AQA Geography GCE Specification

Rivers Floods and Management

The drainage basin hydrological cycle: the water balance.
Factors affecting river discharge: the storm hydrograph.
The long profile – changing processes: types of erosion, transportation and deposition, types of load, the Hjulstrom curve.
Valley profiles – long profile and changing cross profile downstream, graded profile, potential and kinetic energy.
Changing channel characteristics – cross profile, wetted perimeter, hydraulic radius, roughness, efficiency and links to velocity and discharge.
Landforms of fluvial erosion and deposition – potholes, rapids, waterfalls, meanders, braiding, levees, flood plains and deltas.
Process and impact of rejuvenation – knick points, waterfalls, river terraces and incised meanders.
Physical and human causes of flooding – location of areas of high risk in a more developed and a less developed country case study, magnitude, frequency (risk) analysis.
Impact of flooding – two case studies of recent events should be undertaken from contrasting areas of the world.
Flood management strategies – to include hard engineering – dams, straightening, building up of levees, diversion spillways, and soft engineering – forecasts and warnings, land use management on floodplain, wetland and river bank conservation and river restoration.

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The global distribution of cold environments – polar (land and marine based), alpine, glacial and periglacial.
Glaciers as systems – glacial budgets. Ice movement – types of flow: internal deformation, rotational, compressional, extensional and basal sliding; warm and cold based glaciers.
Glacial processes and landscape development.Weathering in cold environments – frost shattering.
Erosional landforms – corries, arêtes, pyramidal peaks, glacial troughs and associated features. Depositional landforms – types of moraine and drumlins.
Fluvioglacial processes – the role of meltwater erosion and deposition. Fluvioglacial landforms – meltwater channels, kames, eskers and outwash plains.
Periglacial processes – nivation, permafrost formation, frost heave, solifluction. Periglacial landforms – nivation hollows, ice wedges, patterned ground, pingos and solifluction lobes.
Exploitation and development in tundra areas and the Southern Ocean. Traditional economies of an indigenous population and recent changes/ adaptations. Early resource exploitation by newcomers – whaling and/or sealing. More recent development – oil in Alaska, fishing, tourism. The concept of fragile environments. The potential for sustainable development.
The future of Antarctica – to consider the contemporary issues of conservation, protection, development and sustainability in a wilderness are

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Population indicators – vital rates (birth rate, death rate, fertility rate, infant mortality rate, changes over time, life expectancy, migration rate and population density) for countries at different stages of development.
Population change: the demographic transition model (5 stages), its validity and applicability in countries at different stages of development.
Population structures at different stages of the demographic transition. The impact of migration in population structure. The implications of different structures for the balance between population and resources.
Social, economic and political implications of population change. Attempts to manage population change to achieve sustainable development with reference to case studies of countries at different stages of development.
The way population change and migration affects the character of rural and urban areas.
Settlement case studies – comparing two (or more) of the following areas – an inner city area, a suburban area, an area of rural/urban fringe and an area of rural settlement. To include reference to characteristics such as: housing, ethnicity, age structure, wealth and employment and the provision of services.
The implications of the above for social welfare.

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Global patterns of health, morbidity and mortality: health in world affairs.
The study of one infectious disease (eg malaria, HIV/Aids), its global distribution and its impact on health, economic development and lifestyle.
The study of one ‘disease of affluence’ (eg coronary disease, cancer), its global distribution and its impact on health, economic development and lifestyle.
Food and health – malnutrition, periodic famine, obesity. Contrasting health care approaches in countries at different stages of development.
Health matters in a globalising world economy –transnational corporations and pharmaceutical research, production and distribution; tobacco transnationals.
Regional variations in health and morbidity in the UK.
Factors affecting regional variations in health and morbidity – age structure, income and occupation type, education, environment and pollution.
Age, gender, wealth and their influence on access to facilities for exercise, health care and good nutrition.
A local case study on the implications of the above for the provision of health care systems.

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