China:
Setting the
context
GEOL 352 – Fall 2014
September 24, 2014
Veronica Sosa-Gonzalez
Outline
• Geography and population
• Health and education
• Political history
• Relation to environment
• Climate and Environment
• Environmental issues of today
Geography + population
Health + Education
Political history
Climate + Environment
http://www.infoplease.com/atlas/asia.html
http://arts1091.unsw.wikispaces.net/file/view/chinamap.gif/156354969/450x428/chinamap.gif
Geography + population
Health + Education
Political history
Climate + Environment
• $6,807 GDP per capita
1,600
Population (in millions)
1,400
1,200
1,000
800
600
400
200
0
Brazil
Russia
Population
India
Rural population
China
Algeria
Kazakhstan
Argentina
India
Australia
Brazil
Canada
• Rural population: 637,284,480 (2013)
USA
• Population: 1,357,380,000(2013)
China
• Second largest country in the world
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Russia
• Area: 9,327,490 km2
Area (in millions of sq km)
10 biggest countries
Geography + population
Health + Education
Political history
Climate + Environment
http://media.web.britannica.com/eb-media/37/105237-004-D8FC8BD8.gif
Geography + population
Health + Education
Political history
Climate + Environment
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/asia/lgcolor/cncolor.htm
Geography + population
Health + Education
Political history
Climate + Environment
http://www.china-food-security.org/data/maps/rivers/riv1_m.htm
Geography + population
Health + Education
Political history
Climate + Environment
http://www.japanfocus.org/-brahma-chellaney/2916
Geography + population
Health + Education
Political history
Climate + Environment
• Life expectancy: 75
• Literacy percentage: 93% (2010)
• Fertility: 1.7 births per woman
• Adolescent fertility rate:
9/100,000 women (15-19 years)
• School enrollment –Tertiary: 27%
(2012)
• Tuberculosis: 73/100,000 people
(0.073%)
• Mortality (<5 years): 13/10,000 live
births
• HIV: No Data
• Ratio of female to male tertiary
enrollment: 113 (2012)
• Primary school completion rate: No
Data
• Public spending on education: No
Data
Geography + population
Health + Education
Political history
Climate + Environment
Life expectancy at birth
78
76
74
72
Years
70
Life expectancy- total
68
Life expectancy- male
66
Life expectancy- female
64
62
60
58
Brazil
Russia
India
China
250
200
150
100
50
0
Brazil
Russia
India
China
Canada
USA
Niger
Mali
Somalia Chad
Fertility rate
1.8
1.6
2.5
1.7
1.6
1.9
7.6
6.9
6.7
6.4
Adolescent fertility rate (per 100,000
women)
71
26
33
9
14
31
205
176
110
152
Geography + population
Health + Education
Political history
Climate + Environment
• 1911-1912: Xinhai Revolution puts and end to the Qing dynasty and
establishes the Republic of China
• January 1, 1912: Establishment of the Republic of China
• Period of great instability, ended by the Chinese Civil War in 1949
• October 1, 1949: Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong proclaims
the Establishment of the People’s Republic of China
•
•
•
•
Great Leap Forward slogan: Man must conquer nature
Population growth
Starvation deaths (1958-1961)
Mao died in 1976
• Currently Xi Jinping is the President of the People’s Republic of
China (since March 14, 2013)
The “three great cuttings” (or four?)
• The Great Leap Forward (1958-1960)
• Backyard steel furnaces to produce enough steel to “catch up” with West world.
Melting of plows, pots and other metal to create useless steel
• Roughly 600,000 furnaces were operating by October 1958 required coal, almost all
made by clearing forests and establishing charcoal burners in villages
• Grain as a Key Link (1966-1976)
•
•
•
•
Response to the famine following the Great Leap Forward
Dazhai model
Deforestation for agriculture
Grain production became the highest priority
• Opening for Development (early 1980s)
• Dismantling of collectivized agriculture and creation of household responsibility
system. Peasant families where contracted to do the farming work, and they had
control over their agricultural practices decision making – widespread illegal
deforestation resulted
• Market-driven deforestation (1992-1998)?
• State-owned forest companies gain considerable freedom from the Ministry of
Forestry
• Forest companies were able to respond to market needs and thus improve market
efficiency (chainsaws and heavy machinery can now wipe out forests for timber
products faster)
Geography + population
Health + Education
Political history
Climate + Environment
http://www.chinatouristmaps.com/china-maps/climate/china-average-temperature.html
Geography + population
Health + Education
Political history
Climate + Environment
http://www.chinamaps.org/china/china-map-of-precipitation-annual.html
Geography + population
Health + Education
Political history
Climate + Environment
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/asia/lgcolor/cncolor.htm
Geography + population
Health + Education
Political history
Climate + Environment
http://kids.britannicaa.com/comptons/art-137856/Climatic-regions-ofChina
Geography + population
Health + Education
China ranks 118/178 countries
Overall score 43/100
Political history
Climate + Environment
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN CHINA
•
•
•
•
•
•
Air pollution
Water pollution
Desertification
Dam constructions
Massive production of goods
e-waste dump
Hydropower in China
• World leader in dam amount and hydropower energy
• Produces over 15% of the world’s hydropower
• 22,000 dams more than 15m tall built since the 1950s
• Three gorges dam (2008)
• stretches 1.5 miles across the Yangtze river
• Produces 10x the hydropower of the Hoover Dam
The world’s 10 Most Polluted Places – Scientific American, 2007
LINFEN, CHINA
In the heart of China's coal region in Shanxi
Province, Linfen has dust and pollution that
make it almost impossible to breathe, and
the water is polluted with arsenic.
TIANYING, CHINA
At the center of Chinese lead production,
this town has lead concentrations in its air
and soil that are 8.5 to 10 times those of the
national health standards. The
concentrations of lead dusting the local
crops are 24 times too high.
http://www.worstpolluted.org/projects_reports/display/36
GUIYU, CHINA: an e-waste dump
http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1870162_1822158,00.html
Olympics in Beijing - August 8-24, 2008
What I saw in the field...