limits to population sustainability =)

HEY heyyy..! this is our Singaporean take on the population and resource limitation issue... hope to hear from you guys soon..! =)


2. Briefly substantiate your figure by listing (in order of importance) the most significant resources that limit the population Australia and Singapore can sustainably support.

Singapore, being a very small country with extremely limited land area, LAND, is definitely the most significant resource that limits the population size Singapore can sustainably support. Land encompasses many other resources. Firstly, living space is directly related to land area. With a small land area, population density becomes extremely high (6814/sqkm, pushed upwards by our most prevalent type of housing, the HDBs, high rise flats), increasing congestion and hence making it difficult to maintain a high standard of living. When looking at sustaining a certain level of comfort and high standards of living, population density cannot be too high. With the effect of congestion already starting to be felt at the present, a sustainable population size in Singapore, for a good standard of living, should not exceed our current population by too much.
Next, associated to the small land area, Singapore faces WATER CONSTRAINTS. Singapore does not have any natural freshwater lakes; hence most of the water comes from rainfall. However, even though Singapore has a high rainfall, she has limited area for water storage. Singapore’s reservoir can only support about 67% of the domestic water needs. The others are supplied through importing from Malaysia, desalination, and recycling of waste water. Even though technology has helped in easing the water constraint, these methods are extremely costly, and cannot be entirely depended on at the moment.
The next important resource that limits Singapore’s population is FOOD. With a small land area, the many different competing land uses (eg. Urban areas, housing, businesses) diverts land resources away from agriculture and food production. Furthermore, Singapore has little arable land due to poor soil quality as Singapore’s soil suffer from serious leaching due to high rainfall, high temperature, and high rates of removal in vegetative cover. Besides that leaf litter is constantly cleared, coupled with high bacterial activities, which oxidises any leaf litter left, soil nutrient in the top soil is extremely bad. With that Singapore cannot survive on food products produced locally.
Singapore has extremely little resources of her own. Hence, Singapore is heavily dependent on imports. Therefore, one must take into considerations the resources that limit the importing of other resources into Singapore. One of them will be oil. Oil fuels the transportation eg. Aeroplanes, ships, which brings in resources such as food products, into our country. Being a finite resource which is rising in price, oil prices directly affects the price of imported food brought into the country. Whether we can afford to import depends directly on the availability of Oil and fuel.






3. What are some similarities and differences between the resources that limit Australia’s population to that of Singapore?

There are resources that limit Australia that does not limit Singapore vice versa. Being in 2 different climatic belts, with extremely different land size, it is natural that there are differences in the limits to population of the two countries.
Singapore and Australia are different in many ways. Firstly, in terms of land area, Australia, being an entire continent on its own is about 10 times larger than Singapore. However in terms of population density, it is much 3 times lower in Australia as compared to land scarce Singapore. However, one must also note that the population density in varies spatially in Australia too. About one third of Australia is covered is desert, which is almost unpopulated. However, even so, in terms of living land area, Australia can support a greater population as compared to Singapore.
Next, Australia, being located in the 15 to 40 degrees South on the globe, it is subjected to certain climatic events which brings about many problems that Singapore, which is located at the equator does not have to endure. Firstly, the falling limb of the Hadley cell at about 25 degrees North South, extremely dry conditions are prevalent in this high pressure region, resulting in the formation of deserts and dry seasons. Singapore, located at the equator is in a low pressure region, on the rising limb of the Hadley cell, with cumulonimbus clouds formation frequent, and high rainfall.
Lastly, as mentioned above in question 2, with land scarcity and competing land uses, food production and agriculture is extremely low in Singapore. Hence, being unable to produce enough food to sustain her own population is a problem in Singapore. Whereas, Australia, with the abundance of land has a thriving food production sector worth about $24billion.
However, both countries face similar problems too. Firstly, water scarcity. In both countries, less than 1.5% of the land area is water. However, the water scarcity is a result of different reasons and causes in both countries. In Singapore, it is due to the lack of water catchment areas, and storage areas due to the lack of land. Whereas, in Australia, it is due to the dry climatic conditions.
Lastly, the lousy soil quality found in both countries are also limits to population the country can sustain in terms of food production. However, the reasons for bad soil quality in both countries differ too. In Australia, it is due to the dry conditions, resulting in low vegetation cover, high surface runoff, dry soil, and eventually low nutrient content. As for Singapore, it is due to soil leaching, whereby the high temperature and high rainfall encourages the rapid decomposition of the surface litter, and the rapid infiltration and permeation of nutrient in to the deeper layers.