Geography

Watch the animation below to find out more about what might happen if our birth rate decline as well as if it increase too fast.

Our Singapore Story from Lucian Teo on Vimeo.
Some of the highlights from the annual Population Trends publication by the Singapore Department of Statistics:

• Reflecting the ageing population, the report said the median age of the resident population went up further to 38.4 years in 2012, compared to 38.0 in 2011 and 37.4 in 2010.
• The proportion of Singapore residents aged 65 years and above rose to 9.9 per cent from 9.3 per cent last year.This resulted in the ratio of residents aged 20-64 years to elderly residents aged 65 years and above trending downwards. The report said there were 6.7 residents aged 20-64 years to each elderly resident, compared to 7.2 last year.
• Female residents outnumbered their male counterparts in Singapore. The sex ratio was 970 males per 1,000 females, down from 972 in 2011.
• Turning to marriages, the report said a total of 27,258 marriages were registered in 2011, which was 12 per cent higher than the 24,363 registered in 2010. This was a rebound after a dip in 2010.
• As for the fertility rate in Singapore, DOS said total live-births rebounded and increased by 4.4 per cent to 39,654 last year, from 37,967 in 2010.
• Singapore's resident total fertility rate rose slightly from 1.15 in 2010 to 1.2 in 2011. 
• There is an increase in the proportion with no children among married women in their thirties.
• The proportion who was childless grew from 15 per cent in 2001 to 21 per cent last year among married resident women aged 30-39 years.
• The share of university graduates also increased significantly from 14 per cent in 2001 to 25 per cent in 2011.

The PSI is as high as 79 this morning - the sky is so hazy that people with heart or lung disease as well as children and older adults aged 65 and above are advised  to avoid all physical activity outdoors.
The haze is caused by the fires builds up during the dry season when farmers clear their land by burning.  The fires are mostly concentrated in the provinces of Jambi and South Sumatra in Indonesia.   The haze has been affecting tourism and contributing to health problems across the region.
Indonesia's government has outlawed land-clearing by fire but weak law enforcement means the ban is largely ignored.

For Sec 2 students - think about the following:
1. Why do farmers clear their land by burning? You have studied this under the topic shifting cultivation.
2. How does the haze affect tourism?

Watch this video on how strategies taken to reduce the problem of poor access to clean water and sanitation facilities.

In the city of Ahmedabad, more than 20% of the population comprising of 1,76,754 families lived in 710 slums under sub-human conditions. Most of this population lived in conditions that didn’t have critical infrastructure. The Slum Networking approach (SNP) called Parivartan adapted by AMC (Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation), though based on the slum networking approach of the DFID-funded Indore Habitat Improvement Project (IHIP), is substantially different in its settlement level approach and to partnerships with NGOs and communities. SNP in Ahmedabad has been designed to provide a package of infrastructure services in consultation with communities/ CBOs (community based organisations), NGO (Non-government organisations)   and the private sector. From its inception, SNP was designed to ensure that NGO partners directly provided or enabled access of communities to health and education services.

Situation before the programme
-  Total or partial absence of critical infrastructure like water supply, drainage, roads, toilets 
    and street lighting.
-    Over populated and congested.
-   Temporary structures with inadequate maintenance.
-    Lack of basic minimum education and insufficient skills.
-    Low income and poor standard of living.

Aims of the programme
-    Water supply to individual households.
-    Underground sewerage connection to individual households.
-    Toilets to individual households.
-    Paving of internal roads; lanes and by lanes in the slum localities.
-    Storm water drainage.
-    Street lighting.
-    Solid waste management

Success
-   Benefited 56,000 people in >40 slums
-   Expanded to include 59 more slums
-   Death rates declined from 6.9 per 1,000 people to 3.7 per 1,000 people
-   Surfaced road and better drainage facilities means less stagnant water, and thus less possibility of spread of disease and fewer people falling ill. 
-    Increased standard of living e.g. each household has their own toilet


Limitations:
-   No targets / milestones were set to monitor the performance of the implementing agency
-  The slums were not developed on priority basis,
-  The slum networking basically deals with notified slum and not with the other poor
settlements, and because of lack of funds the project could only be carried out in phases.
-  While it benefited some slums, majority are still deprived of clean water and sanitation
facilities. 
-   Problem of sourcing for funds to extend project to more areas
-   Problem of getting the technology and expertise needed
-   Difficulty in changing traditional habits