Suppose the acreage of forest is decreasing by 2% per year because of development. If there are currently 4,500,000 acres of forest, determine the amount of forest land after each of the following number of years?

1 Answer
Feb 8, 2018

See below an explanation of how to do it, as cannot directly answer question as no number of years was given...

But use:

#A=4,500,000xx(0.98)^N# Where #N# is the years.

Explanation:

Even though there's no years, I will do a demonstration of how to do it for certain years

Even though this isn't money related, I would use compound interest, where a certain percentage of a value is lost over a certain amount of time. It is repeated loss of money or other over a period of time.

#A=Pxx(1+R/100)^N#

Where #A# is the amount after the amount of time, #P# is the original amount, #R# is the rate and #N# is the number of years.

Plugging our values into the formula we get:

#A=4,500,000xx(1-2/100)^N#

As you did not state the number of years we will leave this blank for the moment. Notice that we minus as it is decreasing...

#2/100=0.02#

Therefore instead of #2/100# minus this from #1# and re-do the formula:

#A=4,500,000xx(0.98)^N#

Let's just do an example:

Someone puts #£50,000# in a bank, he gets interest of #2.5% #each year, calculate the amount he would have after #3# years:

(Focus on that it is addition as he is getting money)

Using the formula #A=P xx (1+R/100)^N# we get...

#A=£50,000xx(1+2.5/100)^3#

#2.5/100=0.025#

Therefore we add this onto #1# giving us #1.025# This gets us...

#A=£50,000 xx (1.025)^3#

Plug this in your calculator you get...

#=£53844.53125# which is rounded to #£53844.53#

Just do the exact same for your question, putting with the values I gave, just input the power as the amount of years that you want to work out.

There is your answer :)

Hope this helped!