Natural Resources: Types, Uses, and Conservation

Classification of Natural Resources

Natural resources are any substance, solid, liquid, or gas, that is found in nature and can be used or claimed by individuals.

Rating of Natural Resources

  • Renewable Natural Resources: These are unlimited and are not exhausted. Their production rate is greater than the rate of extraction or consumption. Examples include the sun, sea, and wind.
  • Nonrenewable Natural Resources: These are limited and become exhausted. Their production rate is lower than the rate of extraction. Examples include fossil fuels like oil and coal, and minerals. Both are of geological origin and need millions of years to form.

Food and Water Resources

Food

What is the serious problem facing food production? What are the solutions to this problem? Solutions include intensive techniques, the green revolution, and biotechnology.

Water

Is water a renewable resource? It is renewable due to the global hydrological cycle, but misuse by people necessitates considering it a limited and scarce resource. Where does the increased demand for water come from? It comes from urban areas and industries, over 70% in agriculture, and improving the welfare of people with swimming pools, golf courses, and water sports.

Rate or level of development = water consumption per person

Classification of water according to use:

  • Consumptive: Those that reduce the quality and quantity. Examples include agricultural, urban, or industrial use.
  • Non-consumptive: Those that do not reduce the quality or quantity. Examples include hydroelectric power production, recreation, and sports.

Energy Resources

Phases of the energy chain:

  1. Extraction of primary energy
  2. Transformation of primary energy to secondary energy
  3. Distribution
  4. Use or consumption by humans

Types of Energy Sources

  • Non-renewable Energy Sources: Characteristics: They are exhausted, limited, the supply must be imported from other countries, adversely affect the environment (increasing CO2), and have highly developed technologies. Types include fossil fuels (oil, coal, natural gas) which increase CO2 from burning, and nuclear energy (fusion or fission of the atom), such as uranium.
  • Renewable Energy: Characteristics: Inexhaustible, regenerable, available all over the planet, do not harm the environment, and are in the process of technological development. Types include hydraulic energy (water reservoirs and dams), tidal energy (seas and waves), wind energy, solar energy, and biofuels (biomass and organic waste).

Non-Fuel Mineral Resources

Society depends on raw materials in the form of mineral resources exploited for various purposes. There are two types of mineral resources:

  • Metallic Mineral Resources: These are rocks that exist in the Earth’s crust. Mining can be done on the surface or underground, depending on the location of the site. Mining has two problems: danger and pollution to the environment through physical and chemical processes.
  • Nonmetallic Mineral Resources: The most important are phosphates and nitrates, used as fertilizers. Others include rock salt (halite) in food, gypsum, clay, and limestone in construction, as well as ornamental stones, gravel, and sand, which are components of cement.

Forest and Cultural Resources

Forestry

Forests and jungles are home to most of the planet’s biological diversity and are renewable resources if the pace of operations is lower than natural regeneration. Since agriculture began, deforestation has occurred, primarily in temperate areas. Currently, it is focused on tropical areas. Photosynthetic activity converts solar energy into chemical energy, primarily stored in trees. This system supports animals that live on the leaves, fruit, and seeds of the forest. Wood is useful for humans as fuel, construction material, and raw material for manufacturing products like paper and cardboard. Forests are essentially O2 factories through photosynthesis.

Cultural Resources

These consist of landscape resources (aesthetic, recreational, and environmental risks), socio-cultural resources (parks and gardens), and scientific resources (natural reserves or national parks).

Parks, in addition to recreational and aesthetic value, are used for education and understanding of biodiversity, and to raise awareness with respect to the environment.

A national park is a protected place under administrative control, reserved for the development of animal and plant species with medicinal value and/or biological control, to prevent the destruction of a habitat, or to protect endangered species.

Overexploitation of Natural Resources

Overexploitation occurs when the rate of extraction and consumption of a natural resource is greater than its natural regeneration rate, resulting in increased loss or damage.

The biggest impact is the extinction of the natural resource, an irreversible process whose consequences are:

  • Environmental: Environmental degradation and species extinction.
  • Socioeconomic: Loss of a source of income.

Examples of overexploitation of natural resources include:

  • Hunting and trade in endangered animal species: Poaching and trafficking.
  • Overexploitation of marine species: The sea is often believed to be inexhaustible, but this is not true. Many species are endangered.
  • Deforestation: Clearing of forests to allocate land to agriculture and grazing.
  • Reduction of usable land: The huge increase in human population has forced the modification of natural areas.
  • Loss of freshwater reserves: Intensive farming and the conversion of rural areas into urban areas.
  • Depletion of fossil fuels and minerals: These have been treated as if they were inexhaustible resources.