What is carrying capacity?

Carrying capacity refers to the number of individuals that an environment can sustainably support based on the available resources, such as food, water, and shelter. When the number of people exceeds this capacity, the resources can become depleted, leading to shortages and environmental degradation. Thus, the concept is fundamentally linked to the balance between a population and the resources available to support it.

The focus here is on how many people can be supported given the current conditions and resources available, which aligns perfectly with the definition of carrying capacity. It emphasizes the idea of sustainability within an ecosystem, where maintaining the balance is crucial for long-term population health and stability.

Other choices provide different perspectives that do not fully capture the essence of carrying capacity. For instance, maximum accommodation in a city does not consider resource sustainability, and total land area for agriculture speaks only to physical space without factoring in the ecological balance. Similarly, a population size that a country can sustain indefinitely touches on a broader concept without directly addressing the resource-related aspect inherent in the definition of carrying capacity.