Sustainability at Higher Level: The same idea as SL. At HL, test every practice against the long term and future generations, and link it to resilience.
Practise this as you read
- Judge a place from a fact file: for, against, conclusion.
- Link resilience to sustainability.
Free preview
This is the free notes preview
You're reading the free notes. Aimnova Pro unlocks the full study experience — and you can try it with your first topic free to keep:
- FlashcardsLock in vocabulary and key terms with spaced repetition.
- Practice questionsAnswer exam-style questions and get instant AI marking.
- Mock exams & past-paper vaultSit full mocks and see exactly how examiners award marks.
- Personalised study planA daily plan built around your exam date and weak areas.
Can it keep going?: sustainability asks whether a practice can carry on for a long time without running a system down.
The points to remember
- Sustainability measures how far a practice lets a system stay viable in the long term.
- Use no more than is replaced: take only what regrows or refills.
- Keep systems so future generations are no worse off.
- It applies to socio-ecological systems: people and nature together.
- More resilience usually means more sustainability (1.2.16).
Two towns pump from the same kind of aquifer. One pumps no more than the rain puts back; the other pumps more.
Sustainable
- Use no more than is replaced.
- Future users have the same water.
Unsustainable
- Use more than is replaced.
- Wells dry up; later users have less.
Remember it as: Can it keep going? Take no more than nature puts back.
Know your predicted grade
Take timed mock exams and get detailed feedback on every answer. See exactly where you're losing marks.
Sustainability is about socio-ecological systems. The guide asks that they are kept so there is no diminishment of conditions for future generations.
Long term
- Can it carry on for decades, not just this year?
Future generations
- Will they have the same chances we have?
Resilience
- Can the system resist, recover or adapt (1.2.16)?
Resilience helps: Everything we do sits inside a system, so making a system more resilient usually makes it more sustainable: a city with many water sources copes with a drought that would empty a city with one.
How this comes up: The last question on Paper 1: using the whole resource booklet, how sustainable is this place [6]?
How to judge a place
- Sort the evidence into for and against sustainability.
- Every point uses the figure and gives a reason.
- Up to [4] on each side.
- End with a balanced conclusion [1]: which side weighs more, and why.
Figure 1 gives information about the city of Portvale.
Using all the information in Figure 1, to what extent is Portvale a sustainable city?
Model answer plan
See the answer broken into clear points, with guidance on how each point earns marks.