Rapid Population Growth

What are the implications of rapid population growth?

Rapid population growth is the sudden change and increase as a whole in the world's population. The world's population is currently around 5 billion people. However recent statistics have shown that the world's population will increase to 9 billion by 2050 which is an increase of 4 billion people. The addition of 4 billion people will degrade and overwhelm the earth's biophysical environment, lands, food producing capacity and other natural resources on which all life depends.

People need to live in areas with food, water, work and fertile lands. With an increase in population, this means that there would be a greater population density and therefore more people relying on the same area to meet their needs. Tanzania has a population of 78% with often 10 people per a family. The demand for food, lands, work and water are often not met due to overcrowding and lack of resources. India is also an example of a country with a greater population density with a population of over 1 billion people.

Rapid population growth will cause an overall strain on resources as constant demands will be unable to be met. In developed countries, a growth in population will cause a need to build more infrastructures to support the growing population. This will mean more high rise apartments as more people will need to live close to a city to find and go to work. An overall cost increase will also occur as goods will become more expensive as they will be in far greater demand then actual amount of goods. Pollution levels will also rise due to more housing, more transport systems to support the population and an overall higher use of resources. Higher unemployment rates will also exist as there will be more people vying for the same jobs. As the population grows, the amount of jobs available will stay the same and thus the unemployment figures will increase.

However in developing countries, there will also be a greater strain on resources, however in a different capacity. A greater population will mean a lack of room and overcrowding. However as the primary means of gaining food is through growing it and/or catching it, this will mean for example with fish, over fishing and on their lands over farming which would lead gradually to infertile lands. Once the lands are infertile, each family's food producing capacity would decrease rapidly and would thus have to turn to other ways to produce food. One of the main ways to find new fertile land is to clear land through deforestation. Each year around 13 million hectares are annually lost which account for around 0.18 percent of the world's total forests. In the developing such as South America and Africa, deforestation is a huge, ever growing problem with South America losing around 4.3 million hectares per a year and Africa, losing around 4 million hectares annually. A rapid growth in population of these two countries would cause a huge rise in deforestation.

According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, over the last 10 years, around 211 million people have been directly affected by natural disasters. A rapid growth in a countries population would mean that each natural disaster would have a greater impact and thus more people would be affected by it. Many of the developing countries are among the most disaster prone countries and unfortunately are often ill prepared to respond to after effects. This means that there would need to be an increase in foreign aid and help to these countries once a disaster has occurred.