Assignment 2 Tier 1

Suren N Pakeri Z3334707
Assignment 2 Tier 1 Submission – Reviews

First major source: Human Settlements
Human settlements means the totality of the human community - whether city, town
or village - with all the social, material, organizational, spiritual and cultural elements
that sustain it. The fabric of human settlements consists of physical elements and
services to which these elements provide the material support. The physical
components comprise.

Shelter: i.e. the superstructures of different shapes, size, type and materials erected
by mankind for security, privacy and protection from the elements and for his
singularity within a community.

Infrastructure: i.e. the complex networks designed to deliver to or remove from the
shelter people, goods, energy or information.

Services: cover those required by a community for the fulfilment of its functions as a
social body, such as education, health, culture, welfare, recreation and nutrition.4
Settlements are a prerequisite for social and economic development, in that no
social progress for sustainable economic growth can occur without efficient
settlements systems and settlement networks.

Urbanisation
The total urban population in the region at present is about 850 million containing
40% of the world urban population. By the year 2000, an estimated 300 million more
population will be added during the decade in urban areas in the region, including 14
of the world's 22 mega-cities with more than 10,000,000 people.
Urbanisation will however come with its issues, such as: Economic issues, Housing
and infrastructure issues, Social issues, Environmental issues.
Of all the above mentioned issues, social and natural sustainability are important for
sustainable development of human settlements (Yoshino, 1994). Coping with
flooding and drought; getting potable water, breathable air, and a stable
environment; and so forth have been prime concerns of urban planners, engineers,
governments, and citizenry for thousands of years (Priscoli, 1998). Climate change
simply adds to the challenge. Some of the adaptations probably would take place
autonomously, but some adaptations may be much improved by taking climate into
account explicitly.

Not all areas within human settlements are sufficient for populations to flourish, as
this is realised, a move will take place, gradually but surely. Thus reshaping the
structure of the settlement.
Moving from rural to urban areas within a settlement seems to be a drastic move but
the human gene pool has moved over vast areas of land as the paragraph below
shall prove.

The availability of a large data set of DNA samples from 11,000 individuals
distributed worldwide and typed at hundreds of genetic markers has led to the
description of extremely strong patterns in the geographic distribution of genetic
diversity in humans. Genetic differentiation between populations increases
essentially linearly with geographic distance, computed along landmasses. Even
more striking is the observation that geographic distance along landmasses from
East Africa (a likely origin of anatomically modern humans) is an excellent predictor
of the genetic diversity of individual populations throughout the world. Indeed,
genetic diversity decreases smoothly with increasing geographic distance from
Africa.


Summary

Human settlements are established to provide a haven for populations to thrive.
From what I gather the progression of a settlement depends on its era, technology,
inhabitants, population, economic stability, geographic location, geographical
surroundings and its physiography.
Settlements and the patterns they etch on Earth’s surface provide not only data on
current economic and social aspects of human existence but also a historical record.
Today’s settlement patterns, evident on a map, provide information about past
settlement patterns and processes, and the boundaries of counties and other
political entities indicate how people organized the land as they settled it.



Bibliography

http://www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/globaled/go/pid/1820#
http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0002929707631310/1-s2.0-S0002929707631310-
main.pdf?_tid=44947baf46671bf0338c1159f8a124e3&acdnat=1334070048_2cbd
fa8a3224fbdcc6c62b0e63420136
http://www.unescap.org/huset/whatis.htm
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg2/pdf/wg2tarchap7.pdf
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/standards/12/index.html