Resource management: water, food and energy
Geography · GCSE · The School
Surplus and deficit
A SURPLUS is more than is needed; a DEFICIT is less. Water, food and energy each vary hugely by place, and the imbalance drives trade, migration and conflict. Britain has a water surplus in the north-west and a deficit in the south-east, which is why water transfer schemes are argued about domestically, not only internationally.
Increasing supply
WATER: dams and reservoirs, transfer schemes, desalination. FOOD: irrigation, high-yield varieties, hydroponics, biotechnology. ENERGY: fossil fuels, nuclear, renewables. Each has a cost — reservoirs flood valleys and displace people, desalination is energy-hungry, biofuels compete with food for land.
Judging a scheme
Ask four questions: does it work technically, can it be afforded and maintained locally, who benefits and who loses, and can it continue without exhausting what it depends on. A small local scheme that people can repair often beats a large one they cannot. That is the argument an evaluation question wants.
PHYSICAL scarcity: parts of the Middle East simply do not receive enough rainfall for the population, however much money is spent. ECONOMIC scarcity: parts of central Africa have abundant rainfall and rivers, and people still lack safe water, because the wells, pipes and treatment plants have not been built. The map of rainfall and the map of water access are different maps, and the solutions are different too.
Sustainable means three things at once
Candidates use 'sustainable' as a word of approval, and it is a test with three parts. ENVIRONMENTAL: does it work without degrading the resource or the ecosystem it depends on? ECONOMIC: can it be paid for and maintained after the funding ends? SOCIAL: do the people affected accept it, and does it reach the people who need it? A scheme can pass one and fail another — a large dam may deliver power reliably and displace communities, and a small local scheme may be socially excellent and impossible to scale. Judge against all three and the evaluation writes itself.
Where the demand comes from
Supply-side answers dominate this topic and the strongest answers go to demand as well. Water demand rises with population, but faster with rising incomes, because diet shifts towards meat and dairy, which take far more water per calorie than grain. Energy demand rises with industrialisation and then with domestic appliances and air conditioning. Food demand shifts in kind as well as amount. This matters because demand-side measures — metering, efficiency standards, reducing losses in distribution — are frequently cheaper per unit than new supply, and a question asking how a country can close a deficit expects both sides.