Using Population Data to Address the Human Dimensions of Environmental Change

Abstract

In recent years researchers and policy makers have identified population-environment interactions as crucial to issues of ecology, economic development, and human welfare. It seems clear that human populations and demands on the environment are driving ecological change in such areas as global warming, ozone depletion, deforestation, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and pollution of air and water. In developing countries, the anthropogenic effects include drastic environmental deterioration in areas where population pressures exceed a particular threshold (Terborgh 1989). In developed countries, environmental problems have arisen because increasing incomes, leisure, and ease of communication have generated a stronger demand for recreation and tourism (Bayfield 1979)).

Citation

Mageean, D.M.; Bartlett, J.G. 1999. Using Population Data to Address the Human Dimensions of Environmental Change. GIS Solution in Natural Resource Management: Balancing the Technical-Political Equation, Stan Morain, Ed.