5 MODELS IN RESOURCE GEOGRAPHY

Dr Seema Mehra Parihar

LEARNING OUTCOME

• Understand the needs of model in Geography
• Appreciate the difference between pre-Zimmermann and Zimmermann
• concept of resource
• Understand the limit to growth model and warning which it gives in connection to the present mode of production.

    KEYWORDS

RESOURCE, CULTURE, NEUTRAL STUFF, MODELLING, PANTHOM PILE, RESISTENCE,LIMITS TO GROWTH

1. INTRODUCTION

     In the era of neo-liberalism, the concepts in geography has been undergoing a radical change geography is increasingly been seen as the academics to create space for political economy. This has been possible through models. Geography is no longer seen as a subject but has become a perspective in the modern world. This has been possible through model-building in geography.

Model as a term has been defined in various way by the geographers. Skilling defines model as: “either a theory, a law, a hypothesis, or a structured idea, from the geographical point of view, it can also include reasoning about the real world (physical and cultural landscape) by means of relation in space or time, it can be a role, a relation or an equation”.

While Ackoff said, “a model may be regarded as the formal presentation of a theory or law using the tools of logic, set theory and mathematics”. Haines-Young and Petch defines it as, “any device or mechanism which generates a prediction is a model”. It may appear from above definition that model is an activity in which different theories are tested. The post-colonial geographers have acknowledged “models as idealized or simplified representation of reality (geographic landscape and man-nature relationship)”.

Significance of Model: Geography is the subject that studies the earth and its various aspects by placing human at the center of discourse. But the earth with its all phenomenon comprising of human and nature relationship presents a complex study pattern. The multi diversity of earth both at the cultural and physical aspects find space in the subject matter of geography, the climate and cultural making of absolute politico economic space is defined by the physical dimensions of earth. Geography is a dynamic field of the study of space and time that study the social and political phenomenon in spatial dimensions.

Geography can be studied through the help of models and theories that put the hypothesis and the methods of human interference with nature quite interactive and practical. All geographical models try to simplify the complex theories and concepts in the subject. Models are also a tool to view the practicality of geographical theories. But the models are quite predictive that can give a metaphysical understanding of the geographical reality.

2. Needs for Modelling in Geography:

Hypothesis and models form the part of laws that guide the subject matters of Geography. Models bring the human and natural features together for an interacting phenomenon, models derive the concept in a theoretical way but at the same time it gives the practical outlook to the theories. Modelling in geography is, therefore, done due to the following reasons:

1.  This approach helps in understanding the geographical phenomenon in a formal quantitative manner. The quantitative approach through models can also give qualitative approach to the study of subject matters under Geography. Models help in interpretation of data and estimation of the results that might arrive through the process of theorizing the practical aspect of geographical phenomenon. The future growth of human population, its density the interaction of population with the structural complex of the politics and cultural scenario of the state can be predicted and the policies can be framed by the state.

2.  Models can also help in prediction of climatic and weather conditions of the region. Besides the locational theories and the related models can help one to decide the types of industries that can be established with the help of models. The setting of iron ore industries are determined by the location of coal water resource and transportation facilities in the vicinity of the region so chosen.

3.  Geographical data are quite enormous and the complexity of the geographical phenomenon are integral to the subject matter of the Geography.

4.  Models provide means to understand the politics behind resource appropriation.

5.  Models build theories for geographical studies.

    3. Features of a Model:

The main features of a model are as under:

The basic features of model are to integrate the study of reality to the serval aspects of it. The features have been nicely depicted as: “1) Models are the selective pictures of the world or part of it; 2) Models give more prominence to some features and obscure and distort some others; 3) Models contain suggestions for generalization; 4) Models are analogies as they are different from the real world; 5) Models tempt us to formulate hypothesis and help us in generalizing and theory-building; 6) Models show some features of the real world in a more familiar, simplified, observable, accessible, easily formulated or controllable form, from which conclusions can be drawn; 7) Models provide a framework wherein information may be defined, collected and arranged; 8) Models help in squeezing out the maximum amount of information from the available data; 9) Models help to explain how a particular phenomenon comes into existence; 10) Models also help us to compare some phenomena with the more familiar ones; 11) Models cause a group of phenomena to be visualized and comprehended which otherwise could not be comprehended because of its magnitude or complexity; 12) Models form stepping-stones to the building of theories and laws” (MONDOL n.d.).

4. ZIMMERMANN’S MODEL

“Erich walter Zimmermann was a resource economist at the University of North Carolina and later at University of Texas. He was born in Mainz Germany on 31 July, 1888 and died in Austin, United States of America on February 16,1961” Zimmermann (1933, 3; 1951, 14)

     Prof. Zimmermann’s defines resource as: “The word resource does not refer to a thing or a substance but to a function which a thing or a substance may perform or to an operation in which it may take part, namely, the function or operation of attaining a given end such as satisfying a want. In other words, the word resource is an abstraction reflecting human appraisal and relating to a function or operation”.

In pre-Zimmermann era, only tangible or material substances were considered resources. Different minerals like iron ore, copper, bauxite, different fuels like coal, petroleum etc… the intangible substance like culture are not considered resource. But it was only the words of Prof. Zimmermann that defined resources to cover both tangible and intangible: “Whereas less important invisible and intangible aspects – such as health, social harmony, wise policies, knowledge, freedom – are ignored, even though possibly these latter are more important than all the coal, iron, gold and silver in the world put together; resources evolve out of the dynamic interaction of all these factors”.

In those days, it was an accepted norm that the resources are the nature`s gift and it can be created by human actions and only nature through its own action can create resource.

Resource was also considered as a static concept having existence independent of human.

Creation, modification or extension of resource was practically unknown to that medieval world.

“The role of man was grossly underestimated in earlier times, only after the resource concept was introduced role of man in the overall resource creation process was clearly understood” (GAUTAM n.d.). In this context, we can recall the legendary remarks of Prof. Zimmermann: “man’s own wisdom is his premier resource—the key resource that unlocks the universe”.

Earlier there was a misconception to treat resource as static. Zimmermann suggested that resources and its concept are dynamic that varies according to the change in technological understanding of the society. “The functional capacity of coking coal has increased fourfold for smelting iron ore, and the yield of by products has doubled. On the whole, its functional capacity has increased. The physical loss is over compensated by the expansion of functional capacity. This shrinkage of weight and volume of the resource on one hand and expansion of functional capacity is known the concept of Phantom Pile” (Figure 1). The concept was given by Zimmermann.

Figure 1: Phantom Pile

The property of resistance hidden under the resource was not a matter of academic discourse in the early days. If the use of resource to satisfy the human need is considered as something enhancing the significance of a stuff the hindrance to the usage by human inherent in a substance is considered as the resistance that the substance has developed owing to its property. The resistance has been overcome by the technological development which the human civilization has achieved through its historical development process. It was only after Prof. Zimmermann that the concept of resource got established from a human perspective including in that the role of resistance in resource appraisal.

Culture in the Zimmermann models includes derived factors such as machines, tools, means of transportation and communication, warehouse etc. further culture also consists of immaterial things such as customs and the social institutions which the people creates. These social institutions along with the local customs help us to understand the relation which men might have with the resources found around them.

FIGURE – 2(htt34)

Resource, Resistance and Neutral Stuff:

There is a clear dichotomy between resource and resistance. Resistance acts a direct hindrance to human development. Resistance is antagonist to resource that is to say while resource facilitates human satisfaction resistance hinders the human wants. For example, proper rain is a resource for the farmers but at the same time heavy rain resulting in flood can lead to loss of human life.

Substances which doesn’t contains the functional or utility ability can be classified as a neutral stuff. But a neutral substance may not remain neutral forever as the development ion technologies added to that the growing human needs can convert the neutral stuff into a resource. The world has seen in case of diamond how few corporations create need byprojecting the stuff into a scarce resource. The rise of capitalism has done a great deal in the creation of need, in fact capitalism rests on the need creation this has helped several neutral stuffs to be placed under the category of resources. In the present time, the expansionist agenda of imperial capital has the potentiality to create more resources which would satiate the greed of multi-national corporations. Turning of neutral stuff into resources has to be seen in the light of the capitalists attempt to resolve the contradiction between capital accumulation and the limit which the environment provide for this accumulation. If we look around the globe we can find that despite having the chunk of resource concentration the third world countries are poor while the imperial capitalist countries are having the problem to find the markets for their over productions. This has been the scenario due to the ability of capital to transform neutral stuff into resources. In the third world, the imperial capital penetrates and controls the neutral stuff so as to transform it into resources and sells it back to the poorer countries. this sort of exploitative relation is due to the lack of technological understanding among the third world nations so as to convert neutral stuff into resources. Besides the technological dependence of the third world nation on the imperial capital has further weekend their power to overcome the resistance level of the resources in their countries.

Functional Theory of Resources: “Resources are not, they become”

“Resources were defined as means of attaining given ends, i.e., individual wants and social objectives means take their meaning from the ends which they serve but as ends change, means must change also”. The statement by Zimmermann indicates that resources are spatial temporal product of a geographical phenomenon.

The lack of technical know-how prevented the ancient man from creating resources so as to improve their living standards but the humans of modern capitalists’ era survives on the need for resource creation. Resource creation has to be seen in the light of the capitalists attempt to resolve their internal crisis. In this scenario knowledge is to be seen as power to generate resources from the neutral stuff.

The imperialist need to convert to the maximum extent neutral stuffs into resources so as to perpetuate the ruling economic cycle, has culminated into resource extraction from the third world nations. The primitive knowledge of the nature and the inability of tribal to convert neutral stuff into resources has provided an absolute space for imperial capitalist expansion. These can be seen from the inability of the African countries to fuel their own industrial development, while the first world imperialist countries have attended their economic prosperity at the cost of converting the third world neutral stuff into resources. Thus, we can easily deduce that the dynamic concept of resource is the function of broader politico economic matrix.

Zimmermann model fails to appreciate the state mechanism which controls the access to resources. It could not identify the dynamics involved between the pro imperial capital comprador state and the people who should be the first to convert the neutral stuff into resources. Zimmermann could not identify the imperialistic war on the people across several vulnerable sections who have been the victims of the primitive means of capital accumulation by the imperialists across the world (Whitehead 2016).

5. LIMIT TO GROWTH MODEL

The growing concern for environment increased when the contradiction between the limit to resource exploitation and the capitalist need for accumulation intensified. This intensification lead to some policy making by the countries in order to resolve the growing contradictions. The debate has now started on the side effect of the economic growth. The limit to growth models traces its origin to the Malthusian theory population growth and resources shrinkage. It was Jay Forester of MIT who in his book World Dynamics published in 1971 devised a model that studies the various attributes related to human nature relationship in a politico-economic perspective.

Box1

• Donella and Denni Meadows, Jorgen Randers and William Behrens published in 1972 a best seller work titled “limits to Growth” to explain the predicament of human future on Earth

    Assumptions of the Model:

1 The Malthusian paradox of rise in population and the declining food resource has been incorporated with the model that is to say that the rising population which is the manifestation of rise in birth rate and decline in death rate has caused a great pressure on the food resources.

2.  The level of capital determines the material wellbeing of human population that is to say the economy with high level of capital investment stands at the higher platform in terms of resource appraisal

3.  Use of non-renewable energy for capital formation.

4.  Agriculture is dependent on capital investment. The agriculture yield will increase if the capital input to the sector has been improved.

5.  Pollution is the product of the economical production process.

Operation of the Model:

The world models have to be constructed in a manner that would most lucidly determine the direction in which the political economic matrix of the world leads to. It determines that limit which the nature provides to the expanding thirst for capital expansion. Limits to Growth that ended in 1972 said that:

“If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.”

The limit to growth model projects consequence of continued growth in world population. The thesis says that the growth in industrial sector is not compatible with the planets capacity and the resources capacity to carry and sustain the population growth.

Report is based on Prepared computer simulation model using data on birth, death and population growth, pollution levels, Resource consumption, food supply and industrial per- capita output

Figure 3: Base scenario from 1972 “Limits to Growth”, printed using today’s graphics by Charles Hall and John Day in “Revisiting Limits to Growth After Peak Oil”

Source: http://www.esf.edu/efb/hall/2009-05Hall0327.pdf

Figure4: A Positive Feedback Loop : (Population increases as a result birth per year increases in turn increasing the population)

Predictions of the Model:

The model has predicted that the ever-expanding quantitative growth in capital accumulation has a limiting factor. This limit as suggested by David Harvey is the limit of environment to the capital growth. This idea has been manifested in this model. Which has been brought to our attention through the model in the following perspective:

(i)  there shall be a rise in population and the industrial output will increase to a certain level but thereafter the economy with all its components will collapse

   (ii)  The collapse will be due to the attainment of limit prescribed for the use of non-renewable resources.

    (iii)  The important minerals are already on the verge of getting exhausted due to the unplanned industrial development and if the same trend in rise of industries and related economical aspects continues then the result would be horrific for human existence on the earth.

(iv)  if the continuing growth trend in population and its industrial setup is allowed to grow then the resultant rise in pollution level will question the sustainability of the earth which in turn will bring human to the limit of growth that the nature provides. The most apprehensible result will be the decline in world population and the collapse of economy by 2010.

(v) Human should put limit to the growth within 50 to 150 years so as to continue their existence on earth.

(vi)  The havoc can be controlled by controlling the population rise and the resultant rise in pollution level.

Since the resources are exhaustible the need of people has to be oriented according to the available means. So that the earth remains the place fit for human existence.

Conclusions of the Model

The limits to Growth suggested following conclusions through their preliminary study:

1. If current trends in population growth, pollution, industrialization, food production and resource depletion continued, the limits to our growth will be reached in next hundred years through a sudden decline and collapse in food supply and industrial capacity.

2. There is a possibility of altering these growth trends towards establishing ecological and economic stability and move on sustainable growth by designing a global equilibrium in ways where material needs of each individual are satisfied and everyone has equal opportunity to reach full potential. Despite existence of underdeveloped areas in the world, the population in the world is globally increasing reaching the critical point. There are no unique optimum but series of balances that need to be attained between population levels, social and material conditions determining the quality of life, given the depleting non-renewable resources and finite space. This finiteness would imply in the long run the standard of living will be lower for human population.

3. It better for human population to start working towards attaining the second point and the sooner is better. Through a global strategy, the conditions of majority in poor developing and underdeveloped countries needs to be improved both in absolute and relative terms to come at par with denizens of the developed world.

4. The issue of global development is interlinked with other global issues thus demanding a holistic global strategy including the issues of man and environment relationships. The population doubling time is just over 30 years and this rising population will only sustain by overexploiting available resources which is likely to bring down further the carrying capacity of the earth. Technological solutions alone cannot help us out of the trouble. The solution can only be attained by treating the issues of development and other issues as a joint issue.

5. Resolution of the current demographic and development issues including environmental deterioration is the primary task ahead of us.

6. It is to be borne by current generation and responsibility cannot be shifted indefinitely on the future generations.

7.  An unprecedented international co-operation and policy making is required at a scale never heard before.

8. The efforts to redress the issues cannot embark on maintaining the gaps between the rich and poor nations. The developed nations will have to take the lead in this process to ensure that the cost of improvement of state of affairs does not fall on the poor developing countries.

Critics of the argument called the theory proposed as oversimplified, like a ‘wolf’s cry’, confusing and build on unfound assumptions. Hecox (1976) argued that the significance of the report lies in the questions raised rather than solutions suggested bringing to public focus the crucial global issues that surround us.

6. SUMMARY

–  In the era of neo-liberalism, the concepts in geography has been undergoing a radical change geography is increasingly been seen as the academics to create space for political economy. This has been possible through models. Geography is no longer seen as a subject but has become a perspective in the modern world. This has been possible through model-building in geography

–  “Resources are not they become”, -a functional model given by Zimmerman has changed the perception of Resources from a static concept to a dynamic concept. Turning of neutral stuff into resources has to be seen in the light of the capitalists attempt to resolve the contradiction between capital accumulation and the limit which the environment provide for this accumulation.

– Limit to growth clearly suggests that the present mode of capitalist economy is not sustainable.

If current trends in population growth, pollution, industrialization, food production and resource depletion continued, the limits to our growth will be reached in next hundred years through a sudden decline and collapse in food supply and industrial capacity.

– Modelling enhances deeper understanding of the simulated scenarios of neutral stuff, resource & resistance. Research & development should be encouraged towards it.

References

• https://www.slideshare.net/shravanrajur/community-based-natural-resource-management-33117716.
• https://www.slideshare.net/shravanrajur/community-based-natural-resource-management-33117716.
• http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/economics/environmental-economics/limits-to-growth-model-assumptions-and-operation-explained/39465/.
• GAUTAM, ALKA. n.d. RESOURCE GEOGRAPHY
• Hecox, W. E. (1976). Limits to Growth Revisited: Has the World Modeling Debate Made Any Progress? Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review, 5(1), 65-96. Retrieved from http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/ealr/vol5/iss1/8
• Lloyd, W. F. (1833). Two lectures on the checks to population: delivered before the University of Oxford, in Michaelmas term 1832. Oxford: J.H. Parker.
• Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J., & Behrens, W. W., III. (1972). The limits of growth: a report for the Club of Rome’s project on the predicament of mankind. New York/N.Y.: Universe Books.
• MONDOL,  P. n.d.YOUR ARTICLE LIBRARY.
• http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/geography/models-used-in-geography-significance-needs-features-and-other-details/24591/.
• Whitehead, Judith. 2016. “Intersectionality and Primary Accumulation.” MONTHLY REVIEW Volume 68, Issue 06 (November) › 2016.
• Zimmerman ,E.W., https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fzi02