Task Solutions-Low Population Density in Areas :SCI210

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TASK
Starting at the largest river in your watershed, use the tilt and zoom features of Google Earth to
“fly” upstream along smaller and smaller tributaries. What differences do you see in the
landscape, landcover, and population densities near the areas’ largest streams compared to its
smallest tributaries?
The landscape near the largest streams is gentle and of lower elevation as compared to the upstream
which is steep and covered by forests. The small stream flows downstream to join the large streams at
the lower parts of the watershed. The landcover around the largest streams includes crop and pasture,
this is attributed to the gentle slopes that permit farming and cultivation to take place. Land use also is
covered by buildings forming urban areas. The population densities along the region are relatively
high compared to areas of the smallest tributaries. This is attributed to the presence of urban centers
that attract people due to the availability of employment opportunities.
Land Cover
Write adescription of your watershed. Include information about the shape of the land and how
the land is used. What purposes do the dams in your watershed serve? Indicate how the
population density of the area changed from 1990 to 2000. Use screenshots of different views in
your Google Earth map to support or illustrate your description.
The watershed is narrow in the north and wide as itstretches towards the South. The land is used for
various purposes including 58% of the land which is covered by forest, 26.9% is covered by cropland
and pasture and spreads from Southwest to Northwest, 10.2% of the land is water bodies, while 3% is
dominated by urban area, 0.6% and 0.4% are covered by transitional and barren land respectively.
The dams in the watershed are mostly used for irrigation purposes since alarge portion of land is used
for crop farming.
The population density for the region has changed from 1990 to 2000, from the screenshot there has
been an increased population density in urban centers and around cropland areas, the reason could be
amovement to urban areas for employment purposes and movement to cropland areas to focus on the
farming activities.
The two maps show low population density in areas covered by the forest.
Population density 1990
Population density 2000
In places where rivers are designated as apolitical boundary between two adjacent states or
countries, the two entities may have disputes about the river. For instance, they might argue
about which one has the right to use the water or set rules about what waste products can be
discharged into the river. Briefly discuss some advantages and disadvantages of using drainage
divides rather than rivers as political boundaries.
Advantages
Drainage provides boundaries that are indisputable and do not require people to guard or election of
boundary pillars ,thus they provide political natural boundaries, that are easy to adopt.
Drainage provides opportunities for the local people to understand their place at ascale knowable ,the
knowledge and opportunities to the people make them more responsible in protecting the drainage
system. (D Sarna-Wojcicki, 2019) .
Drainage ridgelines are easy to see and agree about .unlike rivers that sometimes dry, drainage
systems in most cases cannot dry.
Drainage systems are usually good for military purposes to the nature of their landcover, this is only
possible in the drainage system and not with the river.
The use of drainage creates apartnership that is important in fthe water and land resources in the
watershed since all the parties will have astake and responsibility in ensuring drainage health .
Drainage isalso an efficient way of prioritizing implementation plans in drainage management
Disadvantages
The complex nature of the boundary definition is difficult, even though the surface hydrology can be
clear the choice about boundary use isoften not clear.
Since watersheds are not aligned to conventional electoral boundaries, ensuring accountability of the
decisions by the decision-makers is achallenge.
Public participation is achallenge with drainage as the political divide, this is attributed to benefits
and empowerment of stakeholders in decision making, matters relating to the environment.
The drainage system usually impacts and gets impacted by outside factors outside of its boundaries.
Drainage rarely encompasses all the social, economic, and physica lfactors that impact the areas
within the borders (Embong, 2018) .
References
D Sarna-Wojcicki, J.S. (2019). Decentring watersheds and decolonizing watershed governance:
Towards an ecocultural politics of scale in the Klamath Basin.
Embong, A. R. (2018). Ethnicity and class: Divides and dissent in Malaysian studies.