BRANCH: Automobile Engineering

SEM: 3rd

SUBJECT: Environmental Studies

TOPIC: Natural Resources

NAME OF FACULTY: SOURIN MOHANTY

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Natural resources

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Natural resources

We are rich in resources that include not only land and nature but also the people.

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Sustainable use of resources can be ensured by good management – preservation of resources or a slower exploitation of resources so that nature can reproduce them.

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Over a considerable period of time, the mankind has not been able to manage natural resources effectively due to the population growth, reduced access to a number of resources and over-use of the rest of natural resources.

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With the growing number of people on our planet and technological advances, our impact on the environment will be intensify.

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Natural resources are gifts of nature that the mankind uses or can potentially use to create material wealth, to ensure its existence and an increase of welfare.

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Secure needs of

population

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Secure desires on comfort or higher level of living

Encourage population freedom for

migration

Resources

Environmental resources

Natural resources

NATURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES

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As a rule, the economic value of environmental resources is identifiable.

The value of environmental resources usually cannot be measured in economic categories.

Logging

Direct profit

Indirect profit

VALUE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES

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Politics

Economics

VALUE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES

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To convert the aggregate natural resources that are used or can be used for producing various goods into monetary value, economists use the notion ‘natural capital’.

Interesting nature, historical or cultural objects, distance to them

Environmental aesthetics in interaction with real estate value

VALUE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PRIBCIPLES FOR RESOURCES USE

1. principle. Substances extracted from lithosphere, not be allowed to accumulate in lithosphere systematically.

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• principle. Substances produced by men not be allowed to accumulate in ecosphere systematically.

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3. principle. Nature and production conditions not be allowed to grow worse in ecosphere systematically.

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4. principle. Resources must be to use efficiently, in respect of nature and population needs.

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5. principle. Nature capital does not be reduced.

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Over-grazed (left) and optimally grazed (right) pastures in Australia

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Destroyed forest by acid rains on

St. Michael mountain in the North Carolina, USA

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CLASSIFICATION OF THE RESOURCES

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Potential natural resources include those that have not yet been discovered, sufficiently explored or whose use is not economically justified.

POTENTIAL RESOURCES

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NATURAL RESOURCES

CLASSIFICATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES

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A "McKelvey diagram" showing the relation of mineral resource classifications to economics and geologic certainty.

Pink cubic halite crystals

(NaCl; halide class)

Diamond is the hardest natural material,

and has a Mohs hardness of 10.

Gypsum desert rose.

DEPLETION OF NATURAL RESOURCES

There are numerous examples of ill-considered human activities or mismanagement of natural resources when stores of some resources have been essentially diminished or destroyed.

The most dramatic example of the negative impact of human economic activity on natural resources is the decline or total extermination of populations of game animals.

It has been estimated that during the last 3 000 years over 100 species of mammals and about 150 species and subspecies of birds have become extinct.

In many cases animals disappear not only as a result of their extermination but also due to environmental changes, when the environment can no longer provide the conditions necessary for the life and reproduction of animal populations.

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Depletion of the ocean resources

Resources of the sea (fish, crustaceans-vēžveidīgie) were long considered exhaustible renewable natural resources.

At the turn of the 20th century, the annual per capita consumption of fish was ~16 kilograms. For many peoples fish and other seafood are their principal daily sustenance.

It has been calculated that the total admissible annual harvest of fish and other sea animals in the world amounts to 85 million tons. However, the figure was ignored until fishing exceeded the species replenishment rate.

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47–50 % of fish and other populations of sea animals have decreased so rapidly that their natural replenishment is nearly impossible;

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15–18 % of populations are potentially endangered;

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9–10 % have decreased but their natural replenishment is possible;

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21 % are moderately exploited;

only 4 % of populations have not been affected.

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FISHING�Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping.

Stilts fishermen, Sri Lanka

Lake Pátzcuaro butterfly

fishermen, Mexico

Stone Age fish hook

made from bone.

An angler on the Avon Canal, England.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, total world capture fisheries production in 2000 was 86 million tons. The top producing countries were, in order: China, Peru, Japan, United States, Chile, Indonesia, Russia, India, Thailand, Norway and Iceland. Those countries accounted for more than half of the world's production. China alone accounted for a third of the world's production. Of that production, over 90% was marine and less than 10% was inland.

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The global continental shelf,

highlighted in cyan

FAO catch statistics, world catches

1950-2005 in million tonnes

Spanish tuna seiner

at the Seychelles Islands

World capture production 2007, �thousands of tonnes

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Atlantic cod

DEPLETION OF THE WHALES

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USE OF THE NATURAL RESOURCES

As the provision of natural resources decreases, prices go up, unemployment climbs, and it is the availability of natural resources that largely dictates the migration of population, formation of new settlements and the abandonment of inhabited places in the world.

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Historically, the world society has responded to a decrease in the availability of resources with a price rise or replacement of one resource with another.

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For example, in Great Britain, around 1800, in response to total deforestation people started using coal instead of firewood, while a century later oil became the main energy resource, cheap and widely available.

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The availability of all the Earth’s resources is limited in a way, either due to insufficient reserves, complicated extraction or transportation, inadequate technology of extraction and processing.

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Thus, a moment comes when the demand for certain resources exceeds that of their extraction.

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Society responds to this by a attempts to develop the research and extraction of mineral deposits and to improve extraction technologies.

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It stipulates that, with a fixed resource, a unit of another resource(-s) will yield a progressive decline in productivity when a certain output level is exceeded.

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Cultivation of the rice is very labour- and water-consuming

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Effective management of the natural resources

Many scientists stress that over a long period of time humanity has not been able to manage natural resources effectively, and this is why sustainable use of resources is required.

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With the growing number of people and the development of technologies, the impact on the environment is increasing.

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It is a matter of historical experience that restriction or suspension of the extraction or use of one or another resource will eventually lead to the conflict of the parties concerned.

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For example, the decrease in the cod population in the Baltic Sea in the early 21st century caused heated discussions about their fishing restrictions.

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Several European Union countries maintained that cod fishing should be banned, while others considered that it should be only restricted.

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Under the circumstances the European Commission adopted a compromise decision which stipulated that cod fishing quotas will be reduced every year by 15%.

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Simplified world mining map

Main coal deposits in the USA

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Bingham canyon copper mine, near Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

0.97 km deep, 4 km wide and covering 770 ha

The total established world consumption of resources

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Production of raw materials

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Primary commercial value

Resources

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Deposits

Diggings

Mineral resources of the Earth

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Mineral resources in the Latvia

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The existing management encourages the extraction of only the richest ores and other natural raw materials (‘skimming the cream’), and there will never be a sufficient amount of such raw materials.

Use of resources

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Use of metals annually in the World, per capita

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Fe; Al; Cu; Mn; Pb; Ni; U; Sn; Ag; Au

Use of resources

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Reason why costs for mining growth rapidly is depletion of the resources and need to use ores with less and less content of metals.

USE OF THE METAL’S ORE

Perspective of the natural resource’s use

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It isn’t acceptable that when billions of people fighting for existence, USA, where are living ~3 % of the world population, use 20 – 25 % of all extracted mineral resources.

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All developed countries where are living ~20 % of the world population, use 80 % of all fossil fuel sources.

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Although the modern mining industry has less impact on the land and the territories necessary for urban development and the infrastructure of transport and communications, mineral extraction leaves negative effects on the environment.

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They are connected with loss of agricultural and forest lands and biotopes – in these territories, the natural table of subsurface waters is deformed, and all these territories should be treated as potentially polluted unless appropriate care has been taken of the environment there.

Iron hydroxide precipitate stains a stream receiving acid drainage from surface coal mining.

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“Land” – all territories which are not covered by water.

Use of land and soil

SOIL RESOURCES

Soil development is a long-time, gradual and very complex process.

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Soil is commonly understood as the uppermost layer of the Earth’s crust formed by mineral particles, organic substances, water, air and living organisms.

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Soil is the contact and interaction zone for the Earth, air and water, and the habitat for most of the biosphere.

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The fertility of soil is one of the principal factors that determine the use of land in a certain place.

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Soil properties determine the suitability of the place for:

▪ agricultural production, including the development of farming or cattle-breeding,

▪ development of forestry, including nursing of species of trees,

▪ laying out tourist trails,

▪ building playgrounds for sports.

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Soil

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Non-ploughing to reduce soil erosion

Pennsylvania, USA

Field protective zone’s,

South Dakota, USA

Soil degradation directly affects the quality of water and air, biodiversity and climate change.

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It can cause deterioration of human health and create hazard to human and animal food safety.

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In the European Union, soil degradation processes and the ensuing hazards differ from country to country.

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Soil degradation is a problem for all EU Member States.

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Approximately 115 million hectares or 12 % of Europe’s total land territory are eroded by water, and 42 million hectares are eroded by wind.

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Nearly 45% of soils in Europe are characterised by a low content of organic matter, mostly in the southern regions, also in France, the United Kingdom and Germany.

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Furthermore, there are about 3.5 million potentially polluted sites in the EU Member States.

Soil degradation processes

At present, the total world territory of degraded land exceeds 1.9 billion hectares, which is more than the total territory of arable land.

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The largest areas of degraded land are in Asia (748 million hectares), Africa (495 million hectares) and Latin America (305 million hectares).

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The World Resources Institute points out that nearly 40 % of the currently used agricultural lands suffer from various degrees of degradation, which presents a potential problem for the future concerning production of food for the population.

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Fragmentation (belt’s agriculture) Illinois, USA

Alley agriculture (crops between scrubs), Peru

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One of the most important renewable natural resources is soil – the biologically active upper layer of land with a unique property – fertility.

To provide the world’s population with food, it is imperative that land degradation be reduced.

Soil resources

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Desertification is a loss of natural vegetation which causes a rapid decrease in soil fertility and an eventual total extinction of the soil cover due to soil erosion.

This process involves changes in the soil moisture regimen, and soil gets salinised and compacted.

Soil resources

Use of the main agricultural manners in the World

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Territories, where population exceed soil capacity for food production

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African countries, characteristic with water deficit, starvation threats or epidemic famine

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Ground water polluted with oil products, Denmark

According to the UN prognosis, 2.8 billion people in 48 countries will suffer from the shortage of freshwater by 2025;

40 of these countries are in western Asia, northern Africa and the Sahel zone in Africa.

Deterioration of the freshwater quality and depletion of its resources in certain regions of the world may become one of the most topical problems of society in the 21st century.

WATER RESOURCES

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Water poor countries

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World forests occupy about 30% of the land

territory of all continents, with the exception of

Antarctica.

World terrestrial

territories

Forest is the biggest ecosystem of the Earth’s terrestrial part. The total forested area is 4.14 billion hectares, with forests of sufficient density occupying about 3 billion hectares.

FOREST RESOURCES

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FOREST RESOURCES

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The future economic development and growth of the human population in many countries will cause shortage of natural resources, energy, food and water significant for the development of humanity.

Global society will face difficult and complex environmental challenges. Under such circumstances, it is simply common knowledge that an optimal use of one or another resource will ensure their sustainability.

In view of the economic, political and environmental interests of the numerous parties involved, any decision on the restrictions of the use of resources in the modern world should be looked upon as a remarkable success.

Depletion of the environmental and natural resources

Pattern of the human population/food in accordance with Malthus theory

FUTURE TRENDS

The future economic development and growth of the human population in many countries will cause shortage of natural resources, energy, food and water significant for the development of humanity.

Global society will face difficult and complex environmental challenges.

Under such circumstances, it is simply common knowledge that an optimal use of one or another resource will ensure their sustainability.

In view of the economic, political and environmental interests of the numerous parties involved, any decision on the restrictions of the use of resources in the modern world should be looked upon as a remarkable success.

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SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT OF THE RESOURCES

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THANK YOU FOR ATTENTION !