Population geographies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Population geographies - Essay Example This movement is often termed as migration. Population movement is categorized under the micro and macro levels. Macro migration refers to the movement of people from one country to another while micro refers to people moving from one region or area to another. A population movement is as a result of the pull (voluntary) and pushes (non-voluntary) factors. While major cities are a focal point of public attention, urbanization will be concentrated in the smaller cities, which have inadequate resources to cater for the needs of the new urban population. In most countries, the total number of urban dwellers continues to swell at a higher rate than the cities’ or towns’ capacities to provide water, jobs, sanitation, houses, and other essential services. The UN states that the unemployment rate of immigrants in urban areas is higher than in rural areas. It is only about 40% of the immigrants who have access to good jobs. Consequently, many people are forced to fend for themselves by entering the informal sector, or turning to crime and prostitution. Due to high unemployment levels, some of the urban dwellers are forced to build their houses since they cannot afford to pay rent. These shanties give rise to slums within the urban environment. Slums lack sewerage, waste disposal and water facilities. Accessibility of clean water in the urban areas is a necessity everywhere. Unlike in developed countries where the urban population has access to clean water, third world countries lack this basic need or commodity. In Africa, 26 % of the urban population has access to clean water. 29% of the Asian urban population has access to clean water whereas, in South America, only a paltry 12% have access to clean water. The movement of people from rural to urban areas (mostly in developing countries) is among the most common visible trends today. According to the United Nations data, 60% of the world’s population will be

Public Awareness, Response and Recovery Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Public Awareness, Response and Recovery - Essay Example Situational awareness is the knowledge and understanding of the situations happening around and how one can predict the changes that will happen with time according to the dynamics of the environment. The best plan of action for creating situational awareness is the use of Geographical Information System (GIS) Technology. It uses other technologies such as GPS as well as networking in order to provide information about the place and time of the happenings of the situation. It collects data from different sources to build up relevant information required to act on a situation as well as to predict a situation (ESRI white paper, 2008). The GIS aggregation of data also involves data that is useful to the emergency responders such as on the location of the essential resources, infrastructure and assets useful to respond to a situation such as the power lines, hospitals, fire hydrants and sewer as well as water lines among others. This information is important for action in public safety. The GIS is enabled to meet the most basic of the information needs to the most advanced as the complexity of the situation increases. The downside of GIS is that it requires high memory storage only available in desktop; it works only when there is network access and requires complicated software. What appears to be the best plan for public response? The National Response Framework is the best plan in as far as public response if concerned.