BBC NEWS | Health | Bed-blocking 'on the rise again'

Delayed discharges from hospitals - so-called "bed-blocking" - rose sharply last year, according to figures released in Parliament.

In total, more than a million "bed days" were lost, with an increase of almost 30% in acute hospitals.

Link to BBC NEWS | Health | Bed-blocking 'on the rise again'

Global food crisis looms as climate change and fuel shortages bite | Environment | The Guardian

Empty shelves in Caracas. Food riots in West Bengal and Mexico. Warnings of hunger in Jamaica, Nepal, the Philippines and sub-Saharan Africa. Soaring prices for basic foods are beginning to lead to political instability, with governments being forced to step in to artificially control the cost of bread, maize, rice and dairy products.

Record world prices for most staple foods have led to 18% food price inflation in China, 13% in Indonesia and Pakistan, and 10% or more in Latin America, Russia and India, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). Wheat has doubled in price, maize is nearly 50% higher than a year ago and rice is 20% more expensive, says the UN. Next week the FAO is expected to say that global food reserves are at their lowest in 25 years and that prices will remain high for years.

Link to Global food crisis looms as climate change and fuel shortages bite | Environment | The Guardian

Migrants stories -CASE STUDIES

4 case studies
Catherine Chuungwe, 43, from Zambia, settled in Northern Ireland three years ago
Narina Shorland, 24, from St Petersburg, works at Riverford Organic Vegetables in Devon
Grzegor Jagienak, 22, from Poland, has been in the UK for three months working full-time as a bartender at Cargo, a club in Shoreditch, east London
Victoria Patricio, 28, born in Botswana, has Portuguese nationality and has been in Thetford, Norfolk, for three years. She is a facilitator with Meta, a project working with migrants

Link to Labour accused of failing to tackle misinformation | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited

New 'disaster' movie warns world of oil apocalypse | Environment | The Observer

Oil is 'the bloodstain of the earth's economy' and will soon trigger a global conflict that will cost millions of lives. That is the stark claim of a controversial new film, which says a crash in oil production is about to set off worldwide recession and economic collapse.

LINK to the films website

Link to New 'disaster' movie warns world of oil apocalypse | Environment | The Observer

Multinationals lead India's IT revolution

GLOSSARY

Outsourcing: Moving company functions from internal departments to external firms

Offshoring: Relocating corporate activities overseas.

Nearshoring: Relocating offshore activities nearer the client's home country

BPO: Business processing outsourcing - moving white collar tasks like accounting or invoicing. to an external firm

Captive firms: Companies owned by foreign multinationals who perform outsourcing services for the parent firm

UK call centres/US contact centers: Offices where workers provide telephone customer services like sales

Link to BBC NEWS | Business | Multinationals lead India's IT revolution

Climate Change website

Link to Home page of Climate Change website

Mass exodus from Mexico flooding

Hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing severe flooding in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco.

The state capital, Villahermosa, has been largely abandoned after the Grijalva river burst its banks late Thursday, submerging much of the city.

Link to BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Mass exodus from Mexico flooding

Three Gorges Dam

Interactive site from FT.com

Link to 571cc608-87e4-11dc-9464-0000779fd2ac.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object)

Tread Lightly

If we all Tread lightly we can make a difference

Guardian launches unique website to help readers to reduce carbon footprint.

If Guardian readers...

Switched to energy-efficient light bulbs this week, we could turn off a coal-fired power station for one day, one hour, 46 minutes and 1 second.

Turned off all appliances for a week instead of leaving them on standby, the power station could be turned off for 15 hours, 12 minutes and 43 seconds.

Turned down their thermostat by 1C for a week, we could turn off a coal-fired power station for 22 hours, 21 minutes and eight seconds.

Link to Tread Lightly | Environment | Guardian Unlimited

Globalisation Guide

Useful site that poses a series of questions.

Section onwho are the players is especially useful

Link to Globalisation Guide

Population

This resource pack describes and explains what are the global patterns of population change through:

• interpretation of world population distribution
• interpretation of the demographic transition model
• interpretation of differing population structures

These materials support the Global Citizenship and Interdependence element of the WJEC GCSE geography (A - mainstream) specification, in particular the key question "What are the global patterns of population change?" The materials also offer the learning experiences of interpreting maps and graphs.

Animation and graphics are used to show the dynamic nature of population change. A set of background notes is provided as guidance for the teacher.

Link to Introduction

A380 superjumbo lands in Sydney

The world's largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, has landed in Sydney on its first commercial flight, after a seven-hour journey from Singapore.Singapore Airlines took delivery of the huge plane, dubbed the Superjumbo, just over a week ago. Passengers bought seats in a charity online auction. It can carry some 850 passengers, but took about 450 to Sydney.

The superjumbo's advent ends a reign of nearly four decades by the Boeing 747 as the world's biggest airliner.

Link to BBC NEWS | Business | A380 superjumbo lands in Sydney

Humans failing the sustainability audit

With its Geo-4 report, the United Nations tells us that most aspects of the Earth's natural environment are in decline; and that the decline will affect us, the planet's human inhabitants, in some pretty important ways.

There is a link tothe PDF file which is downloadable.

BEWARE is huge

Link to BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Humans failing the sustainability audit

Air-freight food must pass fair trade test to retain organic label in future

Food air-freighted to Britain from developing countries will only bear an organic label in future if it can be shown that it was produced to fair trade standards as well as high environmental standards, the Soil Association said yesterday.

The move by Britain's leading organic inspectors follows concern about the climate change impact of food flown long distances and fears that some developing countries are in danger of losing markets due to new "green" protectionism.

The association rejected calls from the public, environmentalists and some of its own producers for a ban on all air-freighted organic food, deciding this would penalise many poor countries which benefit in terms of jobs and wages from growing organic food for British consumers.

Link to Air-freight food must pass fair trade test to retain organic label in future | Environment | The Guardian

Country Information

Maps and information available

Link to Countries of the World : geography, tourism, politics, economy, culture

Katine

With the right flight connections, a journey from the 21st century to the 14th century can take just over 12 hours. It begins in the hot, crowded duty-free hell of Heathrow's terminal 3 and ends - through the bushes down a snaking mud track - by the marshes under a cloudless blue African sky.

This is Katine, in northern Uganda, which for the next three years will be the centre of a unique experiment between a newspaper, its readership, a bank and an NGO. Together, we're going to try to help the people who live here to make a significant difference - harnessing the power of 21st century communications, expertise, resources and good will to help change lives still trapped in the 14th century.

There are excellent videos on some of the issues :

Improving income generating opportunities Most people in Katine are subsistence farmers. Farmers generally lack knowledge or capacity to add value to their crops and live hand to mouth

Improving access to quality primary education

Drop out rates are high in Katine and schools lack basic facilities such as latrines, clean water and textbooks

Empowering communities to engage in local governance

In the decentralised administration structure in Uganda, communities are meant to run their own affairs – in reality they lack the resources to participate

Improving access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene

The lack of safe water in Katine makes people sick. Diarrhoea, typhoid and bilharzia are common, preventable diseases

Improving community health

Preventable diseases cause 75% of premature deaths in Katine. The key health problems include malaria and maternal health.

The site aslo includes a VIRTUAL VILLAGE. What is it?
This is an interactive experience of the village of Katine. This site will evolve and change over the coming years, alongside the development project. So please visit now and come back every week or two to follow the updates and get to know your favorite characters, places and stories. See for yourself what development in Africa means, not only for donors and aid agencies, but also for the people it is intended to help.

Link to Katine Katine Guardian Unlimited

OS Explore

EXPLORE is a new beta application from Ordnance Survey, allowing you to create and share your routes with the world, and join in with ones that already exist

Link to OS Explore

Climate change controversies: a simple guide

The Royal Society has produced this overview of the current state of scientific understanding of climate change to help non-experts better understand some of the debates in this complex area of science.

• Misleading argument 1 : The Earth's climate is always changing and this is nothing to do with humans.
• Misleading argument 2 : Carbon dioxide only makes up a small part of the atmosphere and so cannot be responsible for global warming.
• Misleading argument 3 : Rises in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are the result of increased temperatures, not the other way round.
• Misleading argument 4 : Observations of temperatures taken by weather balloons and satellites do not support the theory of global warming.
• Misleading argument 5 : Computer models which predict the future climate are unreliable and based on a series of assumptions.
• Misleading argument 6 : It's all to do with the Sun - for example, there is a strong link between increased temperatures on Earth with the number of sunspots on the Sun.
• Misleading argument 7 : The climate is actually affected by cosmic rays.
• Misleading argument 8 : The scale of the negative effects of climate change is often overstated and there is no need for urgent action.

Link to Climate change controversies: a simple guide

Sustainable Cities Index

How do UK cities really measure up?

The race to be a truly ‘sustainable city’ is increasingly competitive, with Manchester determined to become ‘the Greenest City in Britain by 2010’, Bristol wanting to become a ‘Green Capital’ and London aiming for nothing less than the status of ‘most sustainable city in the world’.

Aiming to cut through the rhetoric, this report brings rigour to the debate by using current data to determine who’s sustainable and who’s not. In it, each of the UK’s 20 largest cities are analysed according to three criteria – their ‘environmental impact', ‘quality of life’ and ‘future proofing’ – and given an overall ranking which summarises the results.

The data reveals that Brighton and Hove is the most sustainable city followed by Edinburgh in second place and Bristol in third. Liverpool comes bottom of the list, after Hull in 18th place and Birmingham in 19th.

In the UK, around nine in ten people live in towns and cities. Globally, we are now a majority urban world. We have no choice but to learn to live together in sustainable ways in cities. This will mean providing a high quality of life for all residents. It will also mean reducing the wider environmental impact of cities.

We chose three baskets of indicators against which to rank the cities.

• The Environmental Impact of the city – the impact of the city on the wider environment in terms of resource use and pollution
• The Quality of Life for residents – what the city is like to live in for all its citizens.
• Future Proofing – how well the city is preparing itself for a sustainable future.

We selected these index categories to reflect the sustainability of each city in a fair and balanced way. We used a total of 13 indicators, spread across the three baskets. The indicators use existing data on aspects of performance on which cities are already expected to make improvements. We intend to measure these indicators year-on-year.

Link to Sustainable Cities Index | Forum For The Future

Reuters AlertNet - Interactive map

Interactive map.

You select a crisis type to view.

Conflicts

Food Security

Storms

Sudden Disaster

Health

Earthquakes

These are shown on the map. You can zoom in to get more detail and links to news

Link to Reuters AlertNet - Interactive map BETA

Striding Edge - a photo diary of Lake District Fell walks

Excellent set of photos from the lake district

Link to Striding Edge - a photo diary of Lake District Fell walks

European Retirees on the Costa del Sol: A Cross-National Comparison

The Costa del Sol is one of the largest and
most important regions in Europe receiving
retirement migrants from other countries.
This paper studies northern European retired
immigrants, using data generated by a
questionnaire survey of 300 respondents and
in-depth interviews with 20 people in 13
municipalities. Reasons for moving to Spain,
the advantages and disadvantages reported
of living there, and the perceived impacts on
the local region were analysed, paying
particular attention to cross-national
differences between British, German,
Benelux and Nordic retirees. The results
show that sociodemographic and economic
features of the settlers tend to be quite
similar, whilst reasons for moving, stated
advantages and disadvantages, and
consequences and impacts exhibit some
cross-national differentiation.

Link to Rodriguez.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Migration 'causes pressure in UK'

Almost every UK region has difficulties in housing, health, education and crime because of increased migration, according to an official report. The findings are contained in a report drawn up to advise ministers on the social impact of immigration.

Link to BBC NEWS | UK | Migration 'causes pressure in UK'

The Amazon burns once again

It is burning season in Brazil, and across the Amazon region, where illegal loggers, cattle ranchers and a growing number of soy producers continue their advance into their world's largest tropical forest, similar scenes are taking place. In August government satellites registered 16,592 fires across Brazil, the overwhelming majority in the Amazon.

Link to The Amazon burns once again | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

World Food Day 2007

World Food Day (WFD) was established by FAO's Member Countries at the Organization's Twentieth General Conference in November 1979. The date chosen - 16 October - is the anniversary of FAO.

Link to World Food Day 2007: HOME EN

World Food Day

October 16 is World Food Day, an occasion to remember the plight of the world's 850 million chronically hungry people. After decades of decline, that number has actually been growing by four million each year since the mid-1990s. Today, hunger still kills more people than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. This series of photographs from the World Food Programme highlights some of the key facts and figures about hunger around the world today.

Link to WFP slideshow | Gallery | Guardian Unlimited

LINK : World Food Programme

Black to the future

Forget about wind farms and nuclear power stations. The answer to Britain’s looming energy crisis could be cheap, plentiful and planet-friendly coal

Thanks to Mike Miskelly for spotting this very interesting article on energy needs.

Link to Black to the future - Times Online

Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, Belize

The Belize Barrier Reef platform lies on the Atlantic-Caribbean coast of Belize, and extends 260 kilometers (km) from the border with Mexico to the north, to near the Guatemalan border to the south.

Link to Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, Belize - Encyclopedia of Earth

DIRECTORY of University courses

The Directory is the essential guide to Geography in Higher Education in the UK. It provides information on most HE departments with an undergraduate degree or module in geography, the courses offered, and the staff who work there. Given the range of Geography courses available, a standard overview is provided:

Whys study Geography?

Choosing a course?

Making a sucessful application?

Should i take agap year

Careers in Geography

Link to DIRECTORY

Twin Blue Marbles

Just because they are beautiful images

Link to EO Newsroom: New Images - Twin Blue Marbles

Poverty driving Burmese workers east

Zaw Aung left Burma because he could not afford to feed his family. The 31-year-old worked as a farm labourer near the new capital, Naypyidaw. But his wages did not cover basic necessities for his wife and three young children, and he could not find a better job.

Link to BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Poverty driving Burmese workers east

Chinadependence

Chinadependence: the second UK Interdependence report, published in association with the Open University, released to mark the day that the world as a whole goes into ecological debt, reveals the many ways in which Britain is becoming increasingly dependent on the rest of the world to fuel our high-consuming lifestyles. In particular, Chinadependence reveals a striking rise in our dependence on a wide range of Chinese imports. And, because the greenhouse gas pollution that results from their manufacture is blamed on China, not the consumers in the UK, we are turning China into our 'environmental laundry' with devastating consequences for the planet.

Link to Search Results

UK 'exporting emissions' to China

China's rising coal consumption is partly to make western goodsThe UK's increasing dependence on Chinese goods is contributing to a rise in carbon emissions, a report suggests.

The New Economic Foundation (Nef) says such reliance is adding to CO2 levels because China's factories produce more CO2 per item than British ones

Link to BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | UK 'exporting emissions' to China

euroGame12

Nice game on European countries

Link to euroGame12

Footprint Network News - Global Footprint Network

Ecological Footprint accounts estimate how many Earths were needed to meet the resource requirements of humanity for each year since 1961, when complete UN statistics became available. Resource demand (Ecological Footprint) for the world as a whole is the product of population times per capita consumption, and reflects both the level of consumption and the efficiency with which resources are turned into consumption products. Resource supply (biocapacity) varies each year with ecosystem management, agricultural practices (such as fertilizer use and irrigation), ecosystem degradation, and weather.

Get National Ecological footprint data

Link to Footprint Network News - Global Footprint Network - Advancing the Science of Sustainability

River Discharge Lab VIRTUAL RIVER FIELDWORK

The goal of this exercise is to introduce you to some basic concepts about how rivers work.The term river describes water moving through a well-defined channel.

Link to River Discharge Lab

Extended stretch of coastline CASE STUDY

Snapshot of farming in the UK

 

Animal health crises such as foot-and-mouth and bluetongue are just part of the worries facing farmers in the UK today.Pressures from export bans and late subsidy payments to fluctuating market prices can affect income, leave morale low and result in many famers considering how or whether to carry on in the industry. This snapshot of farming in the UK highlights some key areas of concern.

Land use

Farming Incomes

Retail Prices

Subsidies

Link to BBC NEWS | Magazine | Snapshot of farming in the UK

Centenarians reach a record high

The number of people living beyond 100 years has reached a record high in England and Wales, according to official figures.

The Office for National Statistics says there are now 9,000 "centenarians" - a 90-fold increase since 1911.

Link to BBC NEWS | Health | Centenarians reach a record high

All about population

A world population of 6.5 billion in 2005... and how many in twenty or fifty years from now? For thousands of years, human beings were a rare species and their numbers grew very slowly. By around 1800 however, the population began to increase rapidly, starting in the rich countries and then, from the twentieth century, in the rest of the world. This unique period in the history of mankind will probably come to an end within a century. What are the reasons for this growth, and what factors are affecting the population today? Will the world population level off in the years to come? How will the world be populated in the future?

These pages include animations, documents and fact sheets to help you find the answers to these questions, and learn more about the world population. Discover the science of demography, Find facts and figures about a country or group of countries. Imagine the population of tomorrow by looking into the future.

CLICK on the header "ALL ABOUT POPULATION" to reveal a drop down menu that contains

ANIMATIONS - Birth and family size; Understanding length of life;Measuring Fertility; Measuring Life expectancy; Population Pyramids

POPULATION ATLAS The world population atlas gives the latest United Nations population statistics for 230 countries and regions of the world. You can use its different windows to travel from one country to another, to see how the situation changes over time, to rank countries or to compare them with each other.

POPULATION GAMES Use our interactive windows to play with the factors influencing family size, to find out where you stand in the world population or to look into the future with the population simulator.

GRAPH OF THE MONTH Every month, a different set of recent population data is presented in the "graph of the month".

How is it constructed? What does it show? Click on the title to find out more.

Link to [INED] All about population

Templates for TEACHERS

AST Request Form - This can be used to request resources - for other languages please attach a vocab list. Email me directly from the index page.
Noughts & Crosses
Aliens & Defenders - I really enjoy this one - one of my more inspired creations!
Brick Wall - Reveal
Find the word
Flash Memory game
Trivial Pursuit - created by Natalie Nicholson
Blockbusters
The Weakest Link - created by Mark E. Damon
Millionaire instructions
Millionaire - Not sure where this came from but I adapted it slightly
Timer - Adapted from MFL Sunderland - countdown file available if it doesn't run from here
30 second Countdown sound file
Talking Flash Cards
Picture Vocabulary Quiz - Hyperlinked Pictures - works in same way as action buttons
Action Buttons
Pit Stop - website with lots of ideas for MFL games
Wordsearch software - to print or use on a Smartboard - .exe file to download
Ideas for Flashcard and OHP Games
Ideas for Say It grids
Wheel of Fortune - spinner based on an idea by Connie Campbell
Timer - round the world in 1 minute - created by Dave Harlan
Virtual Dice - web site where you can select dice with different numbers of faces

Link to templates

Beyond Scarcity Power, poverty and global water crisis

Across the world, 2.6 billion people lack access to water and sanitation. The world water crisis is one of the main obstacles in the way of human development and of reaching Millennium Development goals. This year's Human Development Report, Beyond scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis, tackles this emergency.
Footage from: Nairobi, Kenya / West Bank, Palestinian Territories / China/ New Delhi, India / Colombia / Pretoria, South Africa / Kinshasa, Congo Videos are HERE

Link to Human Development Report 2006

worlds largest cargo ship

The ship is named Emma Maersk. The command bridge is higher than a 10 story building and 11 rigs that can operate simultaneously.

Additional info:Country of origin - Denmark

Length - 1,302 ft

Width - 207 ft

Net cargo - 123,200 tons

Engine - 14 in-line cylinders diesel engine (110,000 BHP)

Cruise Speed - 31 mi/h

Cargo capacity - 15,000 TEU (1 TEU = 20 ft3 container)

Crew - 13 people

First Trip - Sept. 08, 2006

Construction cost - US $145,000,000

Silicone painting applied to the ship bottom reduces water resistance and saves 317,000 gallons of diesel per year.

African deluge brings misery to 1.5m people

According to the UN yesterday, 18 of the poorest and normally driest countries in Africa, from Senegal, Mauritania, Mali and Burkina Faso in the west, to Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia in the east, have been seriously hit by months of torrential rains which, meterologists forecast, will continue in places for many more weeks.

"We believe at least 650,000 homes have been destroyed, 1.5 million people affected and nearly 200 people so far drowned," said Elisabeth Brys, at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) in Geneva. "This is harvest time for many countries and there are already food shortages."

The rains, linked to ocean temperature changes of El Niño, have caught governments off guard. Many of the worst affected regions are remote from capitals and assessments are still being made.

Burkina Faso, Togo and Ghana have declared an official disaster and appealed for emergency international aid. More nations are expected to follow

Link to African deluge brings misery to 1.5m people | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

El Niño Southern Oscillation

What is El Niño?

The term El Niño refers to the large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate phenomenon linked to a periodic warming in sea-surface temperatures across the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (between approximately the date line and 120^oW). El Niño represents the warm phase of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, and is sometimes referred to as a Pacific warm episode. El Niño originally referred to an annual warming of sea-surface temperatures along the west coast of tropical South America.
NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, which is part of the National Weather Service, declares the onset of an El Niño episode when the 3-month average sea-surface temperature departure exceeds 0.5^oC in the east-central equatorial Pacific [between 5^oN-5^oS and 170^oW-120^oW].
Show me strong El Niño sea-surface temperature and tropical rainfall patterns.
Show me the past El Niño and La Niña events by season.

What is La Niña?

La Niña refers to the periodic cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific that occurs every 3 to 5 years or so. La Niña represents the cool phase of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, and is sometimes referred to as a Pacific cold episode. La Niña originally referred to an annual cooling of ocean waters off the west coast of Peru and Ecuador.

Link to CPC - Climate Weather Linkage: El Niño Southern Oscillation

educational links

Has China's one-child policy worked?

In the first of a series of pieces on China's one-child policy, the BBC's Michael Bristow looks at whether the country's controversial regulations are working.

China's family planning policy has prevented 400 million births, officials say.

Link to BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Has China's one-child policy worked?

What;s the carbon footprint of a potato?

Walkers Crisps is the first firm to put carbon footprint figures on its products, with nine more companies set to follow. How are these figures calculated?

Link to BBC NEWS | Magazine | What's the carbon footprint of a potato?

Walkers - reducing our carbon footprint

Volcanoes of the World

The data presented in this section have been compiled by Smithsonian volcanologists over the past three decades and represent an updated electronic version of Volcanoes of the World (Simkin and Siebert, 1994). The volcano and eruption data are freely available

Link to Global Volcanism Program | Volcanoes of the World

3 stages of a river

Stages Of A River

Collection of images to illustrate the 3 stages of a river


SlideShare Link

Weather and Climate NOTES

Airmasses

Fronts

Anticyclones

fronts

depressions

Climate change

Link to Home Page

UNOSAT

UNOSAT is a United Nations programme created to provide the international community and developing countries with enhanced access to satellite imagery and Geographic Information System (GIS) services. These tools are used mainly in humanitarian relief, disaster prevention and post crisis reconstruction.

Link to UNOSAT

Disease alert in flood-hit Africa

Severe flooding across Africa has wrecked hundreds of thousands of homes and left many people vulnerable to water-borne diseases, officials say.

Link to BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Disease alert in flood-hit Africa

ReliefWeb » Home Page

ReliefWeb is the world’s leading on-line gateway to information (documents and maps) on humanitarian emergencies and disasters. An independent vehicle of information, designed specifically to assist the international humanitarian community in effective delivery of emergency assistance, it provides timely, reliable and relevant information as events unfold, while emphasizing the coverage of "forgotten emergencies" at the same time.
ReliefWeb was launched in October 1996 and is administered by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

EXAMPLE: West Africa Floods

Link to ReliefWeb » Home Page

AIDS & HIV information from the AIDS charity AVERT

Link to AIDS & HIV information from the AIDS charity AVERT

Met Office: 1961-90 mapped averages

1961-90 mapped averages

Select the elements below to view contoured UK maps of monthly, seasonal and annual averages. The analyses are based on 1 km grid-point data sets which are derived from station data covering the latest WMO recommended reference period (1961 - 1990).

Link to Met Office: 1961-90 mapped averages

Health Expectancy

The population of Great Britain has been living longer over the past 20 years, but the extra years have not necessarily been lived in good health. Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy (expected years of life in good or fairly good health) both increased between 1981 and 2001, with life expectancy increasing at a faster rate than healthy life expectancy.
Life expectancy is higher for females than for males. In 2001 the life expectancy at birth of females was 80.4 years compared with 75.7 years for males. However, life expectancy for males has been increasing faster than for females. There was an increase of 4.8 years in male life expectancy between 1981 and 2001. For females the corresponding increase was 3.6 years.
The gap in healthy life expectancy between males and females is smaller than for total life expectancy. In 2001, healthy life expectancy at birth was 67.0 years for males and 68.8 years for females, a gap of 1.8 years.
The difference between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy can be regarded as an estimate of the number of years a person can expect to live in poor health. In 1981 the expected time lived in poor health for males was 6.5 years. By 2001 this had risen to 8.7 years. Females can expect to live longer in poor health than males. In 1981 the expected time lived in poor health for females was 10.1 years, rising to 11.6 years in 2001.

Link to National Statistics Online

The Office for National Statistics measured "healthy life expectancy" - the age before ill-health strikes.

UK Govt Sustainable Development - Home

The past 20 years have seen a growing realisation that the current model of development is unsustainable. In other words, we are living beyond our means. From the loss of biodiversity with the felling of rainforests or over fishing to the negative effect our consumption patterns are having on the environment and the climate. Our way of life is placing an increasing burden on the planet.

The increasing stress we put on resources and environmental systems such as water, land and air cannot go on forever. Especially as the world's population continues to increase and we already see a world where over a billion people live on less than a dollar a day.

A widely-used and accepted international definition of sustainable development is: 'development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs' - Globally we are not even meeting the needs of the present let alone considering the needs of future generations.

Link to UK Govt Sustainable Development - Home

Human Development reports

"The basic purpose of development is to enlarge people's choices. In principle, these choices can be infinite and can change over time. People often value achievements that do not show up at all, or not immediately, in income or growth figures: greater access to knowledge, better nutrition and health services, more secure livelihoods, security against crime and physical violence, satisfying leisure hours, political and cultural freedoms and sense of participation in community activities. The objective of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives." Mahbub ul Haq

Human development is about much more than the rise or fall of national incomes. It is about creating an environment in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests. People are the real wealth of nations. Development is thus about expanding the choices people have to lead lives that they value. And it is thus about much more than economic growth, which is only a means —if a very important one —of enlarging people ’s choices.

Link to HDR

Human Development Index - Encyclopedia of Earth

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary measure of human development that is published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI provides an alternative to the common practice of evaluating a country’s progress in development based on per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The HDI measures the average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions of human development:

• A long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth.
• Knowledge, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weight) and the combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (with one-third weight).
• A decent standard of living, as measured by GDP per capita in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms in US dollars.

Link to Human Development Index - Encyclopedia of Earth