1. Human Population Growth

2. The Carrying Capacity of Earth?
The carrying capacity of Earth is not known and at present it is impossible to determine when the human population will stop growing

3. Demography The study of human population growth trends
Looking at past trends helps in determining future trends
Demographers study the birth rates & death rates (which determines growth), fertility (factor of birth rate), and age structures of population
Age structure visualized by graphs; proportions of populations at different ages

4. Human Pop Growth
Tends to increase, just like other organisms – however – the rate of increase has changed dramatically

5. Growth over the last 2000 years…

7. By the numbers… 1960 3 billion 1804 1 billion 1999 6 billion
World Population Growth
Year million
million
million
million
million
billion
billion
billion
billion
billion

8. Largest Countries in the World
2050
2008
China - 1,330,044,544 India - 1,147,995,904 United States - 303,824,640 Indonesia - 237,512,352 Brazil - 196,342,592 Pakistan - 172,800,048 Bangladesh - 153,546,896 Nigeria - 146,255,312 Russia - 140,702,096 Japan - 127,288,416
India - 1,628,000,000 China - 1,437,000,000 United States - 420,000,000 Nigeria - 299,000,000 Pakistan - 295,000,000 Indonesia - 285,000,000 Brazil - 260,000,000 Bangladesh - 231,000,000 Democratic Republic of Congo - 183,000,000 Ethiopia - 145,000,000

10. Predictions of Future Population Growth
Predicting how a population’s size may change…
Begins with determining information about individuals in each of the population’s age classes
Creating an age-structure graph…

12. Demographic Transition
A dramatic change from high birth rates and high death rates to low birth rates and low death rates (slowly growing)
The US, Europe, and Japan have completed this demographic transition
Parts of South America, Asia, and Africa are in stage 2 of 3, where death rate is down but birth rate is still high

13. Interesting Tidbits..
The Ecological Footprint data suggest that 3 – 4 planets with the Earth’s bioproductive capacity would be required to support the current population at the consumption level of North Americans
The ten countries which will contribute most to world population growth over the next 30 years are India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, United States of America, Bangladesh, Zaire, and Iran
171,000  517,000 density