• The description AND explanation of the earth
• emphasis on spacial dimensions

• Both Physical and Human
• focus on regions and landscapes
• and the study of human-environment interaction

Areal Differentiation

Areal Integration

Areal Differentiation:

• Explains the differences marking off one part of
the world from another
• Sets this part off as a distinct region or place

Areal Integration:

• The study of interactions in space
• How areas interact with each other

ex. Hurricane Katrina

• A meteorological event

• A human crisis - This is what makes it a Natural disaster.

3 Types of Regions:

(Formal, Functional, or Vernacular)

Formal: Governmentally defined spaces

Functional: Tourism, Cities, (People gather here for specific functions)

Vernacular: Subjective to one's own thoughts

• The level at which geographic phenomena can be experienced and observed from the "local" to the "global"

• Scale refers not just to the "size" of a phenomenon

• But also to its connections with other phenomena at the same or other scales

Local <- Globalization -> Global

Local -> Regional -> National -> Global

• International free trade and single capitalistic world economy
• Transnational corporations and employees
• A more homogeneous global consumer culture

• An apparent homogenizing of cultural traits around the world (spread and consumption of similar cultural products)
• Especially visable in the diffusion of English and Anglo-American popular culture ('Americanization')
• But also present in the increased exchanges and borrowings between diverse cultures (hybridization)

Crude Birth Rate (CBR)

Crude Death Rate (CDR)

CBR - number of live births per 1,000 people per year.

CDR - number of deaths per 1,000 people per year.

RNI = CBR - CDR

(Birth Rate minus death rate)

As a country goes through industrialization, its population moves through four stages:

• Stage 1: PREINDUSTRIAL: Population Growth is Low because there are high birth rates and high death rates
• Stage 2: TRANSITIONAL: Rapid growth in this stage because there are still high birth rates, but death rates decrease.
• Stage 3: TRANSITIONAL: Birth rates decline, Low growth rate.
• Stage 4: INDUSTRIAL: Balance between low birth rates and low death rates.

Best to predict future growth.

• Expected number of children a woman will have during her reproductive years.
• 2010: TFR: 2.8

• Development: both qualitative and quantitative, "bringing gradually to a fuller or better state."
• Growth: Simply the increase in size of a system. Growth may or may not have an impact on development.
• Just because a system is growing, doesn't mean it is developing.

• The value of all goods and services produced within a country's borders, combined with net income.

• GNI divided by population

• Combines data on life expectancy, literacy, educational attainment, gender equity and income. (Demographic, Social & Economic)
• A score out of 1.
• Created by UN
• The closer to 1, the more developed

• An adjustment that takes into account the strength or weakness of local currencies.
• GNI may be undervalued or inflated because it is in relation to the value of the US dollar. The PPP fixes this.

Climate

(Weather vs. Climate)

• A normal/regular stable condition in a given region – how it differs from “weather” - which is a more specific, day to day condition

• Where similar atmospheric conditions prevail, boundaries are drawn.

• A warm atmospheric envelope
• The trapping of incoming and outgoing solar radiation by an array of natural greenhouse gases in the atmospheric layer closest to the earth.

• Radiation from the sun

• Human Induced
• Major greenhouse gases lead to the depletion of the ozone
• Carbon Dioxide
• Chloroflourocarbons
• Methane

• Biome: A grouping of floura and fauna into large ecological region (living things and organisms)
• Bioregions: A special unit/region of local plabnts and animals adapted to a specific environment.

• Both incude naturally occuring fauna anf flora and human modification of these plants and animals (domestication)

Tropical Biomes

(Deforestation)

·         Found mostly at low latitudes, in the equatorial region (near the equator)

·         Tropical forests and Savannas – W. Africa

·         Plants grow in layers

·         Green and lots of vegetation (dense)

·         High temperature and high precipitation

·         Problem: Deforestation in the tropics (loss of forest cover)

Deserts and Grasslands

(Desertification)

·         Desert means “empty of people.”

·         Mostly dry conditions (some are cold)

·         1/3 of the earth’s land is true desert.

·         Grasslands – some precipitation/growth of basic plants

o   Prairies: Limited Growth

o   Steppes: Dryer than prairies, but there is still some grass

·         Human Impact: Desertification (humans have let animals graze too much.)

·         Desertification: The threat that prairies and grasslands will turn into deserts.

·         At middle and high latitudes (appx. 40-60 degrees)

·         2 Types of trees dominate

o   Softwood coniferous, or evergreen

o   Deciduous trees (drop their leaves in winter)

·         Many of these forests felled to make farmland.

• The decrease in available water sources