ISSN (Online) 2456 -1304

International Journal of Science, Engineering and Management (IJSEM)

Vol 2, Issue 11, November 2017

Mathematical Modelling of Population Growth

[1]
Venkatesha P., [2] G.BlessySachy Eunice, [3]Akshaya B., [4] Arya Kumari S.
[1]
Assistant Professor, Department of Science and Humanities ,[2] First Semester, Department of Mechanical
Engineering, [3][4] First Semester, Department of Computer Science Engineering

Abstract:-- We cannot have a sustainable planet without stabilizing population. As human population increase, humans demand for
resources like water, land, trees, and energy. Unfortunately, the price of all this “increase and demand” is paid for by the other
endangered plants, animals and natural resources in an increasingly volatile and dangerous climate. This necessitates a
mathematical model to predict the future population in terms of growth rate and population figures with reasonably virtuous
accuracy. Mathematics being one of the languages of sciences, Mathematical models can predict the behaviour of systems based on
physics, chemistry, biology etc. There are certain mathematical models to effectively predict economic and social systems including
the population growth. The present work deals with mathematical modelling of population growth using exponential and logistic
growth model, which is nothing but the differential equations, with which we can study the changes in size of populations through
time, which helps us predict the population of a certain place at a certain time. The prediction is compared with the actual
population of the past, based on the model which predicts the population with better accuracy, which can be used to predict the
growth rate of the future population.

keywords:-- Mathematical modelling, Population growth, Logistic growth, Exponential growth, Growth rate, Differential
equations.

A model can be in many shapes, sizes and styles. It is

INTRODUCTION important to highlight that a model is not reality but

Projection of any country’s population plays a significant merely a human construct (representing the reality as
role in the planning as well as in the decision making for much as possible) to help us better understand real-world
the socio-economic and demographic development. system. One uses models in order to extract the important
Today the major issue of the world is the tremendous trend from complex processes to permit comparison
growth of the population. Any truly meaningful among systems to facilitate analysis of causes of
conservation and sustainability efforts must take the processes acting on the system and to make a prediction
expanding human population footprint into consideration. about the future.
Globally, over several thousands of people are added
every day — each need sufficient land, water, shelter, At first glance, modelling the growth of a species would
food, and energy for a decent life. In order to provide seem to be impossible since the population of any species
better living condition to the people in terms of basic always changes by integer amounts. Hence, the
needs like food, water, education, health care etc., the population of any species can never be a differentiable
society requires to plan and execute appropriate schemes function of time. If a given population is very large and it
in time bound manner. Mathematical Modelling is a broad is suddenly increased by one unit, then the difference is
interdisciplinary science that uses mathematical and very small when compared to the given population.
computational techniques to model and elucidate the Therefore, we make the approximation such that the large
phenomena arising in life sciences which is created in the populations change continuously and even differentiable
hope that the behaviour it predicts will resemble the real with time. The projection of future populations is
behaviour on which it is based. It involves the following normally based on present population and reliable growth
processes. rate and the first order differential equations govern the
growth of various species. Further, in any species un
1) The mimicking of a real-world problem in controlled exponential growth is not viable as the
mathematical terms: thus, the construction of population and the growth rate are limited by the various
mathematical model. factors which determine the sustainability and the growth
rate. Hence, in this paper, mathematical modelling for
2) The analysis or solution of the resulting
global population growth based on exponential and
mathematical problem. logistic growth models is presented. The use of these
3) The interpretation of the mathematical results in growth models is widely established in many fields of
the context of the original situation. modelling and forecasting.

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 ISSN (Online) 2456 -1304

International Journal of Science, Engineering and Management (IJSEM)

Vol 2, Issue 11, November 2017

II. MATERIALS METHOD the growth rate increases as the population increases.
Equation (1) is appropriate for modelling population
A research is best understood as a process of arriving at growth under ideal conditions, thus we have to recognize
dependent solutions to the problems through the that a more realistic must reflect the fact a given
systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of data. environment has a limited resource.
In this paper, secondary population of the world from
1960 to 2010 (inclusive) were collected from UN World The Logistic Growth Model:
Population Prospectus (2017 Revision). The exponential A Belgian Mathematician Verhulst, showed that the
and logistic growth mathematical model was used to population growth not only depends on the population
compute the predicted population values. size but also on how far this size is from its upper limit
i.e. its carrying capacity (maximum supportable
III. DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD population). He modified Malthus’s Model to make the
population size proportional to both the previous
The Exponential Growth Model: population and a new term
In 1798 Thomas R. Malthus proposed a mathematical
model of population growth. He proposed by the a  bP(t )
assumption that the population grows at a rate (3)
proportional to the size of the population. This is a a
reasonable assumption for a population of a bacteria or
animal under ideal conditions (unlimited environment, Whereaand b are called the vital coefficients of the
adequate nutrition, absence of predators, and immunity population. This term reflects how far the population is
from disease). from its maximum limit. However, as the population
Supposing we know the population P 0 at some given time value grows and gets closer to a , this new term will
b
t=t0, and we are interested in protecting the population P,
becomesmaller and get to zero, providing the right
at some future time t=t1, i.e. to find the population
feedback to limit the population growth. Thus, the second
function P(t) for t0  t  t1 that satisfies P(t0)=P0. term models the competition for available resources,
which tends to limit the population growth. So, the
Then considering the initial value problem modified equation using this new term is:
dP
 kP(t ) t 0  t  t1 ; P(t 0 )  P0 (1) d aP(t )(a  bP(t ) (4)
dt P(t ) 
dt a
Integrating by variable separable in (1)
This is a nonlinear differential equation unlike equation
dP
 P  k  dt (1) in the sense that one cannot simply multiply the
previous population by a factor. In this case the
ln P  kt  c population P(t) on the right of equation (4) is being
multiplied by itself. This equation is known as the logistic
P(t )  P0 e kt or law of population growth. Putting P = P0 for t = 0,
whereP0 represents the population at some specified time,
t = 0, equation (4) becomes
P(t )  P0 exp{k (t  t 0 )} (2) d
P  aP  bP (5)
Where k is a constant known as the Malthus factor, is the dt
multiple that determines the growth rate. Equation (1) is Separating the variables in equation (5) and integrating,
the Exponential growth model with (2) as its solution. It is we obtain
a differential equation because it contains an unknown 1 1 b
function P and it derivative . Having formulated the a ( 
P a  bP
)dP  t  c so that

model, we now look at its consequences. If we rule out a 1

population of 0, then P(t)>0 for all t. So, if k>0 then (log P  log( a  bP))  t  c (6)
a
equation shows that for all t. This means that the Using t=0 and P=P0, we see that
population is always increasing. In fact, as P(t) increases,
equation (1) shows that becomes larger. In other words,

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 ISSN (Online) 2456 -1304

International Journal of Science, Engineering and Management (IJSEM)

Vol 2, Issue 11, November 2017

1 The MAPE for each forecast is calculated as the average

c (log P0  log( a  bP0)) of the percentages in the row based on the true
a
percentages, as opposed to the rounded percentage. As a
1 1
(log P  log( a  bP))  t  log P0  log( a  bP0) result, there may be a slight difference between the
a a MAPE shown on the worksheet and the average of the
rounded percentages.
Equation (6) becomes, Solving for P gives
a Exponential logistic Actual Mape- Mape-
b (7) Model model Exponential logistic
P
a model model

1  ( b  1)e  at 3033213 3033213 3033213 0 0

N0
3627517.167 3700578 3700578 1.974308682 0
Taking the limit of equation (7) as t, we get (science a
>0) 4338264.671 4458412 4458412 2.694845802 0
a
Pmax  lim P  (8) 5188270.514 5296356.1 5330943 2.676308595 0.648794201
t  b 51

If the time t=1 and t=2, then the values of P are P1 and P2 6204819.892 6196021.9 5751474 7.882255783 7.729286498
respectively, from (8) we get, 03
b 1 e a b 1 e 2 a (9)
(1  e  a )   , (1  e  2 a )   7420544.049 7131957.8 6145007 20.75729205 16.06102143
a P1 P0 a P2 P0 91
Dividing the members of the second equation in relation
(9) by corresponding Members of the first equation to 8874467.744 8074208.7
eliminate b we get 57
a
1 e 2 a 10613261.94 8992008.3
 15
1 P2 P0 (10)
1 e 
1 e a 12692741.95 9857685.9
 94
P1 P0
So that, 15179659.1 10649773.
69
P0 ( P2  P1 )
e a  (11) 18153843.46 11354637.
P2 ( P1  P0 ) 01

a
21710766.38 11966516.
Substituting the values of e in to the (9) equation, we 13
obtain
25964605.1 12486345.
b P12  P0 P2 (12)
 86
a P1 ( P0 P1  2 P0 P2  P1 P2 )
Thus, limiting the value of P,we get 31051907.91 12919943.
a P ( P P  2 P0 P2  P1 P2 ) (13) 96
P  lim P   1 0 1
P12  P0 P2
max
t  b
37135977.27 13276113.
14
IV. MAPE Mean 5.997501819 4.073183688
absolute
The absolute percentage errors shown on the following error %
worksheet are rounded to the nearest whole percentage.

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International Journal of Science, Engineering and Management (IJSEM)

Vol 2, Issue 11, November 2017

V. RESULTS Years Projected Population

Actual
Population Exponential Growth Logistic Growth
For the estimation of the future population of the world,
1960 3033213 3033213 3033213
we need to determine the growth rate of the world using
1970 3700578 3627517.167 3700578
exponential growth model in (2). Using the actual 1980 4458412 4338264.671 4458412
population of the world in thousands with t=0, we have 1990 5330943 5188270.514 5296356.151
2000 5751474 6204819.892 6196021.903
P0=3033213, P1=3700578 when t=1. We can solve for the 2010 7420544.049 7131957.891
growth rate k 2020 8874467.744 8074208.757
3700578  3033213e 2030
2040
10613261.94
12692741.95
8992008.315
9857685.994
2050 15179659.1 10649773.69
3700578 2060 18153843.46 11354637.01
k  ln( ) 2070 21710766.38 11966516.13
3033213 2080 25964605.1 12486345.86
2090 31051907.91 12919943.96
2100 37135977.27 13276113.14
k  0.178925985
Thus, from the above information it clearly states that
P(t )  3033213e logistic growth model is preferable to exponential growth
model.
Hence the general solution,
0.178925985k
This means that the predicted growth rate of the world
population is 17.8 % for ten years. For the exponential
growth model in (2) with this we projected the population
of the world to 2050.
Based on table 1, let t=0,1and 2 correspond to the year
1960, 1961 and 1962 respectively.
Then and correspond to 3033213,3700578 and 4458412.
Substituting the values of P0, P1, and P2 into equation
(13) we get

a
Pmax   14647743
b
So therefore a=-ln (0.772562) VI. CONCLUSION
Solving this for a, we get
a = 0,258043. In conclusion we found that the predicted carrying
This implies that the predicted growth rate of the world’s capacity for the population of the world is 37135977.27.
population is 25.8% for ten years. Vital coefficient also plays an important role in
From a/b =14647743 population growth. Thus, the population growth rate of
We have b=1.7*10^8 the world, according to this model, is % per annum. This
Substituting the values of P0 e^-a,a/b in (7) gives approximated population growth rate compares well with
the statistically the world’s population growth in 2100.
14647763
P Based on this model we also found out that the population
1  (3.829118)(0.772562)t of the world is expected to be 13276113.14 in the year
2100.

The following are some recommendations:

Technological developments, pollution and social trends
have significant influence on the vital coefficients a and b.

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International Journal of Science, Engineering and Management (IJSEM)

Vol 2, Issue 11, November 2017

Therefore, they must be re-evaluated every few years to

enhance the determination of variations in the population
growth rate. In order to derive more benefits from models
of population growth, one should subdivide populations
into different age groups for effective capture, analyses
and planning purposes. The government should work
towards industrialization of the country for the attainment
of vision 2020.

This will have an effect in improving its absorptive

capacity for development through population growth rate
measures. The more industrialized a Nation is, the more
living space and food it has and the smaller the coefficient
b, thus, raising the carrying capacity. However, present
attempts appear to provide acceptable predictions for the
world’s population growth.

REFERENCES

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/ecology/p
opulation-growth-and-regulation/a/exponential-logistic-
growth

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