Environmental Studies

Unit 2
Natural Resources
 Syllabus
• Natural resources: Forest resources, Water resources, Mineral resources,
Food resources.
• Energy resources: Growing energy needs, renewable and non-renewable
energy sources, use of alternate energy sources.
a. Forest Resources
1.Use and overexploitation:

■ The water we use depends on the existence of forests on the

watersheds around river valleys.
■ Our homes, furniture and paper are made from wood from the forest.
■ We use many medicines that are based on forest produce.
■ And we depend on the oxygen that plants give out and the removal of
carbon dioxide we breathe out from the air.
■ As agriculture spread, the forests were left in patches which were
controlled mostly by tribal people. They hunted animals and gathered
plants and lived entirely on forest resources.
1.Use and overexploitation:

■ Deforestation became a major concern in British times when a large

amount of timber was extracted for building their ships.
■ Another period of overutilization and forest degradation occurred in
the early period following independence as people felt that now that
the British had gone, they had a right to using our forests in any way
we pleased.
2. Deforestation:

■ Today logging and mining are serious causes of loss of forests in our
country and all over the world.
■ Dams built for hydroelectric power or irrigation have submerged
forests and have displaced tribal people whose lives are closely knit to
the forest. This has become a serious cause of concern in India.
2. Deforestation:

■ One of India’s serious environmental problems is forest degradation

due to timber extraction and our dependence on fuelwood.
■ A large number of poor rural people are still highly dependent on wood
to cook their meals and heat their homes. We have not been able to
plant enough trees to support the need for timber and fuelwood.
3. Timber extraction, mining and dams:

■ If timber is overharvested the ecological functions of the forest are

lost.
■ Unfortunately, forests are located in areas where there are rich
mineral resources. Forests also cover the steep embankments of river
valleys, which are ideally suited to develop hydel and irrigation
projects
b) Water resources
Introduction:
■ All aquatic ecosystems are used by a large number of people for their
daily needs such as drinking water, washing, cooking, watering animals,
and irrigating fields.
■ The world depends on a limited quantity of fresh water. Water covers
70% of the earth’s surface but only 3% of this is freshwater.
■ Of this, 2% is in polar ice caps and only 1% is usable water in rivers,
lakes and subsoil aquifers.
Overutilization and pollution of surface
and groundwater:
■ With the growth of human population there is an increasing need for
larger amounts of water to fulfill a variety of basic needs.
■ Today in many areas this requirement cannot be met.
■ Overutilization of water occurs at various levels. Most people use more
water than they really need.
■ Many agriculturists use more water than necessary to grow crops.
■ There are many ways in which farmers can use less water without
reducing yields such as the use of drip irrigation systems.
Overutilization and pollution of surface
and groundwater:
■ Agriculture also pollutes surface water and underground water stores by
the excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
■ Methods such as the use of biomass as fertilizer and nontoxic pesticides
such as neem products and using integrated pest management systems
reduces the agricultural pollution of surface and ground water.
■ Industry tends to maximize short-term economic gains by not bothering
about its liquid waste and releasing it into streams, rivers and the sea.
■ Public awareness may increasingly put pressures on industry to produce
only eco-friendly products which are already gaining in popularity.
Global climate change:

■ Changes in climate at a global level caused by increasing air pollution

have now begun to affect our climate.
■ Everywhere the ‘greenhouse effect’ due to atmospheric pollution is
leading to increasingly erratic and unpredictable climatic effects.
Floods:

■ Wetlands in flood plains are nature’s flood control systems into which
overfilled rivers could spill and act like a temporary sponge holding the
water and preventing fast flowing water from damaging surrounding
land.
■ Deforestation in the Himalayas causes floods.
■ As the forests are degraded, rainwater no longer percolates slowly into
the subsoil but runs off down the mountainside bearing large amounts
of topsoil.
Drought:
■ In most arid regions of the world the rains are unpredictable. This leads
to periods when there is a serious scarcity of water to drink, use in
farms, or provide for urban and industrial use.
■ Agriculturists have no income in these bad years, and as they have no
steady income, they have a constant fear of droughts. India has ‘Drought
Prone Areas Development Programs’, which are used in such areas to
buffer the effects of droughts.
■ One of the factors that worsens the effect of drought is deforestation.
■ This soil and water management and afforestation are long-term
measures that reduce the impact of droughts.
Water for Agriculture and Power
Generation:
■ India’s increasing demand for water for intensive irrigated agriculture, for
generating electricity, and for consumption in urban and industrial
centers, has been met by creating large dams.
■ Although dams ensure a year-round supply of water for domestic use,
provide extra water for agriculture, industry, hydropower generation,
they have several serious environmental problems.
■ They alter river flows, change nature’s flood control mechanisms such as
wetlands and flood plains, and destroy the lives of local people and the
habitats of wild plant and animal species.
Sustainable water management:

■ Building several small reservoirs instead of few mega projects.

■ Develop small catchment dams and protect wetlands.
■ Treating and recycling municipal wastewater for agricultural use.
■ Preventing leakages from dams and canals.
■ Preventing loss in Municipal pipes.
■ Effective rainwater harvesting in urban environments.
Dams:

■ Today there are more than 45,000 large dams around the world, which
play an important role in communities and economies that harness these
water resources for their economic development.
■ Hydropower is another contender for the use of stored water.
Dams problems:

■ Fragmentation and physical transformation of rivers.

■ Serious impacts on riverine ecosystems.
■ Social consequences of large dams due to displacement of people.
■ Water logging and salinization of surrounding lands.
■ Dislodging animal populations, damaging their habitat and cutting off
their migration routes.
■ Fishing and travel by boat disrupted.
c) Mineral Resources
Mineral Resources refers to mining and Mining refers to process of taking
out minerals (Metal and non-Metals) from earth in the form of ores.
■ Mining operations generally progress through four stages:
(1) Prospecting: Searching for minerals.
(2) Exploration: Assessing the size, shape, location, and economic value of
the deposit.
(3) Development: Work of preparing access to the deposit so that the
minerals can be extracted from it.
(4) Exploitation: Extracting the minerals from the mines.
Mine safety:

■ Mining is a hazardous occupation, and the safety of mine workers is an

important environmental consideration of the industry.
■ Dust produced during mining operations is injurious to health
■ Fumes generated by incomplete dynamite explosions are extremely
poisonous.
■ Radiation is a hazard in uranium mines.
Environmental problems:

■ Mining operations are considered one of the main sources of

environmental degradation. The extraction of all these products from
the lithosphere has a variety of side effects.
■ Depletion of available land due to mining, waste from industries,
conversion of land to industry and pollution of land, water and air by
industrial wastes, are environmental side effects of the use of these non-
renewable resources.
d) Food resources

■ Today our food comes almost entirely from agriculture, animal

husbandry and fishing.
■ Although India is self-sufficient in food production, it is only because of
modern patterns of agriculture that are unsustainable, and which
pollute our environment with excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides.
World food problems:
■ In many developing countries where populations are expanding rapidly,
the production of food is unable to keep pace with the growing
demand.
■ Our fertile soils are being exploited faster than they can recuperate.
■ Forests, grasslands and wetlands have been converted to agricultural
use, which has led to serious ecological questions.
■ Our fish resources, both marine and inland, show evidence of
exhaustion.
■ There are great disparities in the availability of nutritious food. Some
communities such as tribal people still face serious food problems
leading to malnutrition especially among women and children.
World food problems:

■ In India there is a shortage of cultivable productive land. Thus, farm sizes

are too small to support a family on farm produce alone. With each
generation, farms are being subdivided further.
■ Poor environmental agricultural practices such as slash and burn,
shifting cultivation, or wood ash cultivation degrade forests.
■ Loss of genetic diversity in crop plants is another issue that is leading to
a fall in agricultural produce.
Food Security:
■ It is estimated that 18 million people worldwide, most of whom are
children, die each year due to starvation or malnutrition, and many
others suffer a variety of dietary deficiencies.
■ Food security is closely linked with population control through the family
welfare program. It is also linked to the availability of water for farming.
■ Food security is only possible if food is equitably distributed to all.
■ ‘Dumping’ of underpriced foodstuffs produced in the developed world,
onto markets in undeveloped countries undermines prices and forces
farmers there to adopt unsustainable practices to compete.
Alternate food sources:
■ Food can be innovatively produced if we break out of the current
agricultural patterns.
■ This includes working on new avenues to produce food, such as using
forests for their multiple non-wood forest products, which can be used
for food if harvested sustainably.
■ This includes fruit, mushrooms, sap, gum, etc. This takes time, as people
must develop a taste for these new foods.
 Energy resources:

■ Energy is defined by physicists as the capacity to do work.

■ Energy is found on our planet in a variety of forms, some of which are
immediately useful to do work, while others require a process of
transformation.
Energy resources:
■ The sun is the primary energy source in our lives.
■ We use it directly for its warmth and through various natural
processes that provide us with food, water, fuel and shelter.
■ The sun’s rays power the growth of plants, which form our food
material, give off oxygen which we breathe in and take up carbon
dioxide that we breathe out.
■ Energy from the sun evaporates water from oceans, rivers and lakes,
to form clouds that turn into rain.
■ Today’s fossil fuels were once the forests that grew in prehistoric
times due to the energy of the sun.
Energy resources:
■ Chemical energy, contained in chemical compounds is released when
they are broken down by animals in the presence of oxygen.
■ In India, manual labor is still extensively used to get work done in
agricultural systems, and domestic animals used to pull carts and
ploughs.
■ Electrical energy produced in several ways, powers transport, artificial
lighting, agriculture and industry.
■ This comes from hydel power based on the water cycle that is
powered by the sun’s energy that supports evaporation, or from
thermal power stations powered by fossil fuels.
■ Nuclear energy is held in the nucleus of an atom and is now
harnessed to develop electrical energy.
Energy resources

■ We use energy for household use, agriculture, production of industrial

goods and for running transport.
■ Modern agriculture uses chemical fertilizers, which require large
amounts of energy during their manufacture.
■ Industry uses energy to power manufacturing units and the urban
complexes that support it.
■ Energy-demanding roads and railway lines are built to transport
products from place to place and to reach raw materials in mines and
forests.
Energy resources

■ No energy related technology is completely ‘risk free’ and unlimited

demands on energy increase this risk factor many fold.
■ All energy use creates heat and contributes to atmospheric
temperature.
■ Many forms of energy release carbon dioxide and lead to global
warming.
■ Nuclear energy plants have caused enormous losses to the
environment due to the leakage of nuclear material.
■ The inability to effectively manage and safely dispose of nuclear waste
is a serious global concern.
Energy resources

■ It is broadly accepted that long-term trends in energy use should be

towards a cleaner global energy system that is less carbon intensive
and less reliant on finite non-renewable energy sources.
■ It is estimated that the currently used methods of using renewable
energy and nonrenewable fossil fuel sources together will be
insufficient to meet foreseeable global demands for power generation
beyond the next 50 to 100 years.
Energy resources

■ Thus, when we use energy wastefully, we are contributing to a major

environmental disaster for our earth.
■ We all need to become responsible energy users.
■ An electrical light that is burning unnecessarily is a contributor to
environmental degradation.
Growing energy needs:

■ Energy has always been closely linked to man’s economic growth and
development. Present strategies for development that have focused
on rapid economic growth have used energy utilization as an index of
economic development. This index however, does not take into
account the long-term ill effects on society of excessive energy
utilization.
■ Electricity is at present the fastest growing form of end-use energy
worldwide.
Growing energy needs:

■ For almost 200 years, coal was the primary energy source fueling the
industrial revolution in the 19th century.
■ At the close of the 20th century, oil accounted for 39% of the world’s
commercial energy consumption, followed by coal (24%) and natural
gas (24%), while nuclear (7%) and hydro/renewables (6%) accounted
for the rest.
Growing energy needs:

■ In India, biomass (mainly wood and dung) accounts for almost 40% of
primary energy supply.
■ While coal continues to remain the dominant fuel for electricity
generation, nuclear power has been increasingly used since the
1970s and 1980s and the use of natural gas has increased rapidly in
the 80s and 90s.
Non renewable energy

■ To produce electricity from non-renewable resources the material

must be ignited.
■ The fuel is placed in a well contained area and set on fire.
■ The heat generated turns water to steam, which moves through pipes,
to turn the blades of a turbine.
■ This converts magnetism into electricity, which we use in various
appliances.
Non renewable energy

■ Non-Renewable Energy Sources: These consist of the mineral based

hydrocarbon fuels coal, oil and natural gas, that were formed from
ancient prehistoric forests.
■ These are called ‘fossil fuels’ because they are formed after plant life
is fossilized.
■ Oil and gas resources however are likely to be used up within the next
50 years.
Non renewable energy
■ When these fuels are burnt, they produce waste products that are
released into the atmosphere as gases such as carbon dioxide, oxides
of Sulphur, nitrogen, and carbon monoxide, all causes of air pollution.
■ These have led to lung problems in an enormous number of people all
over the world and have also affected buildings like the Taj Mahal and
killed many forests and lakes due to acid rain.
■ Many of these gases also act like a green house letting sunlight in and
trapping the heat inside.
■ This is leading to global warming, a raise in global temperature,
increased drought in some areas, floods in other regions, the melting
of icecaps, and a rise in sea levels, which is slowly submerging coastal
belts all over the world.
Renewable energy

■ Renewable energy systems use resources that are constantly replaced

and are usually less polluting.
■ Examples include hydropower, solar, wind, and geothermal (energy
from the heat inside the earth).
■ We also get renewable energy from burning trees and even garbage as
fuel and processing other plants into biofuels.
Renewable energy

■ One day, all our homes may get their energy from the sun or the wind.
■ Your car’s gas tank will use biofuel.
■ Your garbage might contribute to your city’s energy supply. Renewable
energy technologies will improve the efficiency and cost of energy
systems.
■ We may reach the point when we may no longer rely mostly on fossil
fuel energy
Use of alternate energy sources.

■ Hydroelectric Power:
■ This uses water flowing down a natural gradient to turn turbines to
generate electricity known as ‘hydroelectric power’ by constructing
dams across rivers.
■ Drawbacks: Although hydroelectric power has led to economic
progress around the world, it has created serious ecological problems.
Use of alternate energy sources.

■ Solar energy
■ Solar heating for homes
■ Solar water heating
■ Solar cookers
Solar Energy
Use of alternate energy sources.

■ Other Solar-Powered Devices:

■ Solar desalination systems (for converting saline or brackish water
into pure distilled water) have been developed.
■ In future, they should become important alternatives for man’s future
economic growth in areas where fresh water is not available.
Use of alternate energy sources.

■ Photovoltaic energy:
■ The solar technology which has the greatest potential for use
throughout the world is that of solar photovoltaic cells which directly
produce electricity from sunlight using photovoltaic (PV) (also called
solar) cells.
■ PV cells are commonly used today in calculators and watches.
Use of alternate energy sources.
■ PV cells do not release pollutants or toxic material to the air or water,
there is no radioactive substance, and no catastrophic accidents.
■ Some PV cells, however, do contain small quantities of toxic
substances such as cadmium and these can be released to the
environment in the event of a fire.
Use of alternate energy sources.

■ PV cells are made of silicon which, although the second most

abundant element in the earth’s crust, must be mined. Mining creates
environmental problems.
■ PV systems also only work when the sun is shining, and thus need
batteries to store the electricity
Use of alternate energy sources.

■ Biomass energy:
■ When a log is burned, we are using biomass energy.
■ Because plants and trees depend on sunlight to grow, biomass energy
is a form of stored solar energy.
■ Although wood is the largest source of biomass energy, we also use
agricultural waste, sugarcane wastes, and other farm byproducts to
make energy.
Biomass Energy – Biogas Plant
Use of alternate energy sources.
■ Biomass energy:
■ Biomass can be burned to produce heat and electricity, changed to a
gas-like fuel such as methane, or changed to a liquid fuel.
■ Because biomass can be changed directly into liquid fuel, it could
someday supply much of our transportation fuel needs for cars,
trucks, buses, airplanes and trains with diesel fuel replaced by
‘biodiesel’ made from vegetable oils.
■ Note that like any fuel, biomass creates some pollutants, including
carbon dioxide, when burned or converted into energy.
Use of alternate energy sources.

■ Biogas:
■ Biogas is produced from plant material and animal waste, garbage,
waste from households and some types of industrial wastes, such as
fish processing, dairies, and sewage treatment plants.
Use of alternate energy sources.

■ Biogas:
■ Biogas plants have become increasingly popular in India in the rural
sector.
■ The biogas plants use cow dung, which is converted into a gas which
is used as a fuel.
■ It is also used for running dual fuel engines.
■ The reduction in kitchen smoke by using biogas has reduced lung
conditions in thousands of homes.
Use of alternate energy sources.

■ Wind Power:
■ Wind was the earliest energy source used for transportation by sailing
ships.
■ Some 2000 years ago, windmills were developed in China,
Afghanistan and Persia to draw water for irrigation and grinding grain.
Most of the early work on generating electricity from wind was carried
out in Denmark, at the end of the last century.
Wind Power Energy
Use of alternate energy sources.

■ The power in wind is a function of the wind speed and therefore the
average wind speed of an area is an important determinant of
economically feasible power.
■ Wind speed increases with height.
■ At a given turbine site, the power available 30 meters above ground is
typically 60 percent greater than at 10 meters.
Use of alternate energy sources.

■ Wind power has few environmental impacts, as there are virtually no

air or water emissions, or radiation, or solid waste production.
■ The principal problems are bird kills, noise, effect on TV reception,
and aesthetic objections to the sheer number of wind turbines that
are required to meet electricity needs.
Use of alternate energy sources.

■ In 1938 two German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman

demonstrated nuclear fission.
■ They found they could split the nucleus of a uranium atom by
bombarding it with neutrons.
■ As the nucleus split, some mass was converted to energy.
Use of alternate energy sources.
■ Nuclear Power:
■ The nuclear reactors use Uranium 235 to produce electricity. Energy
released from 1kg of Uranium 235 is equivalent to that produced by
burning 3,000 tons of coal.
■ U235 is made into rods which are fitted into a nuclear reactor. The
control rods absorb neutrons and thus adjust the fission which
releases energy due to the chain reaction in a reactor unit.
■ The heat energy produced in the reaction is used to heat water and
produce steam, which drives turbines that produce electricity.
Use of alternate energy sources.

■ The disposal of nuclear waste is becoming an increasingly serious

issue.
■ The reaction releases very hot wastewater that damages aquatic
ecosystems, even though it is cooled by a water system before it is
released.