AP®︎ Human Geography: Topic 2.6 Flashcards

British economist and clergyman who published An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798 and developed Malthusian theory

Population can grow faster than food production, eventually causing shortages and increased mortality unless fertility declines

Population compounds by a constant proportion, while food increases by equal amounts, causing population eventually to outpace food supply

The largest population an environment can support over time with its available resources and technology

The cycle in which increased food production encourages population growth that absorbs the gain and returns living standards toward subsistence

A severe adjustment through mass hunger, disease, and death after population exceeds its resource base

A condition in which a population’s demands exceed the sustainable capacity of its environment and resource system

Checks that lower fertility before severe shortages, such as delayed marriage, celibacy, moral restraint, or voluntary family-size limitation

Checks that increase mortality, including famine, disease, warfare, and disasters worsened by poverty or inadequate resources

A modern extension of Malthus that links population and consumption to finite food, water, energy, land, and environmental capacity

Ester Boserup’s theory that population pressure stimulates agricultural innovation and intensification, expanding food production and carrying capacity

Increasing production from a given area of land by adding labor, technology, capital, or more frequent cultivation

The view that creativity, technology, markets, conservation, and resource substitution can expand effective resources and postpone scarcity