So far, we have looked at the history of population estimations, with a focus on the 7 billion milestone in 2011, and have also looked at climate change in Africa, the power of younger populations and whether reducing human populations will help environmental problems.
In this post i want to go right back to the beginning and pick apart the report that this blog is based around - 'World Population stabilisation Unlikey this Century' which states population will increase to 10.9 billion in 2100.
The report uses data from the third revision of probabilistic population projections based on the 'World population prospects: The 2012 Revision'.The probabilistic estimates are based around historical data of population by age and sex, fertility, mortality and migration rates trend between 1950 and 2010.
So first of all lets look at the positives of the report and the data it uses....
- The report highlights that probabilistic projections give the ability to quantify our confidence in future trends - This is great, as it ensures we have a good idea of what will happen in the future and allows us to plan for these demographic and population changes.
- Data is incorporated from every country and area of the world (UNESA, 2014) - Fab a complete data set!
- Data includes information on incidence, prevalence and treatment for countries most effected by HIV and Aids which has not been included before - Including more data from different sources helps to ensure more accurate projections.
Now lets look at some of the problems with the report and the data it uses ....
- The supplementary report for the article indicates that the probabilistic projections do not incorporate uncertainty about future age patterns of fertility and mortality, or international net migration - This means that the confidence levels for the projections that use this data are not as precise as they could be.
- The supplementary report for the article also states that the data is subject to a time lag between the latest available data and the base year for the projection - This is ultimately inevitable, however it does mean that the data used is not the most recent data, which, if used, could produce slightly different estimations.
- As highlighted within the report, the UN projections are reliant on a continuation of existing policies - UN policies are subject to change, particularly if population is to increase, therefore the effects of changing UN policies on probabilistic population projections could be an area for further research?
- Again highlighted in the report, The projections don't take into account the negative effects from the environmental consequences of the population increase - This is the big crux of the report. We do not know how the environment will change because of this population increase and therefore there is still uncertainty in saying that the population will not stabilise in this century. This calls for more research into how an increase in population will effect the environment, in order to know whether this will have an effect on the population.
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