2 SCOPE AND RELEVANCE OF RESOURCE GEOGRAPHY

Peerzada Raouf Ahmad

epgp books

   

 

 

 

Learning Objectives:

 

After studying this unit you should be able to:

 

Understand the scope of resource geography

 

Understand the relevance of resource geography in the development process Explain different types of       resources

 

  KEYWORDS

 

   Human capital, feudalism, resource utilization, social production, watershed management

 

 

SCOPE OF RESOURCE GEOGRAPHY

 

The scope of resource geography encompasses the characteristics of natural resources of the earth, their production and utilization. Thus, the subject matter of resource geography includes the following areas:

 

1.  study of characteristics of natural resource, their assessment and qualification;

2.  study of human resources, resource utilization by man within limits set by environmental conditions;

3.  study of resource utilization and development and techniques for their planning;

4.  conservation and management of resources.

 

 

1. Natural Resources

 

Natural resources are only the part of sum total of environment condition that forms the human existence. These resources are used to fulfil the physical and cultural needs of society. Natural resources include solar energy, wind, land, soil, water-bodies, sub surface water/ mineral, vegetation, animal etc.

 

Types of Natural Resources

 

Natural resource is the naturally occurring products that are of significance to human. Resources are essential to human survival while some resources are the creation of capital. The creation of human need is center to the capitalist economy, the need is manifested in form resource. The, more the resource creation the wider would be the space for capital expansionism. Resources can be classified through numerous ways as: the source of origin, the state of development, and the renewability of the resources.

 

   In terms of the source of origin, natural resources can be divided into the following types:

 

Biotic: such resources are obtained directly from the nature the source of such resources are the forests and the minerals reserves and various components of it. This also includes minerals like oil and petroleum that are buried under the earth through the decay of organic matter for several years.

 

Abiotic: such resources though found naturally are non-living entity

 

 

Natural resources can also be categorized based on their stage of development including:

 

Potential resources: these are resources that exist in a region and may be used in the future. Example: petroleum in the sedimentary rock bed of a country is a potential resource as that resource is yet to be utilized by human though it may have been found.

 

Actual resources: this comprises of these resources that actually exists on the surface. These resources are currently being used by the people. Through technological advancement improvement in the resistance level of the resource is possible but the utility and function of such resource are continuingly being used.

 

Reserve resources: this can also be termed as future resource these are those resources that can be used in the coming future but are being kept hidden. The reserved stock of resources can be used to facilitate welfare programs by the governments. These types of resources form the part of actual resources.

 

Stock resources: such types of resources are known by the human to be in existence that is to that the people have the knowledge of its existence and the particular  utility  and  function  of  the  resource  but  due  to  the  lack  of  proper technology it has not yet being harnessed to practical use. An example of a stock resource is hydrogen.

 

 

Natural resources are further classified on the basis of renewability:

 

Renewable Resources: such resources can be restocked. Examples include air, sunlight, and wind. The availability of such resources is ad infinitum and the quality of the resources are also to certain extent constant with respect to human consumption. But such resources are liable to be depleted if overused. The capitalists` war with the earth has already made the air scarce, the commodification and the cost of purified air in global market is an example of the result of human excessive interference with the renewable resources.

 

Non-renewable Resources: such resources are generally in less quantity and aren’t readily formed in the environment. “A resource is considered to be non-renewable when their rate of consumption exceeds the rate of recovery, examples of non-renewable natural resources are minerals and fossil fuels” (htt29).

 

2. Human Resource

 

Human resources are the people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, or economy. “Human capital” is sometimes used synonymously with “human resources”, although human capital typically refers to a narrower view (i.e., the knowledge the individuals embody and economic growth).

 

 

There are three aspects of the study of human resources:

1) The numbers, physical power, mental abilities, and health of population in a region.

2) Social organization of people which affects resource utilization: e.g. socialism, capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, communism, feudalism and democracy.

3) The form of culture is also a resource in itself. The economic development of a country on a large scale depend on the level of technological development achieved in the country, this technological achievement is the product of the cultural development of the society. The USA, UK, Japan, Russia, France etc. could develop only because of their high level of technology.

 

 

3. Resource Utilization

 

Man develops natural elements and objects in resources. Unless utilized by men, resource remain inert as a neutral stuff. Man has utilized natural elements and forces of nature for his benefits in several ways.

 

FIGURE-1: SCOPE OF RESOURCE GEOGRAPHY

 

   Land renders at least three services to man: (1) It supplies man with standing room and gives him a place where he may live and work. (2) It furnishes raw materials for our industries and occupations. From coal to the ore of other mineral human`s daily is highly centric to natural resources appraisal. (3) From nature, we obtain the forces that enable us to use these raw materials. The animal products too are the substrate for human economical needs. These animals are directly linked for their survival to the resources found on earth`s surface. The power from the water that turns our mill wheels and the wind that makes the windmills go around are other forces of nature which men use in making a living.

 

     In the modern capitalist economies, the natural setup of the space determines the type of industries that can be set up. The environmental make-up of the region also decides the type of industries that can be set up in its vicinity. England’s coal and iron made it a natural setting for the Industrial Revolution. England’s island situation made it almost inevitable that it should become a great commercial nation.

 

    Besides this normal use of natural resources like air, water, soil, minerals, vegetation etc. by modern human being, the significance of these resources is quite different for the people who are at a different stage of economic development than the modern human in the capitalist world. Indigenous Peoples depend on the natural lands and ecosystems by which they are surrounded. According to a recent UN report, 60 million out of the approximately 300 million Indigenous Peoples around the world depend, for instance, on forests for their livelihood and survival (UNHRC 2007). They are “shifting or permanent cultivators, herders, hunters and gatherers, fishers, and/or handicraft makers who adopt a multiuse strategy of appropriation of nature “(V. Toledo 2000.). They depend on land, forests, wildlife, rivers, watershed and aquatic life, on traditional medicine and on seeds and plants (UNDP-RIPP 2007) .They have managed their environments sustainably for generations and in turn, the fauna, flora and other resources available on indigenous lands and territories have provided them with their livelihoods and have nurtured their communities. Indigenous communities have a close relationship to their land and resources and see themselves as part of the whole ecosystem. Natural resources are significant not only as a means of production, but also as part of Indigenous Peoples’ spiritual and cultural traditions, central to their identities as peoples. As a matter of fact, many territories inhabited by Indigenous Peoples coincide with some of the world’s major concentrations of biological diversity and natural resources. For Indigenous Peoples, conservation of nature and sustainable use of natural resources is not an isolated, compartmentalized concept but an integrated part of their lives. They view conservation areas as integral, functional parts of the landscapes in which they live (i.e., sacred places, repositories for game, etc.). In recent years, however, dispossession from the land or restriction of access to natural resources has brought economic impoverishment, loss of identity, and threats to their cultural survival. For that reason, indigenous agendas almost invariably begin with the claim of their ancestral territories to assure the long-term protection of their lands and natural resources (Doris Zingg 2012).

 

 

RELEVANCE OF RESOURCE GEOGRAPHY

 

The importance of resource geography has to be seen in the light of economic significance it provides to the political cultural matrix of the society. With this framework natural resource geography can be studied under following heads: (1) land reserves, (2) forest and other plant resources, (3) climatic resources, (4) water resources of the land, (5) resources of the animal world, (6) resources in the interior of the earth, and (7) resources of the oceans of the world.

 

As noted by Komar “Within the geographic sciences, natural resources geography is usually related to economic geography disciplines; there is also an opinion, however, that places it in an intermediate position between physical geography and the natural sciences on the one hand and economic geography on the other.

 

Already in prerevolutionary Russia the resources aspect was a traditional characteristic of much geographic research (the works of P. I. Rychkov, V. N. Tatishchev, I. I. Lepekhin, S. P. Krasheninnikov, and A. I. Voeikov). From the very first years of Soviet power, when the demand for the study and harnessing of resources and the forces of nature increased sharply, the resources orientation of geographic work became particularly urgent. A scientific center for this research was established within the Commission for the Study of Natural Productive Forces (KEPS). The resolutions of the Third Congress of the Geographic Society of the USSR (1960) had an important role in the development of geographic research on natural resources, giving it a more purposeful transformational character and establishing natural resources geography as a complex scientific discipline.

 

In resolving scientific problems of natural resources geography, it is important to consider its close ties with the entire system of the geographic and other social and natural sciences (industrial economics, geology, and so on), since the study and use of natural resources is a multifaceted, complex problem. A whole arsenal of geographic research methods is used in natural resources geography; the use of such things as the latest mathematical methods, forecast modeling, and aerial and space surveying methods has expanded since the 1950’s.

 

Soviet geographers have collaborated with scientists in other specializations to create a series of fundamental works on natural resources. The general summaries include the collective monograph Natural Resources of the Soviet Union, Their Utilization and Reproduction (1963), the multivolume (by raions) publication Natural Conditions and Natural Resources of the USSR (since 1964), and Resources of the Biosphere in the Territory of the USSR (1971). There are also works on individual types of resources (especially on the water resources of the land), on methods for the economic evaluation of natural resources (water, land, and so on), and on the scientific basis of measures for conserving natural features for the more efficient use of natural resources. General and regional problems in the scientific prediction of the development and future use of the natural features and resource base are under intense study; also, being developed is the optimization of the exchange of matter between society and nature, which, as K. Marx noted, is mediated, regulated, and controlled by man in the process of labor and social production.

 

The development of theoretical positions in natural resources geography was influenced greatly by the works of outstanding scientists in allied disciplines: V. I. Vernadskii, A. E. Fersman, and V. S. Nemchinov. Research specialists in the field of natural resources geography include I. P. Gerasimov, D. L. Armand, V. I. Botvinnikov, S. L. Vendrov, Iu. D. Dmitrevskii, K. I. Ivanov, K. V. Zvorykin, G. P. Kalinin, I. V. Komar, V. P. Maksakovskii, A. A. Mints, M. I. L’vovich, and Iu. G. Saushkin.

 

Natural resources geography in socialist countries develops methods for the most complete discovery, evaluation, and rational multifaceted exploitation of natural resources from a national economic point of view and in the interests of society as a whole. For all this, the planned development of the socialist economy opens up major possibilities in the natural resources area that have not yet been fully utilized by science or in practice.

 

    In natural resources geography in capitalist countries, the interests of monopolistic capital play a decisive role in the resolution of problems related to the study, evaluation, and harnessing of natural resources; foreign monopolies wreak heavy damage upon nature in their plunder of natural resources from the countries subjugated by them. Since in certain regions the natural resources situation is precarious, major capitalist countries have begun to devote much attention to the study of the problems of conserving these resources (H. Bennett, E. Ackerman, C. Kellogg, R. Parson in the USA; L. D. Stamp in Great Britain; and J. Dorst in France). Much scientific and practical importance has been attached to natural resources geography in the developing countries.

 

New tasks are being given to natural resources geography by the modern scientific and technological revolution, which presents far-ranging possibilities for the fuller use of natural resources and the involvement of new types of resources in economic turnover. This revolution is expanding the resources and raw materials base available for the development of mankind and will lead to significant changes in the geographic distribution of the base” (KOMAR (1970-1979)).

 

 

ILLUSTRATION

 

The subject matter of Water Resources Geography has been changing over time. In the beginning, it was the study of distribution of water in different forms on the earth and the hydrological cycle only. Presently, the increasing importance of water, unevenness in its distribution, increasing demand in its various forms and decreasing availability as well as future strategy for its conservation, have become important elements in the study of Water Resources Geography.

 

During the latter half of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century, demand for water has increased very fast due to increasing world population, which has resulted in the severe water crisis. Hence, water crisis due to unevenness of water distribution and its qualitative deterioration, are considered as the main study center of Water Resources Geography.

 

Water being related to various systems of environment, occupies a central position in nature. Its availability at the right place and at the right time maintains environmental balance.’ Hence, this interrelation is also finding its place in Water Resources Geography.

 

It is clear that the subject matter of Water Resources Geography is fast changing and has been expanded to include the following facts:

 

1. Study of Geographical Distribution of Water Resources in the World:

 

It studies the comparative position of spatial distribution of all water resources in nature except oceans, ground surface, sub-surface and groundwater. The study includes how much and in what forms the water becomes available in micro forms in glaciers, rivers, lakes and water reservoirs and in what forms their uses are made by man.

 

 

2. Study of Functioning of Hydrological Cycle:

 

Balanced distribution of water in the hydrosphere, atmosphere (water vapor), litho-sphere, and biosphere becomes possible only through the hydrological cycle in nature. Its study is the main subject matter of Water Resources Geography. This also includes the study of sub-cycles and effect of man on them.

 

 

3. Study of Qualitative Aspect of Water:

 

It also includes the study of qualitative deterioration of water due to water pollution and mixing of undesirable elements in water because of reducing availability of fresh water.

 

 

4. Study of Water-Borne Problems:

 

Many problems are created due to uneven distribution of water by man. The important ones among them are salinity, alkalinity, fluoride, arsenic, and water logging. These new problems are also studied in Water Resource Geography.

 

 

5. Study of Water Management in Flood-Prone and Drought-Prone Areas:

 

This includes the study of providing sustainable base for water excess, flood-prone, and scarce, water affected drought- prone areas.

 

 

6. Study of Uses of Water by Man:

 

Apart from for own domestic use, man uses water available in nature for economic use in various forms mainly for agricultural and industrial uses. Because of continuously increasing demand for water in these spheres, this subject has gained importance. For this reason, the cyclical use of water has also become important.

 

 

7. Geographical Study of Watershed:

 

Since the last decade, particularly since 1994, watershed is considered as a geographical unit for water management because it involves activities of physical and ecological regeneration. It is a community participation program which includes various activities of water conservation.

 

 

8. Study of Effects of Natural Calamities on Distribution and Availability of Water:

 

Materialistic culture of man has brought many changes in nature in the 20th century. The effect of this culture can be seen on the distribution and quantitative aspect of water. Among them climatic changes, global warming, melting of snow and acid rain etc. are important.

 

 

9. Study of Water Crisis and Water Conservation:

 

Water crisis has been created since the last century due to population increasing at a fast rate. Along with the study of main reasons for water crisis, study of finding solutions is also an important subject matter. Simultaneously, a strategy has to be evolved which can conserve water in different forms. At present, stress is being laid on sustainable management of water, whose origin is considered to be a report ‘Limits to Growth by a research group headed by Denis Meadoz in 1968. Published in 1972, it stressed on improving the quality of life by preventing deterioration of resources, including water, and thereby creating a healthy environment.

 

Thereafter, World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) in 1987 came out with its report called ‘Our Common Future’, popularly known as “Braudtland Commission” after the name of its chairman, which also publicized the sustainability viewpoint. Sustainable water management is essential for the fulfillment of the needs of  present generation, without reducing the capacity of fulfilling the needs of future generations (RAGHAV n.d.).

 

Thus, as shown in the illustration above the scope of resource geography is dynamic as is the very concept of resource.

 

 

 

SUMMARY: –

 

– The scope of resource geography encompasses the characteristics of natural resources of the earth, their production and utilization.

 

– In natural resources geography in capitalist countries, the interests of monopolistic capital play a decisive role in the resolution of problems related to the study, evaluation, and harnessing of natural resources; foreign monopolies wreak heavy damage upon nature in their plunder of natural resources from the countries subjugated by them.

 

– The subject matter of Water Resources Geography has been changing over time. In the beginning, it was the study of distribution of water in different forms on the earth and the hydrological cycle only. Presently, the increasing importance of water, unevenness in its distribution, increasing demand in its various forms and decreasing availability as well as future strategy for its conservation, have become important elements in the study of Water Resources Geography.

 

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References

  • https://www.boundless.com/economics/textbooks/boundless-economics-textbook/natural-resource-economics-36/introduction-to-natural-resource-economics-136/types-of-natural-resources-536-12633/.
  • Doris Zingg, Sandi Ruiz,. 2012. Natural Resource use and Indigenous. Switzerland: INCOMINDIOS.
  • KOMAR, I. V. (1970-1979). “The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition .”
  • RAGHAV. n.d. Definition and Scope of Water Resources Geography. http://www.geographynotes.com/articles/definition-and-scope-of-water-resources-geography-with-diagram/568.
  • UNDP-RIPP, „. 2007. Bridging the Gap: Policies and Practices on Indigenous Peoples‘ Natural. , Chiang Mai, Thailand,: AIPP Foundation,.
  • UNHRC. 2007. “UN Human Rights Council, „UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental.”
  • V. Toledo. 2000. „Biodiversity and Indigenous Peoples,“ . Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, Academic Press,.