a) Land Subdivision (Fragmentation)
Growing human population has led to the subdivision of land into smaller parcels, which cannot sustain production. This has occurred particularly in Asia and Africa.
The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates that over a billion people live in households that have too little land to barely meet their food and fuel needs or even produce extra income to barter.
b) Increased pressure on natural resources
More pressure has been exerted on natural resources like water and forests. As a consequence of these tremendous demands, more trees have been cut down for wood fuel, giving room for soil erosion and the resultant environmental degradation to occur. Soil erosion threatens food production. In addition, the increased demand for fuel wood has also impacted heavily on women and children who have to spend more time searching for water and gathering fuel wood. More than 3 billion poor people face acute shortages of firewood. Approximately 60% of the global population depends entirely on firewood to prepare their daily food requirements.
c) Over cultivation or Intensive cultivation
The need to produce adequate food for the ever-burgeoning population has resulted in the cultivation of land more intensively. In the process, the land fails to get time to regenerate its lost soil fertility and with continuous production, the fertility diminishes, resulting into reduced productivity.
In addition, intense grazing may reduce the biological productivity of land and eventually cause desertification by reducing the green cover. Net loss in food production is evident in many developing countries.
d) Creating room for Agriculture
As the population increases, new land areas are increasingly being opened up for agricultural production. The results have been a reduction of wildlife habitats and tremendous biodiversity losses.
In most instances, marginal lands not favourable for agricultural productivity are converted for such purposes.
Many of these areas are prone to famine, lightning, drought, floods, soil erosion, erratic rainfall and disease outbreaks. This further aggravates the aridity problem as the desertification problem is hastened.
e) Rural-Urban migration
As land pressure intensifies, unemployment looms, land productivity in marginal areas declines and poverty escalates remarkably in the countryside, and a large proportion of people migrate to urban areas in search of employment and higher living standards. Concentrations of people in urban cent res overwhelm municipal services such as water supply, education, sanitation, housing, energy, health and transportation which become too scarce to barely meet the needs of all the rural immigrants.
This contributes to many health problems such as tuberculosis, viral infections and other contagious diseases
Since the opportunities in these cities have not expanded rapidly to accommodate such large numbers, majority of these immigrants ultimately end up in slums and other sub standard (squatter) settlements.
These places lack sanitation and even proper drainage systems for hygienic disposal of waste products, much less other vital social amenities mentioned above.
f) Intensification of Environmental pollution and associated problems
The ever-increasing human population can also be blamed for intensified environmental pollution problems.
Agriculture presently depends on the application of fertilizers and biocides to increase productivity.
These chemicals have harmful effects on the soil and human health even damaging natural resources.
Some of these, such as the chlorinated hydrocarbons like DDT, are highly persistent in the environment and have been found to bio magnify along the food chains with catastrophic ecological consequences.
As the population increases, the demand for energy also increases. Fulfillment of these energy demands will lead to utilization of more fossil fuels causing environmental pollution.
Many city councils are unable to cope completely with increasingly high levels of solid wastes especially in urban centres, which has resulted into unchecked air, water and land pollution.
Many developing countries can barely keep up with the increasing pace/demand for food, employment and housing.
The pace has forced people to adopt environmentally damaging production methods. Increasing demand for consumer goods and rising need to strengthen the economy has brought about an era of industrialization and urbanization, which intensify pollution.
g) Engagement in illicit activities
Lack of employment and under employment in many developing countries force majority of rural immigrants who settled in towns to engage in illegal activities e.g. drug selling, poaching to make ends meet.
Given the high poverty levels that prevail in these countries, these decadent activities are likely to continue despite efforts to eradicate them.
h) Impoverishment of women and children
Rapid population growth does significantly impact negatively on women and children. The clearing of trees for agriculture and the increased demand for fuel wood have exacerbated environmental problems such as soil erosion that threatens food production
and have compelled women and children to make increasingly long treks, searching for, and gathering firewood and water.
Most men move to urban areas in search of employment and some keep their income to themselves. As poverty levels escalate in developing countries, many men will be forced to abandon their households.
marto answered the question on March 20, 2019 at 11:31