleated, linear and dispersed.
What factors influence Australia's settlement patterns?
The underlying geography and the location of natural resources had an obvious impact on settlement patterns. Most often this impact had already played out in earlier times and was evident in the settlement patterns of 1911. The climate, soils and distance were key factors in the early development of Australia.
What is the pattern of settlement?
Settlement patterns are the ways in which human settlements are distributed across the earth’s land, including the locations of cities, towns and even individual homes. Where people settle is determined by a wide range of factors related to both nature and human society.
How did the settlements of the 1800s affect the world?
Settlement patterns have always been affected by the technology available to settlers, and especially by methods of transportation. In the past, when boats were the best way to transport goods and people, most major settlements were located next to the sea or rivers. In fact, the world’s biggest cities today are still located next to water, though transportation technology has allowed inland regions to be populated too. In the 1800s, the American West and other parts of the world saw settlements spring up along the newly built railroads, and today highways and roads form an even bigger factor.
Why is climate important for settlement?
One of the most basic factors affecting settlement patterns is the physical geography of the land. Climate is key, because if a place is too dry, too cold or too hot, it’s more difficult for large numbers of people to settle there, especially if they make their living from farming. The land itself is important too because some types of soil are much better for agriculture than others, or they support different types of crops. Though modern transportation allows people to settle farther from where their food is farmed, places with wet, mild climates are still more densely populated than places that are very dry or very cold.
Why did settlers come to cities?
Historically, settlers often came in search of places to start farms, and later they came to cities to look for jobs.
How Are Resources Distributed?
Resources are distributed in different ways and in different amounts throughout the world. Often the result of past geologic processes such as volcanic activity or tectonic movement, this unequal distribution means that various quantities of certain resources are only available to some people.
What is resource map?
A resource map is one type of map that is used to show the distribution of different resources in a region.
What should students determine about the map?
Students should determine that the map depicts the varying amounts of fresh water available to people throughout the world. Then have students describe what type of conclusions can be drawn from such a map. For example, they might notice that fresh water is more available in South America than in Africa.
Where is the Yamal?
The Reindeer of Russia. The Yamal is an Arctic peninsula located in northwestern Siberia. Known for its reindeer herds and large reserves of natural gas, the region is the site of new natural gas development. Have students learn more about how humans and animals compete for resources by looking at the Paths of Resilience map.
Who is credited for media?
The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.
What is the barrier to access to services and resources in Africa?
Access to services and resources remains a barrier to development across much of rural Africa, and the development of effective strategies to reduce this barrier requires contemporary, detailed and accurate information on population distribution and spatial accessibility upon which to base decisions. Here we have presented an Africa-wide spatial population dataset that represents an advance over other existing population distribution datasets in terms of its contemporary input data, spatial resolution and accuracy. Moreover, we have demonstrated its value in deriving spatial access metrics, and highlighted the substantial variations in settlement and population distributions and the challenges that exist between countries in improving access to services and resources. The 2010 population datasets are freely available as a product of the AfriPop Project and can be downloaded from the project website: www.afripop.org.
How to provide reliable spatial access?
To provide reliable, contemporary and detailed measures of spatial access, transportation data must be combined with accurate and high resolution information on population and settlement distributions. This article describes the first iteration of an ongoing project entitled AfriPop ( www.afripop.org ), aimed at the detailed and contemporary modelling of population distribution across Africa. The modelling framework described here uses routinely collected data and semi-automated methods that can easily incorporate new data as it becomes available. Different sources of errors and uncertainties are associated with the population datasets described here, therefore, a future priority will be to incorporate uncertainty explicitly in future iterations, taking large area population distribution mapping a step further than existing approaches. Uncertainties relate to (i) the input data (ii) temporal projection and (iii) the modelling procedure used. Uncertainties associated with input data such as census data can be important, especially in low income regions where misreporting errors may be frequent [35], [36]. In addition, growth rates can vary substantially within countries, introducing uncertainties when using national estimates, and are dependent upon the urban-rural definition used. Future work will consider more sophisticated handling of these components of temporal uncertainty and its propagation through the projections. Finally, the dasymetric modelling method used here (i.e. the use of land cover data for redistributing populations) also introduces uncertainties [17]. Future iterations will focus on improvements to modelling methods, through testing alternative and promising statistical modelling methods such as boosted regression trees [37].
What is the X axis of the GDP per capita?
The X-axis represents the average per-person travel time to the nearest settlement with more than 50,000 people and the Y-axis is the skewness of the average travel time distribution. Examples of corresponding national travel time distribution plots are shown on the right. Colors represent the GDP per capita for the year 2010, or the year 2009 when 2010 data were not available (World Bank national accounts data, and OECD National Accounts data files: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD ). North and South Sudan share the same GDP per capita value, as no separate statistic is available at the moment.
Why is the average travel time in Africa so low?
In contrast, the average travel time is lowest in Northern Africa (lower than 2 hours) because a large proportion of people reside in very accessible areas on the Northern coast. This is also demonstrated by the skewness of the travel time distribution across the population ( Fig. 2d ). Download:
What is a globcover?
Recent work showed that GlobCover was the global land cover dataset that, combined with detailed settlement extents, produced the most accurate population distribution data in an African context [17]. The GlobCover dataset was modified to accommodate the more detailed settlement extents obtained from satellite imagery and geolocated points. The GlobCover dataset was first resampled to 100 m spatial resolution, and the urban class – which typically overestimates settlement extent size [15], [17] – was removed and the surrounding classes expanded equally to fill the remaining space. The more detailed settlement extents were then overlaid onto the ‘urban class deprived’ land cover map and land covers beneath were replaced to produce a refined land cover map focussed on detailed and precise mapping of human settlements.
What is Deichmann's 1996?
13. Deichmann U (1996) A review of spatial population database design and modeling. Santa Barbara: National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, University of California.
What does ATT mean in a travel time plot?
National travel time plots. ATT = average travel time per person to the closest settlement of more than 50,000 population. SK = skewness of average travel time. A positive skew indicates that the tail on the right side of the function is longer than the left side. Higher values indicate longer tail, i.e. a higher proportion of population located in inaccessible areas.
