Natural resources and its associated problems

1. Natural Resources
Name – Ashvin Dipak Bhoge
(1st year M.Pharmacy , PQA )
Dr DY Patil College of Pharmacy Akurdi, Pune, Maharashtra
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2. Contents
Introduction
Forest Resources
Water Resources
Mineral Resources
Energy Resources
Land Resources
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3. Introduction
Natural resources are useful raw materials that we get
from the Earth. They occur naturally, which means that
humans cannot make natural resources. Instead, we
use and modify natural resources in ways that are
beneficial to us. The materials used in human-made
objects are natural resources.
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4. Forest Resources
About 33% of the world’s land area is under forest
cover. CIS accounts for about 20% of the world’s
forests, Brazil for 15%, Canada and USA for 6%.
Covering the earth like a green blanket, these forests
not only produce innumerable material goods but also
provide several environmental services which are
essential for life.
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5. Uses of Forests
 Commercial uses
 Ecological uses
 Regulation of climate
 Reducing global warming
 Soil conservation
 Regulation of hydrological cycle
 Medicinal value
 Oils
 Food products
 Desert vegetation
 Shelter for tribal people
 Pollution moderators
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6. Problems Associated with Forests resources.
 Overexploitation of forests is responsible for soil erosion, loss of wildlife and
biodiversity, change in landscape, wind direction, floods, droughts and global
warming.
 Deforestation upsets the delicate balance of nutrients, gases and symbiotic
relationship between man and plants.
 Tropical forests, considered as the lungs of the earth, are under a virtual death
sentence owing to burgeoning population density. Merciless clearing of plant
species (genetic erosion) at the rate of 8 million hectares per year has resulted in
tremendous loss of vast reservoir of genetic diversity.
 Hydrological cycle gets affected thereby influencing rainfall.
 Horticulture has contributed to social destabilisation, eco-destruction and massive
deforestation. The snow line of Himalayas is continuously receding, an extremely
serious phenomenon with far reaching consequences.
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8. Water Resources
 Water resources are natural resources of water that are potentially useful. Uses of
water include agricultural, industrial, household, recreational and environmental
activities. All living things require water to grow and reproduce.
 97% of the water on the Earth is salt water and only three percent is fresh water;
slightly over two thirds of this is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps. The
remaining unfrozen freshwater is found mainly as groundwater, with only a small
fraction present above ground or in the air.
 Fresh water is a renewable resource, yet the world's supply of groundwater is
steadily decreasing, with depletion occurring most prominently in Asia, South
America and North America, although it is still unclear how much natural renewal
balances this usage, and whether ecosystems are threatened. The framework for
allocating water resources to water users (where such a framework exists) is
known as water rights.
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9. Sources of fresh water
 Surface water:
Surface water is water in a river, lake or fresh water wetland.
Surface water is naturally replenished by precipitation and
naturally lost through discharge to the oceans, evaporation,
evapotranspiration and groundwater recharge.
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10.  Groundwater :
Groundwater is fresh water located in the subsurface pore space of soil and rocks. It
is also water that is flowing within aquifers below the water table. Sometimes it is
useful to make a distinction between groundwater that is closely associated with
surface water and deep groundwater in an aquifer (sometimes called "fossil water").
The critical difference is that due to its slow rate of turnover, groundwater storage is
generally much larger (in volume) compared to inputs than it is for surface water.
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11.  Ocean water (Saltwater):
salt is converted to pure water by means of Desalination. It is an artificial
process by which saline water (generally sea water) is converted to fresh
water. The most common desalination processes are distillation and reverse
osmosis. Desalination is currently expensive compared to most alternative
sources of water, and only a very small fraction of total human use is satisfied
by desalination. It is usually only economically practical for high-valued uses
(such as household and industrial uses) in arid areas.
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12. Mineral Resources
 The term mineral resources refers to a wide variety of materials obtained from
earth. Minerals are naturally occurring inorganic, crystalline solids having a definite
chemical composition and characteristic physical properties. Most of the rocks are
composed of a few common minerals like quartz, feldspar, biotite, dolomite, calcite
etc. These minerals, in turn, are composed of some elements like silicon, oxygen,
iron, magnesium, calcium and aluminium etc.
 Categories of Minerals:
Non-metallic minerals, e.g. graphite, diamond, quartz, feldspar.
Metallic minerals e.g. bauxite, laterite, haematite
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13. Uses and Exploitation of Mineral Resources:
 Development of industrial plants and machinery.
 Generation of energy, e.g., coal, lignite, uranium.
 Construction, housing, settlements.
 Defence equipment’s—weapons, armaments.
 Transportation means.
 Communication—telephone wires, cables, electronic devices.
 Medicinal system—particularly in Ayurvedic therapy.
 Formation of alloys for various purposes (e.g., phosphorite).
 Agriculture—as fertilizers, seed dressings and fungicides (e.g., Zineb containing
zinc, Maneb-containing manganese etc.).
 Jewellery, e.g., gold, silver, platinum, diamond.
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14. Problems of Mining:
Mining is done to extract minerals from deep deposits in soil by sub-surface mining or
from shallow deposits by surface mining. The former method is more destructive,
dangerous and expensive involving risks of occupational hazards and accidents.
 Devegetation of landscape:
Soil damage during surface mining is inevitable as it leads to loss of grazing pastures
and fertile land, soil erosion, sedimentation, damage to flora and fauna. Open cast
coal mining alone eroded 2,00,000 hectare of fertile land.
 Subsidence of land:
Underground mining causes subsidence of land which results in tilting of buildings,
cracks in houses, buckling of roads and bending of railway tracks.
 Ground water contamination:
Mining disturbs the natural hydrological cycle. Acid mine drainage from sulphur
bearing minerals leaches toxic metals to ground water.
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15.  Surface water pollution:
Cyanide solution from gold mining severely pollutes surface water.
 Air pollution:
Smelting results in emission of particulates, NOX, SO2, CO2 thereby causing global
warming, acid rain and climatic changes.
Dust and noise pollution, is caused during loading, crushing and drilling operations.
 Occupational health hazards:
Most of the miners suffer from respiratory and skin diseases due to constant exposure
to the suspended particulates and toxicants. Such diseases include bronchitis,
asthma, black lung disease, silicosis and asbestosis.
 Ecological damage:
Mining leads to erosion of natural biodiversity.
 Mining displaces people from their resource base.
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16. Energy resource
 Energy resource types refer to the origin of the energy source
itself, while types of energy refer to different types of potential
(chemical, electrical, etc.) and kinetic (heat, sound, etc.)
energy.
 we can break energy into two broad categories of resources -
non-renewable and renewable
 Non-renewable energy resources
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17. Non-renewable
These resources have formed over millions of years of geological processes, and we're using
them faster than they can be naturally replenished. Examples include fossil fuels like coal,
petroleum, and natural gas.
 Coal:
A combustible sedimentary rock made up mostly of carbon and hydrocarbon, coal is the most
abundantly used fossil fuel worldwide for the generation of electricity. In the United States,
approximately 93% of the coal consumed is used to generate electricity.
 Natural gas:
Natural gas is a gas that is made up mostly of methane and found near other fossil fuels, like
coal. Methanogenic processes occurring in landfills and marshes also produce natural gas.
 Petroleum:
Petroleum is a toxic, flammable liquid occurring in geologic formations beneath the earth's
surface (also known as crude oil).
 Uranium:
Uranium is a very heavy, fissile metal (U-235) that can be caused to split in a fission chain
reaction, producing tremendous quantities of heat which can then be used to generate
electricity.
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18. Renewable
 Wind Energy
 Geothermal
 Biomass
 Hydropower
 Solar energy
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19. Land Resources
 Land resources mean the resources available from the land, thus the agricultural
land which contain natural fertilizer for growth of the products sown; the
underground water, the various minerals like coal, bauxite, gold and other raw
materials.
 The more a country is able to locate and use the raw materials, the more the
industrialization of that country, area etc.
 Land resource refers to the land available for exploitation, like non agricultural
lands for buildings, developing townships etc
 Land resources (natural resources) (economically referred to as land or raw
materials) occur naturally within environments that exist relatively undisturbed by
mankind, in a natural form.
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21.  The components of the natural land unit can be termed land resources,
including physical, bionic, environmental, infrastructural, social and
economic components, in as much as they are fixed to the land unit.
 Land, a critically important national resource, supports all living organisms
including plants as well as every primary production system such as
roads, industries, communication and storage for surface and ground
water, among others.
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22. Problems related to Land Resources
 Land Degradation:
Farmland is under threat due to more and more intense utilization. Every year,
between 5 to 7 million hectares of land worldwide is added to the existing degraded
farmland. When soil is used more intensively by farming, it is eroded more rapidly by
wind and rain. Over irrigating farmland leads to Stalinization, as evaporation of water
brings the salts to the surface of the soil on which crops cannot grow. Over irrigation
also creates water logging of the topsoil so that crop roots are affected and the crop
deteriorates. The use of more and more chemical fertilizers poisons the soil so that
eventually the land becomes unproductive.
 Soil erosion:
The characteristics of natural ecosystems such as forests and grasslands depend on
the type of soil. The misuse of an ecosystem leads to loss of valuable soil through
erosion by the monsoon rains and, to a smaller extent, by wind. The roots of the trees
in the forest hold the soil. Deforestation thus leads to rapid soil erosion.
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