GEOGRAPHY LESSON-1 RESOURCES AND MANAGEMENT

What is a resource?

Everything available in our environment which can be used to satisfy our needs,
provided, it is technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally
acceptable can be termed as ‘Resource’.

The process of transformation of things available in our environment involves an

interactive relationship between nature, technology and institutions. Human beings
interact with nature through technology and create institutions to accelerate their
economic development
Classification of Resources:
(a) On the basis of origin – biotic and abiotic
(b) On the basis of exhaustibility – renewable and non-renewable
(c) On the basis of ownership – individual, community, national and international
(d) On the basis of status of development – potential, developed stock and reserves.

2 CONTEMPORARY INDIA – II
DEVELOPMENT OF RESOURCES/MAJOR PROBLEMS
Resources are vital for human survival as well as for maintaining the quality of life. It
was believed that resources are free gifts of nature. As a result, human beings used
them indiscriminately and this has led to the following major problems.
• Depletion of resources for satisfying the greed of a few individuals.
• Accumulation of resources in few hands, which, in turn, divided the society into two
segments i.e. haves and have nots or rich and poor.
• Indiscriminate exploitation of resources has led to global ecological crises such as,
global warming, ozone layer depletion, environmental pollution and land degradation.

Sustainable Development:
Sustainable economic development means ‘development should take place without
damaging the environment,

Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, 1992

In June 1992, more than 100 heads of states met in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, for the first
International Earth Summit. The Summit was convened for addressing urgent
problems of environmental protection and socio- economic development at the global
level. The assembled leaders signed the Declaration on Global Climatic Change and
Biological Diversity. The Rio Convention endorsed the global Forest Principles and
adopted Agenda 21 for achieving Sustainable Development in the 21st century.

What does Agenda 21 Says?

Agenda 21
It is the declaration signed by world leaders in 1992 at the United Nations Conference
on Environment and Development (UNCED), which took place at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
It aims at achieving global sustainable development. It is an agenda to combat
environmental damage, poverty, disease through global co-operation on common
interests, mutual needs and shared responsibilities. One major objective of the
Agenda 21 is that every local government should draw its own local Agenda 21.
Why do we need Resource Planning?
Planning is the widely accepted strategy for judicious use (Using resources wisely) of
resources. It has importance in a country like India, which has enormous diversity in
the availability of resources. There are regions which are rich in certain types of
resources but are deficient in some other resources. There are some regions which can
be considered self-sufficient in terms of the availability of resources and there are
some regions which have acute shortage of some vital resources.
For example, the states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are rich in
minerals and coal deposits. Arunachal Pradesh has abundance of water resources but
lacks in infrastructural development. The state of Rajasthan is very well endowed with
solar and wind energy but lacks in water resources. The cold desert of Ladakh is
relatively isolated from the rest of the country. It has very rich cultural heritage but it is
deficient in water, infrastructure and some vital minerals.
This calls for balanced resource planning at the national, state, regional and local
levels.

Resource Planning In India:

Resource planning is a complex process which involves :
(i) identification and inventory of resources across the regions of the country. This
involves surveying, mapping and qualitative and quantitative estimation and
measurement of the resources.
(ii) Evolving a planning structure endowed with appropriate technology, skill and
institutional set up for implementing
resource development plans.
(iii) Matching the resource development plans with overall
national development plans.

Conservation of Resources:
Resources are vital for any developmental activity. But
irrational consumption and over-utilisation of resources may lead to socio-economic
and environmental problems.
To overcome these problems, resource conservation at various levels is important. This
had been the main concern of the leaders and thinkers in the past. For example,
Gandhiji was very apt in voicing his concern about resource conservation in these
words: “There is enough for everybody’s need and not for any body’s greed.” He
placed the greedy and selfish individuals and exploitative nature of modern technology
as the root cause for resource depletion at the global level. He was against mass
production and wanted to replace it with the production by the masses.
LAND RESOURCES
We live on land, we perform our economic activities on land and we use it in different
ways. Thus, land is a natural resource of utmost importance. It supports natural
vegetation, wild life, human life, economic activities, transport and communication
systems. However, land is an asset of a finite magnitude, therefore, it is important to
use the

available land for various purposes with careful planning.

India has land under a variety of relief features, namely; mountains, plateaus, plains
and islands. About 43 per cent of the land area is plain, which provides facilities for
agriculture and industry. Mountains account for 30 per cent of the total surface area of
the country and ensure perennial flow of some rivers, provide facilities for tourism and
ecological aspects. About 27 per cent of the area of the country is the plateau region. It
possesses rich reserves of minerals, fossil fuels and forests
LAND UTILISATION:
Land resources are used for the following purposes:
1. Forests
2. Land not available for cultivation
(a) Barren and waste land
(b) Land put to non-agricultural uses, e.g. buildings, roads, factories, etc.
3. Other uncultivated land (excluding fallow land)
(a) Permanent pastures and grazing land,
(b) Land under miscellaneous tree crops groves (not included in net sown area),
(c) Cultruable waste land (left uncultivated for more than 5 agricultural years).
4. Fallow lands
(a) Current fallow-(left without cultivation for one or less than one agricultural year),
(b) Other than current fallow-(left uncultivated for the past 1 to 5 agricultural years).
5. Net sown area the physical extent of land on which crops are sown harvested is
known as net sown area.
Area sown more than once in an agricultural year plus net sown area is known as gross
cropped area.
Total geographical area of India is 3.28 million sq km

LAND DEGRADATION AND CONSERVATION MEASURES

Ninety-five per cent of our basic needs for food, shelter and clothing are obtained from
land. Human activities have not onlybrought about degradation of land but have also
aggravated the pace of natural forces to cause damage to land.Some human activities
such asdeforestation, over grazing, mining and quarrying too have contributed
significantly in land degradation.
Mining sites are abandoned after excavation work is complete leaving deep scars and
traces of over-burdening. In states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and
Odisha deforestation due to mining have caused severe land degradation.
In states like Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra overgrazing is one
of the main reasons for land degradation. In the states of Punjab, Haryana, western
Uttar Pradesh, over irrigation is responsible for land degradation due to water logging
leading to increase in salinity and alkalinity in the soil.
The mineral processing like grinding of limestone for cement industry and calcite and
soapstone for ceramic industry generate huge quantity of dust in the atmosphere. It
retards the process of infiltration of water into the soil after it settles down on the
land. In recent years, industrial effluents as waste have become a major source of land
and water pollution in many parts of the country.
There are many ways to solve the problems of land degradation. Afforestation and
proper management of grazing can help to some extent.
Planting of shelter belts of plants, control on over grazing, stabilisation of sand dunes
by growing thorny bushes are some of themethods to check land degradation in arid
areas. Proper management of waste lands, control of mining activities, proper
discharge and disposal of industrial effluents and wastes after treatment can reduce
land and water degradation in industrial and suburban areas.

SOIL AS A RESOURCE:
Soil is the most important renewable natural resource. It is the medium of plant
growth and supports different types of living organisms on the earth. The soil is a living
system. It takes millions of years to form soil upto a few cm in depth. Relief, parent
rock or bed rock, climate, vegetation and other forms of life and time are important
factors in the formation of soil. Various forces of nature such as change in
temperature, actions of running water, wind and glaciers, activities of decomposers
etc. contribute to the formation of soil. Chemical and organic changes which take place
in the
soil are equally important. Soil also consists of organic (humus) and inorganic materials
(Fig. 1.5). On the basis of the factors responsible for soil formation, colour, thickness,
texture, age, chemical and physical properties, the soils of India are classified in
different types.
Classification of Soils
India has varied relief features, landforms, climatic realms and vegetation types. These
have contributed in the development of various types of soils.
Alluvial Soils
This is the most widely spread and important soil. In fact, the entire northern plains are
made of alluvial soil. These have been deposited by three important Himalayan river
systems – the Indus, the Ganga and the Brahmaputra. These soils also extend in
Rajasthan and Gujarat through a narrow corridor. Alluvial soil is also found in the
eastern coastal plains particularly in the deltas of the Mahanadi, the Godavari, the
Krishna and the Kaveri rivers.