General Article What is overpopulation?

Topic Selected: Population Book Volume: 363
This article is 4 years old. Click here to view the latest articles for this topic.

By Sonia Madaan

Overpopulation is the state whereby the human population rises to an extent exceeding the carrying capacity of the ecological setting. In an overpopulated environment, the numbers of people might be more than the available essential materials for survival such as transport, water, shelter, food or social amenities. This regularly contributes to environmental deterioration, worsening in the quality of life, or even the disintegration of the population.

It is estimated that about 81 million people add to the world’s population annually. Regions with the highest number of population density (the number of people living in a given region) feel the dire effects and problems of overpopulation. Due to immigration, the decline in mortality rates, medical breakthroughs, and increased birth rates, populations will always increase and eventually gives rise to overpopulation.

Wikipedia defines overpopulation as;

‘Overpopulation occurs when a population of a species exceeds the c...

Would you like to see the rest of this article and all the other benefits that Issues Online can provide with?

Sign up now for a no obligation FREE TRIAL and view the entire collection