Accredited Level 2 Diploma in Geography

Unit 1: The Natural Environments Module 1: The Hazardous Environment • Different types of hazard (climatic, tectonic).• The global distributions, causes and characteristics of: tropical storms, volcanoes and earthquakes.• Method of monitoring weather conditions. Global and regional. Mapping the global distribution of recent hazards.• Identifying the scale of natural disasters and their short-terms and longer-term impact in countries at dif-ferent levels of development.• Reasons why people continue to live in areas at risk from hazard events. Regional and small (local).• Predicting and preparing for hazards (education, early warning systems, shelters, defences).• Coping during hazards (evacuation, mitigation).• Consequences of hazards: short-terms (emergency aid and disaster relief); long-term (risk assessment, rebuilding, review and adjustment, improving prediction and preparation).
Module 2: River environments • The hydrological cycle: characteristics, stores and transfers.• Features of a drainage basis: watershed, source, mouth, channel.• Network.• The hydrograph (discharge, base flow, storm flow) and river regimes: factors affecting them (precipitation, temperature, water abstraction, dams).• Processes: weathering and mass movement; erosion and deposition. Factors affecting these processes (stream velocity, slope, geology).• Formation of valleys, interlocking spurs, waterfalls, meanders, oxbow lakes, flood plains and levees.• The uses of water: agriculture, industry, human hygiene and leisure, including the reasons for a rising de-mand, resulting in areas of water surplus and water shortage.• Reasons for differences in water quality. Sources of pollution (sewage, industrial waste, agriculture).• Managing the supply of clean water (dams and reservoirs; pipelines; treatment works).• Flooding: causes (intensity of rainfall, snowmelt, steep slopes.• Impermeable surfaces, human activities and control (construction of spillways, embankments). Unit 2: People and their Environments, and Global Issues Module 3: Ecosystems and rural environments • Biomes and their global distributions.• Ecosystems and their components: rocks; soils; climate; vegetation; fauna; key ecological processes and concepts (adaptation, succession, zonation, food webs, biodiversity).• The nature of the temperate grassland biome and its agricultural use. Global, national and small (local).• Characteristics of rural environments: employment; population size and structure; land use (including quarrying, recreation and tourism); accessibility; conservation.• The farm as a system. Different types of farming: arable/pastoral; commercial/subsistence; inten-sive/extensive and ways of raising agricultural production (eg irrigation, glasshouses, genetic engineering, High yielding Varieties).• Causes and consequences of food shortages and attempts to tackle these problems. National and re-gional.• Low income country rural settlement changes; farming changes (eg move to cash cropping); rural-urban migration and its impact.• High income country rural settlement changes: new economic activities; rural urban environments.• The nature of urbanisation (including suburbanisation and counter-urbanisation); the factors affecting the rate of urbanisation and the emergence of mega-cities.• Mapping of the changing global distribution of megacities.• The problems associated with rapid urbanisation, including congestion, transport, employment, crime and environmental quality. Global and small (local). Investigating change in environmental quality survey. Ur-ban environments can be characterised by the distribution of different land uses and of people of different economic status and ethnic background.• High income country rural settlement changes; new economic activities; rural urban environments.• Reasons for factors encouraging similar land uses to concentrate in particular parts of the urban area (eg locational needs, accessibility, land values).• Consequences of different land uses, eg the distribution of different socio-economic and ethnic groups, accessibility.• Implications of rapidly developing urban areas in low income countries, eg shanty towns (squatter settle-ments, location, growth, problems and mitigating strategies, including self-help). Small (local) changes occur as urban environments age and the needs of people change.• The nature of, and reasons for, the changes taking place at the edge of high income countries (eg retail complexes, business parks and industrial estates). The ‘greenfield’ versus ‘brownfield’ debate.• Areas of social deprivation and poverty in HIC cities: symptoms and locations. The changing fortunes of inner-city areas.• The role of decision makers (planners, politicians, property developers and industrialists) in urban regen-eration and rebranding. Module 4: Globalisation and Migration • Globalisation is making the nations of the world increasingly interdependent. Major movements of people are both a cause and a consequence of this interdependence.• The rise of the global economy (growth of production and commodity chains) and the factors encouraging it (trade, foreign investment, aid, labour, modern transport and information technologies).• The global shift in manufacturing and the reasons for this (labour costs, resources, profiteering).• TNCs: organisation; role as key players in the global economy; benefits and costs to countries hosting TNCs. Global, national and small.• The growth of global tourism and its causes (increased leisure, the package holiday, modern transport, marketing).• The impact of mass tourism on the environment, economy and people of destination areas.• Attempts to make tourism more sustainable (ecotourism). Global, national and small.• Migration – a component of population change; international migration; net migration.• Types of migration (voluntary versus forced); the push-pull factors affecting migration.• Managing migration – refugee and asylum-seeker issues: the case for controlling migration flows.