UC Berkeley

Population-Environment Reference Web Site

a partnership of
 Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Bixby Program, School of Public Health
University of California, Berkeley

and

Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego

To go directly to the list of references, click here.

What is the impact of population on the environment?

There is general agreement that population growth is one factor among many impacting environmental change and that impact is geographically specific. Authors differ in the relative weight they give to population growth versus other variables such as governance or technology. A statement prepared in 1993 by 60 of the world’s scientific academies, including those of the USA, Britain, Sweden, Pakistan, Kenya and many others, agreed that “if current predictions of population growth prove accurate and patterns of human activity on the planet remain unchanged, science and technology may not be able to prevent irreversible degradation of the natural environment and continued poverty for much of the world.” The scientific academies said, “The goal should be to reach zero population growth within the lifetime of our children” (Graham-Smith, 1993). Since this statement was made in 1993, “human activity on the planet” has accelerated, especially in the newly rich economies of Asia, but the resources available to slow population growth have stalled.

Most analyses recognize population growth as an adverse factor, although some (e.g. Dyson) are more optimistic. Norman Myers and the late Julian Simons have encapsulated the range of arguments involved in their book Scarcity or Abundance. Many authors are not aware that population growth slows once the barriers to accessing voluntary family planning are removed. Some of the statistical analyses of the relationship between population growth and environmental change contradict one another. Some (e.g. Loughran and Pritchett, 1997) believe increasing resource scarcity lowers the demand for children, while others posit parents have more children in order to increase their access to resources. These contradictions arise because the basic analyses contain the flawed assumption that parents can choose to have the number of the children they wish, even in the absence of access to family planning technologies and safe abortion. As a result some authors (e.g. Ericson et al, working in an area of Mexico where families have an average of 5.8 children) recognize that population growth is a key factor in environmental change but they are not aware that the population factor is amenable to change with wholly voluntary means. As a consequence, they stress policy solutions such as land use planning to forestall further damage but omit considerations of slowing population growth through entirely voluntary means. Some authors (e.g. Benneh, writing of important population growth impacts in his native Ghana ) have seen the 1994 Cairo meeting as the start of a new rights-based approach to population, not fully aware that family planning efforts were nearly always rights-based from the beginning.

References
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Ehrlich, P. R.; Ehrlich, A. H. 1990. The population explosion. New York , NY : Simon and Schuster.

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Ericson, J., Freudenberger, M. and Boege, E. 1999. Population dynamics, migration and the future of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. Occasional Paper No. 1, Summer 1999.

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Gaffin, S. R. 1998. World population projections for greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. Mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change. IPCC Special Issue, December 1998 (3):133-170.

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Graham-Smith, F. 1993. Population: The Complex Reality. The Royal Society, London, 1993. Summary of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development. United Nations, New York, 1995.

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ICE Case Studies - Deforestation in Haiti

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Kelley, A. C. 1998. The impacts of rapid population growth on poverty, food production, and the environment. Duke Economics Working Paper 98-13.

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Kwasi, M. G. 1998. Environmental change and farmer response in the forest-savanna transitional zone of Ghana. Ph.D. Dissertation. Department of Geography, University of Toronto .

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Lester B., Gardner, G. and Halweil, B. 1999. Beyond Malthus. Washington DC : Worldwatch Institute.

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Lockwood, M. 1997. Sons of the soil? Population growth, environmental change and men's reproductive intentions in northern Nigeria . International Journal of Population Geography 3(4):305-322.

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McKee, J. K., Sciullia, P. W., Foocea, C. D. and Waiteb, T. A. 2004. Forecasting global biodiversity threats associated with human population growth. Biological Conservation 115(1):161-164.

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Myers, N.,Simon, J. 1994. Scarcity or Abundance? A Debate on the Environment. W. W. Norton & Company

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Pimentel, D., Huang, X., Cordova, A. and Pimentel, M. 1996. Impact of population growth on food supplies and environment. Presented at AAAS Annual Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, February 9, 1996.

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Ramankutty, N., Goldewijk, K. K., Leemans, R., Foley, J. and Oldfield, F. 2002. Land Use Cover Change over the Last Three Centruries due to Human Activities:The Availability of New Global Data Sets. LUCC Newsletter No.7.

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Shi, A. 2001. Population growth and global carbon dioxide emissions. Presented at the IUSSP XXIV General Conference, Salvador, Brazil, August 18-24, 2001.

Conference Paper

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Sundberg Baudot, B. and Moomaw, W., (eds.). 1999. People and their planet: Searching for balance. UK: MacMillan Press Ltd.; New York, NY: St. Martin's Press Inc.

Book

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Vörösmarty, C. J., Green, P., Salisbury, J. and Lammers,R.B. 2000. Global water resources: Vulnerability from climate change and population growth. Science 289:284-288.

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