Geographic Terrain As It Relates to Poverty

After reading the finalized question and discussion summaries, I was struck with the discussions about poverty and wondered if poverty might be somehow related to the varying physical environment across a country.  As we are traveling, having an understanding of which regions have the highest poverty concentrations will be valuable knowledge for observing social interactions.  Additionally, it might be interesting to observe the geographic terrains in those regions and hypothesize if terrain might be affecting poverty.

I found a published article of research on the poverty in Croatia (http://www.eizg.hr/Data/Doc/EIZ%202006%20Conference%20Proceedings-Nestic-Vecchi.pdf), with a breakdown of the regional distribution of poverty throughout Croatia.  Initially, I expected higher poverty rates to be found in highly mountainous regions, expecting that rough terrain would make farming, transportation, etc. more difficult and thus increase poverty.  Comparing the regional distribution with a terrain map of Croatia, I actually found the opposite to be true. 

Map of terrain across Croatia (source: http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/europe/hrnewzzz.gif)

Breakdown of poverty ratio by region in Croatia.  (source: http://www.eizg.hr/Data/Doc/EIZ%202006%20Conference%20Proceedings-Nestic-Vecchi.pdf)

The regions by far with the highest poverty concentrations were the flat regions in Central and East Croatia (with the exception of the immediate surroundings of the largest city, Zagreb).  The highly mountainous regions to the West lining the Adriatic Sea had significantly lower poverty ratios.  I think this could be partially attributed to the ease of transportation that comes with being located next to a large body of water, which can increase trade opportunities and keep a city economically thriving. 

Additionally, I looked up a distribution of land use throughout the country and found that the Western Adriatic region had a widespread use of “permanent crops,” meaning that they can farm things such as olives, grapes, and citrus fruits recurring each year.  These crops are also traditionally relatively simple to farm and could be providing the region with a sustainable source of income, thus decreasing its relative poverty.   Comparatively, the Central and Eastern regions have significant portions of forest, which cannot be farmed, and field crops, which are a more complicated and riskier category of crops to farm.  I found this very interesting as it will likely indicate the types of food we will find most readily in these regions, and is likely correlated to the poverty rates for each region.

Land use for farming throughout Croatia (source: http://www.mapcruzin.com/free-maps-croatia/croatia_land_use92.jpg)