Lecture

Population Growth and Resource Consumption

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ENV-167: Introduction to environmental engineering

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Description

This lecture covers the mathematics of growth, exponential growth, exponential decay, and the logistic model in the context of population growth and resource consumption. It discusses the limitations of exponential growth models, the concept of carrying capacity, and the Lotka-Volterra predator-prey model. The instructor presents case studies, such as the Easter Island population crash and the impact of environmental factors on population dynamics. Additionally, it explores the Gompertz growth model and its application to real-world scenarios, like the analysis of Swiss Covid-19 data. The lecture concludes with exercises on exponential growth rates and population predictions.

Instructors (5)

Christof Holliger

Expertise BioremediationWastewater treatmentAnaerobic digestionBiogas and biofuelEnvironmental microbiologyMicrobial Ecology Teaching & PhD Past EPFL PhD Students Doulaye Koné, Katia Szynalski, Karin Kaufmann, Christian Balsiger, Julien Maillard, Enrique Lara, Benoît Zen-Ruffinen, François-Nicolas de Glutz, Laure Prat, Noam Shani, Samuel Lochmatter, David Gregory Weissbrodt, Elsa Marina Lacroix, Aamani Rupakula Boyanapalli, Géraldine Florence Buttet, Aline Sondra Adler, Mathilde Stéphanie Willemin, Lorenzo

David Andrew Barry

Research InterestsSubsurface hydrology, constructed wetlands, ecological engineering, in particular contaminant transport and remediation of soil and groundwater; more generally, models of hydrological and vadose zone processes; application of mathematical methods to hydrological processes; coastal zone sediment transport, aquifer-coastal ocean interactions; hydrodynamics and modelling of lakes.

Tamar Kohn

2014 - present Associate Professor, EPFL and adjunct researcher, Eawag 2007 - 2013 Assistant Professor, EPFL 2004 - 2006 Postdoctoral researcher, UC Berkeley 2000 - 2004 PhD, Environmental Engineering, Johns Hopkins University 1999 Diploma, Environmental Sciences, ETHZ

Anders Meibom

Anders Meibom obtained his PhD in physics from the University of Southern Denmark in 1997. This was followed by two and a half years of PostDoc work at the Hawaii Institute for Geophysics and Planetology, where he conducted mineralogical studies of primitive chondritic meteorites. From 2000 to 2005, he was Research Associate in the Geological & Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, where he represented Stanford in the USGS-Stanford ion microprobe laboratory. In 2005, he became proifessor at the Muséum National dHistoire Naturelle in Paris. From 2006 to 2011 he was the director of the French national NanoSIMS laboratory. Since January 2012, he is professor at the EPFL in the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC). From April 2014, he is professor ad personam at the Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Lausanne.

Athanasios Nenes

Official source

Related concepts (32)

Population model

A population model is a type of mathematical model that is applied to the study of population dynamics. Models allow a better understanding of how complex interactions and processes work. Modeling of dynamic interactions in nature can provide a manageable way of understanding how numbers change over time or in relation to each other. Many patterns can be noticed by using population modeling as a tool. Ecological population modeling is concerned with the changes in parameters such as population size and age distribution within a population.

Population growth

Population growth is the increase in the number of people in a population or dispersed group. Actual global human population growth amounts to around 83 million annually, or 1.1% per year. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.9 billion in 2020. The UN projected population to keep growing, and estimates have put the total population at 8.6 billion by mid-2030, 9.8 billion by mid-2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100.

Population dynamics of fisheries

A fishery is an area with an associated fish or aquatic population which is harvested for its commercial or recreational value. Fisheries can be wild or farmed. Population dynamics describes the ways in which a given population grows and shrinks over time, as controlled by birth, death, and migration. It is the basis for understanding changing fishery patterns and issues such as habitat destruction, predation and optimal harvesting rates. The population dynamics of fisheries is used by fisheries scientists to determine sustainable yields.

Zero population growth

Zero population growth, sometimes abbreviated ZPG, is a condition of demographic balance where the number of people in a specified population neither grows nor declines; that is, the number of births plus in-migrants equals the number of deaths plus out-migrants. ZPG has been a prominent political movement since the 1960s. As part of the concept of optimum population, the movement considers zero population growth to be an objective towards which countries and the whole world should strive in the interests of accomplishing long-term optimal standards and conditions of living.

Population ecology

Population ecology is a sub-field of ecology that deals with the dynamics of species populations and how these populations interact with the environment, such as birth and death rates, and by immigration and emigration. The discipline is important in conservation biology, especially in the development of population viability analysis which makes it possible to predict the long-term probability of a species persisting in a given patch of habitat.

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