3.2.4.6 Global population futures Quiz: AQA Geography, Unit 2

The 20 questions

1. Ozone depletion is linked to which health impact for human populations?

   • Increased risk of malaria from warmer, wetter conditions
   • Higher rates of tooth decay from fluoridated water
   • Greater incidence of hearing loss from urban noise only
   • Increased risk of skin cancer and cataracts from higher ultraviolet radiation

2. Which health impact of climate change is linked to thermal stress?

   • Heat-related illness and mortality, especially among older people and in urban heat islands
   • Higher rates of drowning in deserts
   • Reduced incidence of heat-related illness in cities
   • Increased risk of frostbite in tropical lowlands

3. Climate change can alter the distribution of vector-borne diseases mainly by:

   • Making humans immune to all disease vectors
   • Changing the temperature and rainfall ranges in which mosquitoes and other vectors can survive and breed
   • Reducing the number of people living in tropical regions
   • Removing all insects from the environment

4. Which global environmental change is most likely to reduce agricultural productivity and nutritional standards?

   • Reduced sunlight during the growing season everywhere
   • Increased soil organic matter in all regions
   • Ozone depletion acting on ground-level crops only
   • Climate change, through heat stress, drought and changing rainfall

5. Which statement about projected global population futures is most accurate?

   • Projections show population remaining exactly constant in all regions
   • Projections show global population falling sharply within a decade
   • Projections show every region's population growing rapidly without limit
   • Projections suggest growth slowing over the century, with distributions shifting towards Africa and parts of Asia

6. Which argument best evaluates future population and environment relationships?

   • Environmental change will have no effect on future population, since demographic trends are independent of climate, soils and water supply
   • Future outcomes are fully determined by population numbers alone, so any resource projection follows directly from the total count
   • Future outcomes cannot be influenced by any human decision, because natural trends set every outcome and policy has no effect at all
   • Future outcomes depend on policy, technology and resource use as well as population numbers, so projections should be critically appraised

7. A forecast predicts that a region's population will double by 2100 and that its water supply will fall by 30%. What is the main environment-population concern?

   • The region will have no water demand at all, because population decline leaves every household and farm without any need for water
   • Water quality will automatically improve with more people, since higher numbers of residents flush the system and clean the rivers
   • Water supply will increase as population grows, because larger populations build more reservoirs and raise the volume of water
   • Water stress could rise sharply as demand grows while supply falls

8. Which argument best supports the view that health gains could be lost in the future because of global environmental change?

   • Warming, pollution and ecosystem disruption can reverse gains in disease control and nutrition
   • Environmental change always improves health outcomes everywhere, because warmer conditions reduce the impact of every infectious disease
   • Health gains are unaffected by any environmental factor, since medical advances have removed the link between surroundings and illness
   • Health gains depend only on the number of hospitals in a country, which means that the environment has no bearing on disease control

9. Which measure would best indicate the effect of ozone depletion on a population's health risk?

   • Total area of cultivated land in hectares, measured from land-use surveys and compared across regions to show farmland extent
   • Rates of skin cancer and cataract incidence across time and latitude
   • The number of vehicles registered in the capital, counted each year from licensing records and compared with the number of car parks
   • Average annual rainfall totals in the region, recorded at local stations and compared across years to show how wet each season was

10. Which pattern would indicate that a region's population is increasingly exposed to vector-borne diseases due to climate change?

    • Falling case numbers as temperatures rise above all thresholds, because the vectors that spread disease cannot survive in any hot climate
    • Expansion of mosquito-borne disease cases into areas with newly suitable temperatures
    • A rise in cases only in areas where mosquitoes have been eliminated, because the disease spreads through people rather than insects
    • Stable disease cases in regions with no change in temperature, since mosquitoes never move beyond the areas where they were first recorded

11. Which statement best describes prospects for global population change in the twenty-first century?

    • Population is expected to continue growing for some decades, though the rate of growth is slowing
    • Population will stay exactly the same because of climate change, since warming is expected to halt all births and deaths worldwide
    • Population growth will accelerate sharply in every country, because rising incomes are expected to raise birth rates across the world
    • Population is expected to fall steeply in every region from today, with declines in each continent beginning within the current decade

12. A study finds that rising temperatures increase the number of days with heat-related hospital admissions. What does this show?

    • A decrease in heat-related hospital admissions, showing that hotter days are reducing the number of people who need treatment each year
    • An unrelated trend with no environmental cause, since rising summer admissions are caused by changes in how doctors record cases
    • An improvement in air quality across the region, because hotter days disperse pollutants and so reduce the number of hospital visits
    • A direct health impact of thermal stress linked to climate change

13. Which argument best evaluates the claim that global population will inevitably reach a crisis because of resource limits?

    • Resource limits are irrelevant to human populations, since people have always been able to ignore shortages without consequence
    • Population crises only occur in very small islands, because larger regions can always import whatever they lack from elsewhere
    • Crisis is not inevitable, since technology, policy and behaviour change can alter resource use and population trends
    • Crisis is inevitable because resources can never be expanded or substituted, so every rise in demand must end in exhaustion of supply

14. Which health impact is most closely linked to changing agricultural productivity under global environmental change?

    • Higher supplies of food in all regions without exception, because warming improves yields and nutrition in every country on Earth
    • Malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies where food supply falls or becomes less nutritious
    • Reduced rates of food-borne illness across the world, since changing climate makes food safer to store and to handle in every region
    • Increased rates of obesity in all low-income regions, because cheaper and more abundant food raises body weight in poorer countries

15. A population's death rate rises sharply after a prolonged heatwave in an urban area. Which environmental factor is most likely to be the main driver?

    • Reduced cloud cover across the wider region
    • Unusually heavy rainfall causing widespread flooding in rural areas
    • Extreme temperatures combined with urban heat island effects
    • Strong winds from the coast reducing air temperature

16. Which measure would best track progress in reducing the health impacts of global environmental change?

    • The annual value of the stock market, tracked each year against the price of energy and the level of interest rates in the economy
    • The number of days each year with clear skies over cities, recorded at weather stations and compared across the decades
    • The total number of tourist visits to coastal resorts, counted each summer and compared with the number of hotel rooms in each resort
    • Trends in heat-related deaths, vector-borne disease incidence and rates of skin cancer over time

17. Which argument best supports the view that global health risks should be managed through international cooperation?

    • Health risks can only be managed by each household alone, since individual choices are the only effective defence against any disease
    • Environmental health threats cross borders and require shared monitoring, funding and standards
    • Environmental health threats are confined to single countries, so each government can handle every risk with its own resources alone
    • International cooperation has no role in disease control, because national health systems already hold every tool needed to stop outbreaks

18. Which change would most reduce the future risk of skin cancer in a region?

    • Reduced emission of ozone-depleting substances and protection from strong sunlight
    • Removing shade from public spaces to increase exposure, so that people can enjoy the sun more freely in every park and square
    • Replacing all protective clothing with lighter materials, which exposes more skin to ultraviolet light during the working day
    • Increased exposure to ultraviolet light through longer outdoor work, which keeps residents in the sun for longer periods each day

19. Which combination best describes the critical appraisal of future population-environment relationships?

    • Assessing assumptions, uncertainties and feedbacks in projections, and considering alternative scenarios
    • Ignoring feedbacks because they are too complex to model, so projections are based only on the simple direct effects of each change
    • Accepting a single forecast without checking its assumptions, since the first projection published is usually the most reliable one
    • Using only the oldest published forecast available, because older projections have been tested over longer periods than new ones

20. Which situation would most increase the health risk of a heatwave for older residents?

    • Living in a well-ventilated home with access to cooling
    • Living alone in a poorly ventilated flat with no cooling
    • Being part of a local support network that checks on neighbours
    • Having regular access to shaded parks and drinking water

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