Resources and environment, Year 11: food, water and energy in the UK

social

HintThe kind that is about health and quality of life, not money.

The whyDirty drinking water carries cholera, dysentery and typhoid. The World Health Organization estimates that it causes about 505,000 deaths from diarrhoea a year. Fewer illnesses also mean more days at school and at work, so health and the economy are linked.

Undernourished people are weaker and ill more often, so they produce less

HintThink about how much a tired, hungry person can get done in a day.

The whyFood supplies the energy people need to work and to fight off illness. A workforce that is short of food has more days lost to sickness and gets less done, and children who go hungry learn less at school. So food is an economic resource as well as a personal need.

It is much larger

HintCount the cars, appliances and heated buildings in a typical household there.

The whyPeople in HICs can afford more transport, heating, cooling and manufactured goods, all of which use energy. So a small share of the world's people uses a large share of its resources. The same unequal pattern holds for food and for water.

Economic development: industry grows and people become wealthier

HintFactories open, incomes rise and shopping habits change.

The whyAs a country industrialises, its factories and power stations need energy and water. As incomes rise, households buy cars and appliances and eat a more varied diet. Each person therefore uses more, on top of there being more people.

deficit

HintThe opposite of a surplus.

The whyA deficit has to be made up by importing the resource, moving it from elsewhere or using less. A surplus is the reverse: supply is greater than demand. Geographers also call a deficit insecurity and a surplus security.

60

HintMore than half, but well short of all.

The whyIn 2025 UK farms supplied 58% of the food the UK consumed, and the UK's food production was equal to 60% of its supply. The European Union supplied 23% of what was eaten. Fruit and vegetables were the largest import by value, at £15.0 billion.

Food miles

HintA two-word measure; the second word is a unit of length.

The whyThe further food travels, the more fuel its transport burns, so food miles are used as a rough guide to its carbon footprint. The way it travels matters as much as the distance: a tonne of food sent by air causes far more emissions than a tonne sent by ship.

Heating the greenhouse releases more carbon dioxide than the transport does

HintCompare the fuel burned to keep plants warm with the fuel burned on the road.

The whySpanish tomatoes ripen outdoors or under unheated cover, so the main emissions are from the journey. A UK crop in winter needs heat and sometimes light for months. This is why local food is lowest in carbon when it is also in season.

Less is left for growing food for local people

HintThe best fields and the irrigation supply can only be used once.

The whyExport crops bring jobs and foreign income, which is why governments and farmers choose them. But they can take the most fertile land and a large share of the water. The benefit and the cost fall on different people, which is what makes it an issue to weigh.

Agribusiness

HintThe word joins a short form of 'agriculture' to a word for a company.

The whyAgribusiness farms use large machines, chemicals and few workers to produce food cheaply on a big scale. In the UK small farms have been merged into larger ones, hedges have been removed and fewer people work on the land. Output rises, but wildlife habitat and rural jobs can be lost.

Artificial (man-made) ones

HintThink factory, not farmyard.

The whyOrganic farmers feed the soil with manure, compost and clover, and control pests with crop rotation and natural predators. UK sales of organic food were about £3.9 billion in 2025, yet only about 3% of UK farmland is organic, so much organic food is imported.

The north and west

HintWhere the mountains are highest and the rain is heaviest.

The whyThe uplands of Scotland, Wales and north-west England receive the most rain; some sites record more than 4 metres a year. Few people live there, so supply is greater than demand. The south and east are drier and far more crowded, so they are in deficit.

water transfer

HintThe second word also describes a footballer moving clubs.

The whyIn the UK, water is moved from wetter upland areas to drier, more crowded ones. Transfers even out supply and demand, but they need dams, pipelines and pumping, which are costly and use energy. The river that gives up the water is left with a lower flow.

Climate change: hotter, drier summers and more droughts

HintThe same global trend that is raising sea level.

The whyThe Environment Agency's 2025 forecast is for public water supply in England if nothing is done. Besides population and climate, the largest part of the gap comes from leaving more water in rivers and aquifers to protect wildlife. Households in England used about 137 litres per person a day in 2024–25.

Sewage, including spills from storm overflows

HintIt leaves homes through the toilet and the drain.

The whyTreated sewage still carries nutrients such as phosphorus, and in heavy rain storm overflows release untreated sewage into rivers. Only 16% of England's surface waters reached good ecological status at the last full assessment (2019). Management includes upgrading treatment works and paying farmers to keep nutrients out of streams.

An environmental permit

HintA written licence issued by a regulator.

The whyIn England the Environment Agency issues the permit and sets limits on the amount and quality of the discharge. It monitors the river and can prosecute and fine an operator that breaks the conditions. This is one of the main ways pollution is managed.

2024

HintThe year of the Paris Olympic Games.

The whyRatcliffe-on-Soar, in Nottinghamshire, closed on 30 September 2024. Coal supplied about 17% of the UK's energy demand in 2000 and about 1% in 2025, and 2025 was the first full year with no electricity from coal. Gas and then renewables replaced it.

Fossil fuels (mainly oil and natural gas)

HintThey formed over millions of years from buried plants and sea organisms.

The whyIn 2025 fossil fuels supplied 75.1% of the UK's primary energy. Electricity is only part of the picture: most vehicles still run on oil products and most homes are heated by gas. So the UK still relies on fossil fuels even though its electricity is now mostly low-carbon.

gas; wind

HintOne is burned; the other turns blades.

The whyIn 2025 gas generated 31.8% of UK electricity and wind 29.5%. All renewables together reached a record 52.1%, fossil fuels 32.3% and nuclear 12.2%. These shares change every year, so check the latest figures before an exam.

The North Sea reserves are running down, and what remains is harder and costlier to extract

HintPicture a field that has been pumped for fifty years.

The whyOil and gas are finite, and the easiest North Sea fields were developed first. By 2025 production was 75% below its 1999 peak, and net imports supplied 43.3% of the energy the UK used. Deep coal mining has also all but ended: the last three large deep mines closed in 2015.

It is very expensive and takes many years to build

HintThink of the bill and the timetable.

The whyA new nuclear station costs tens of billions of pounds and takes ten years or more to build, and closing it down safely at the end of its life is costly too. Every energy source has both economic and environmental issues: wind farms change the view of a landscape, and gas adds to climate change.