China: Setting the context

1. China: Setting the context GEOL 352 – Fall 2014 September 24, 2014 Veronica Sosa-Gonzalez

2. Outline • Geography and population • Health and education • Political history • Relation to environment • Climate and Environment • Environmental issues of today

3. Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment http://www.infoplease.com/atlas/asia.html http://arts1091.unsw.wikispaces.net/file/view/chinamap.gif/156354969/450x428/chinamap.gif

4. Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment • Area: 9,327,490 km2 • Second largest country in the world • Population: 1,357,380,000(2013) • Rural population: 637,284,480 (2013) • $6,807 GDP per capita

5. Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment http://media.web.britannica.com/eb-media/37/105237-004-D8FC8BD8.gif

6. Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/asia/lgcolor/cncolor.htm

7. Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment http://www.china-food-security.org/data/maps/rivers/riv1_m.htm

8. Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment http://www.japanfocus.org/-brahma-chellaney/2916

9. Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment • Literacy percentage: 93% (2010) • School enrollment –Tertiary: 27% (2012) • Ratio of female to male tertiary enrollment: 113 (2012) • Primary school completion rate: No Data • Public spending on education: No Data • Life expectancy: 75 • Fertility: 1.7 births per woman • Adolescent fertility rate: 9/100,000 women (15-19 years) • Tuberculosis: 73/100,000 people (0.073%) • Mortality (<5 years): 13/10,000 live births • HIV: No Data

10. Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment

11. Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment • 1911-1912: Xinhai Revolution puts and end to the Qing dynasty and establishes the Republic of China • January 1, 1912: Establishment of the Republic of China • Period of great instability, ended by the Chinese Civil War in 1949 • October 1, 1949: Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong proclaims the Establishment of the People’s Republic of China • Great Leap Forward slogan: Man must conquer nature • Population growth • Starvation deaths (1958-1961) • Mao died in 1976 • Currently Xi Jinping is the President of the People’s Republic of China (since March 14, 2013)

12. The “three great cuttings” (or four?) • The Great Leap Forward (1958-1960) • Backyard steel furnaces to produce enough steel to “catch up” with West world. Melting of plows, pots and other metal to create useless steel • Roughly 600,000 furnaces were operating by October 1958 required coal, almost all made by clearing forests and establishing charcoal burners in villages • Grain as a Key Link (1966-1976) • Response to the famine following the Great Leap Forward • Dazhai model • Deforestation for agriculture • Grain production became the highest priority • Opening for Development (early 1980s) • Dismantling of collectivized agriculture and creation of household responsibility system. Peasant families where contracted to do the farming work, and they had control over their agricultural practices decision making – widespread illegal deforestation resulted • Market-driven deforestation (1992-1998)? • State-owned forest companies gain considerable freedom from the Ministry of Forestry • Forest companies were able to respond to market needs and thus improve market efficiency (chainsaws and heavy machinery can now wipe out forests for timber products faster)

13. Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment http://www.chinatouristmaps.com/china-maps/climate/china-average-temperature.html

14. Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment http://www.chinamaps.org/china/china-map-of-precipitation-annual.html

15. Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/asia/lgcolor/cncolor.htm

16. Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment http://kids.britannicaa.com/comptons/art-137856/Climatic-regions-of-China

17. Geography + population Health + Education Political history Climate + Environment China ranks 118/178 countries Overall score 43/100

18. ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN CHINA • Air pollution • Water pollution • Desertification • Dam constructions • Massive production of goods • e-waste dump

19. Hydropower in China • World leader in dam amount and hydropower energy • Produces over 15% of the world’s hydropower • 22,000 dams more than 15m tall built since the 1950s • Three gorges dam (2008) • stretches 1.5 miles across the Yangtze river • Produces 10x the hydropower of the Hoover Dam

20. The world’s 10 Most Polluted Places – Scientific American, 2007 TIANYING, CHINA LINFEN, CHINA At the center of Chinese lead production, this town has lead concentrations in its air and soil that are 8.5 to 10 times those of the national health standards. The concentrations of lead dusting the local crops are 24 times too high. In the heart of China's coal region in Shanxi Province, Linfenhas dust and pollution that make it almost impossible to breathe, and the water is polluted with arsenic. http://www.worstpolluted.org/projects_reports/display/36

21. GUIYU, CHINA: an e-waste dump http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1870162_1822158,00.html

22. Olympics in Beijing - August 8-24, 2008

23. What I saw in the field...