Instructions
Urban Problems in Puerto Rico, Part 2
In this unit, you will complete your Puerto Rico research paper. You will add a minimum of two additional pages to the first half of the paper that was submitted in Unit V (attached). The total number of pages will be at least 4. The final research paper draft you complete in this unit should contain the following:
§ Step 1: Make any needed revisions to the Unit V submission and use this as the first half of your Unit VII paper.
§ Step 2: Add at least two additional pages of content about solutions to address the problems you presented in the first two pages of the paper in Unit V. You must include at leasttwodifferent solutions. Make sure to include both source material and your own analysis regarding the solutions. Additionally, discuss the following topics in your paper:
o Analyze sustainability as an approach to addressing social problems in Puerto Rico. Do you think this would help alleviate social problems?
o Discuss if you support or do not support statehood for Puerto Rico. Discuss how that would or would not be a positive step in helping to fix the urban problem(s) you presented.
In this final draft, include the sources from your first draft and at least one additional source. All sources used must be referenced; paraphrased and quoted material must have accompanying APA citations.
UNIT V RESEARCH PAPER1 UNIT V RESEARCH PAPER2 Unit V Research Paper It can be said that the Puerto Rico is a Caribbean Island, as well incorporated in U.S. territory. Furthermore, it is also surrounded by waterfalls, mountains, and the tropical rainforest. It is towards the west of the British Virgin Islands, east of Dominican Republic, as well as northeast of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Puerto Rico is an archipelago in the Caribbean Sea that also consists of the major island, a lot of islets and cays, as well as four small islands. The territory of the island is only one-hundred miles long and thirty-five miles wide (8,870 kilometers). It is quite evident that Puerto Rico is packed with scenery, diversity of sights, as well as culture. Throwing light on the above-mentioned discussion it can be stated that Puerto Ricans doesn’t have a defined race and they are extremely proud of their identity. Moreover, the real charm concerning Puerto Rico is the people. The people of this island are extremely hospitable, charismatic, passionate, and also joyful. The present population of Puerto Rico is almost 2,786, 882 in June 2021 and it is based on United Nations data. In other words, the population of Puerto Rico is almost 0.04% of the entire world population (Greiner, 2018). Urbanization can be regarded as one of the most significant problems in a lot of areas in the world, specifically in the densely populated territories in Puerto Rico. As Puerto Rico is mainly located in the contact zone between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates. It simply indicates that the island, at present, being deformed by some of the efforts that is created in that particular zone. These types of things are directly responsible for causing the natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes that took place in Puerto Rico. It is needless to say that the above-mentioned seismic events, accompanied by the landslides, highlight some of the most serious geological disasters on the island along with the northeastern Caribbean. One of the most dangerous and serious issues that took place was in the year 1918. This was the San Fermin earthquake (Skanavis, 2019). On the contrary, shortage of water is another urban problem that is faced by Puerto Rico. One of the main causes of this problem is the prolonged drought in this country, which created severe shortages of water for the residents and it continues to do so. Moreover, because of the strict rationing, there are also a lot of people who are without regular running water. This specific situation was also recently declared by the island’s governor namely Wanda Vazquez as the state of emergency (Klein, 2018). It is extremely evident that globalization directly connects to the urban issue. The factors of globalization directly contributes toward the environmental problems. For instance, the stock of potable water. Nonetheless, globalization is the procedure in Puerto Rico that also acted as one of the biggest contributors towards the enhanced rates of industrial and urban development, which directly resulted toward the competition for scare water resources between agricultural versus some of the other uses. The concerns of the water quality tend to take place from the Puerto Rico’s extractive industries along with different agricultural production procedures. For instance, different pollutants that are generated as the by-products in the production of synthetics, plastics, pulp, etc. Despite any of the regulations by the EPA, in terms of how the discharging of water must occur, still the drinking water of Puerto Rico has failed to be properly evaluated and treated. Thus, causes almost 99% of the water to be contaminated. On the other hand, globalization in Puerto Rico is also connected with the consequences of the natural events such as earthquake that is increasing and the nation is directly affected (Puerto Rico, 2011). Geography is one of the major elements in terms of coping and understanding with the natural disasters and their social impacts. It has been observed that Puerto Rico has one of the most highly modern infrastructures in the Latin America and Caribbean. Some of its main cities such as Caguas, San Juan, etc. are more modern and have large buildings. Arguably, despite having the modern infrastructure, the pattern of the development tends to suffer from the inadequate planning that also directly affects the environment. This is due to not providing protection concerning the natural resources of the island (Raffaele et al., 2021). On the contrary, Puerto Rico is experiencing the water problems for a long time and currently they are also dealing with draught in this pandemic, so the residents are also going without water every 24 hours. More than 53% of the people in Puerto Rico are concerned about the water problems as they are not connected to the central aqueduct system of the island. The geography of the country can be blamed directly as the water scarcity also takes place because of the quick growth that enhances the vulnerability and also the insufficient preparation. References Greiner, A. L. (2018). Visualizing human geography: At home in a diverse world (3rd ed.). Wiley. https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781119321149 Klein, N. (2018). The battle for paradise: Puerto Rico takes on the disaster capitalists. Haymarket Books. Puerto Rico. (2011). In World Scholar: Latin America & the Caribbean. Gale, a Cengage Company. http://tinyurl.gale.com.libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/tinyurl/BSt3Z4 Raffaele, H. A., Petrovic, C., López, S. A. C., Yntema, L. D., & Faria, J. A. S. (2021). Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands: Fully Revised and Updated Third Edition. Princeton University Press. Skanavis, C. (2019). Groundwater Disaster in Puerto Rico - The Need for Environmental Education. Journal of Environmental Health, 62(2), 29. http://tinyurl.gale.com.libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/tinyurl/BrLRy0