How the biosphere provides goods and services for local people and is exploited commercially; how it regulates the atmosphere, soils and water; rising demand for food, water and energy; and the theories of Malthus and Boserup on population and resources.

What this dot point is asking

This is Edexcel GCSE Geography B (1GB0) Paper 3, Section A (Topic 7, People and the biosphere). Edexcel expects you to explain how the biosphere provides goods (food, medicine, building materials and fuel) for Indigenous and local people and is increasingly exploited commercially for energy, water and minerals; how it provides services by regulating the atmosphere, soil health and the water cycle; the global and regional trends of rising demand for food, energy and water (driven by population growth, rising affluence, urbanisation and industrialisation); and the theories of Malthus and Boserup on population and resources. Population and resource projection graphs are common resources.

Goods and services of the biosphere

The biosphere is the zone of the Earth where life exists, and people depend on it in two ways: for goods they take from it and services it performs.

These regulating services are globally important because they keep the atmosphere, soils and water in balance. Damaging the biosphere (for example by deforestation) weakens them, releasing carbon, degrading soils and disrupting water supplies.

Rising demand for resources

Human demand on the biosphere is rising rapidly.

Population and resources: Malthus and Boserup

Two famous theories disagree about whether resources can keep up with population.

Malthus (a pessimist) argued that population grows faster than food supply: population increases geometrically (1, 2, 4, 8) while food supply increases only arithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4), so population will eventually outstrip food and be checked by famine, disease and war. Boserup (an optimist) argued the opposite: that a rising population acts as a spur to invention, so people develop new technology and methods (better seeds, irrigation, fertiliser) to increase food production to meet the need ("necessity is the mother of invention").

The evidence is mixed. The Green Revolution and modern farming, which hugely increased yields, support Boserup, and global food supply has so far kept pace with population. However, famines, water stress and environmental limits in some regions, worsened by climate change, suggest Malthusian checks can still apply locally. The truth therefore depends on scale and place.

Try this

Q1. State two goods that the biosphere provides for local people. [2 marks]

• Cue. Any two of food, medicine, building materials (timber) or fuel (wood and charcoal).

Q2. Explain why demand for resources is rising. [3 marks]

• Cue. Population growth means more people to supply, while rising affluence, urbanisation and industrialisation each increase the food, water and energy that each person and economy consumes.