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Fieldwork: investigating urban or rural areas

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Human fieldwork investigates how places are changing and what people think about them.

Central or inner urban areas

Qualitative: an environmental quality survey, scoring things like litter, noise and building condition on a scale, for example from −3 (very poor) to +3 (very good).
Quantitative: a land-use survey, recording the function of each building (shops, offices, housing, vacant).
Secondary data: census data from the Office for National Statistics, plus another source such as old maps or photos.

Rural settlements

Qualitative: interviews or questionnaires recording people's views about the quality of the rural environment.
Quantitative: pedestrian counts to measure flows of people at different points in the settlement.
Secondary data: census data, plus another source such as local plans.

Physical links

Consider how physical features, such as a river, hills or the coast, affect the settlement and the people who live in or visit it, for example by attracting tourists or limiting where buildings can go.
Worked example

Five sites score 2, -1, 3, 0, 1 in an environmental quality survey. Find the mean score.

  1. Total = 5
  2. Mean = 5 ÷ 5

Answer: 1

Key idea

Urban: environmental quality surveys (qualitative), land-use surveys (quantitative), census data. Rural: interviews about environmental quality (qualitative), pedestrian counts (quantitative), census data. Consider how physical features affect the place.

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