NATURAL

RESOURCES
 NATURAL RESOURCES
Renewable Resources Non-renewable Resources
Inexhaustible Limited
Can be regenerated Cannot be regenerated
e.g., Forests, e.g., Fossil Fuels like
Wildlife, Coal,
Wind Energy, Petroleum…
Bio-mass Energy, Minerals…
Tidal Energy,
Hydro Power…
Rate of Consumption >
Rate of Regeneration
MAJOR NATURAL RESOURCES
 Forest Resources
 Water Resources
 Mineral Resources
 Food Resources
 Energy Resources
 Land Resources
 FOREST
RESOURCES
 FOREST RESOURCES
 Covers earth like a green blanket…
 Produce innumerable goods…
 Provides several environmental services…
 1/3rd of the world’s land area is forested.
 Former USSR – 1/5th
Brazil – 1/7th
Canada – 6-7%
USA – 6-7%
USES OF FORESTS
Commercial Uses
 Timber  Rubber
 Fire wood  Fibers
 Pulp Wood –  Lac
 Food items  Bamboo Canes
 Gum  Fodder
 Resins
 Medicines…
 Non-edible Oils
USES OF FORESTS
Ecological Uses
 Production of Oxygen
 Reducing of Global Warming
 Wild Life Habitat
 Regulation of Hydrological Cycle
 Soil Conservation
 Pollution Moderators
OVER EXPLOITATION OF
FORESTS & DEFORESTATION
 Increased Population  Increased
requirements.
 Total forest area in 1900 – 7000 mha
1970 – 2890 mha
2000 – 2000 mha
 Deforestation rate is less in temperate
countries compared to tropical countries (40-
50%).
CAUSES OF DEFORESTATION
 Shifting Cultivation
 300 million people living as shifting cultivators.
 5 lakh ha of forests cleared annually.
 Fuel Requirements
 Increase in fuel wood requirement
o 1945 – 65 million tons
o 2001 – 300-500 million tons
 Raw Materials for Industrial Use
 wood for making boxes, furniture, railway sleepers, plywood…
 Pulp for paper industry.
 Development Projects
 Hydroelectric power projects, Big dams, Roads, Mining…
 Growing Food Needs
 Creation of agricultural land and settlements by clearing forests.
 Overgrazing
CONSEQUENCES OF
DEFORESTATION
 It threatens the existence of many wild life
species due to destruction of their natural
habitat.
 Biodiversity is lost and along with that
genetic diversity is eroded.
 Hydrological cycle gets affected, thereby
influencing rainfalls.
 Problems of soil erosion and loss of soil
fertility increases.
 In hilly areas it often leads to landslides.
CASE STUDY 1
 Desertification of Hilly regions of the
iHimalayas
Deforestation in Himalayas, involving clearance of
natural forests and plantations of monocultures
like Pinus Roxbhurgi, Eucalyptus Camadulenses
etc. have upset the ecosystem by changing the
various soil and biological properties. Nutrient
cycling has become poor, original germplasm is
lost and the area is invaded by exotic weeds.
These areas are not able to recover and are
losing their fertility. The entire west Khasi hill
district of Meghalaya in North-East Himalayas,
Ladakh and Parts of Kumaon and Garhwal are
now facing the serious problem of desertification.
CASE STUDY 2
 Disappearing Tea gardens in Chhota Nagpur
This hilly region used to be a good forested area
towards the turn of century and used to receive
fairly frequent afternoon showers favouring tea
plantations. Following the destruction of forests,
rainfall declined in chhota Nagpur to such an
extent that tea gardens also disappeared from
the region.
CASE STUDY 3
Waning rainfall in Udhagamandalam (Ooty)
The sub normal rainfall during 1965-1984 at Ooty
in Nilgiri Mountains has been found to be closely
associated with declining forest cover in this
region in the past 20 years. The rainfall pattern
was found to fluctuate with wooded land area in
the hills. When the NIlgiri mountains had
luxuriant forest cover annual rainfall used to be
much higher.
MAJOR ACTIITIES IN FORESTS

 Timber Extraction
 Mining
Effects of Timber Extraction
 poor logging results in degraded forests.
 soil erosion, especially on slopes.
 sedimentation of irrigation systems.
 loss biodiversity.
 climatic changes, such as lower precipitation.
 new logging roads permit shifting cultivators
and fuel wood gatherers to gain access to
logged areas.
 loss of non-timber products
 WATER
RESOURCES
 WORLD WATER DISTRIBUTION
Location Volume in % of
million cubic Total
km
Land Area
Fresh water Lakes 0.125 0.009
Saline lakes and inland seas 0.104 0.008
Rivers 1.25 × 10-3 0.0001
Soil moisture 0.067 0.005
Ground water 8.3 0.61
Glaciers and ice caps 29.2 2.14
Total land are water 37.0 2.8
Atmosphere 0.013 0.001
Oceans 1320 97.3
Total world water 1360 100
WATER USE AND OVER EXPLOITATION
 Increased Human Population + Rapid Development
→ Increased water withdrawal demands + Wastage
due to Pollution (anthropogenic activities)
 Globally, 70% of water withdrawn is used for
agriculture
 India – 93% water for agriculture sector
 Water Poor Countries – 4% for watering crops
 Global Industrial Usage – 25%
 Developed Countries – 70%
 Less Developed Countries – 5%
 Per Capita Usage of water - wide variations
 In USA an average family of 4 members consumes 1000M 3 of
water every year.`
Ground Water vs Surface Water
 Ground Water – Aquifers
 A layer of sediment or rock that is highly permeable
and contains water is called as an aquifer.
 Unconfined Aquifer – overlaid by permeable and
is rechargeable
 Confined Aquifer – sandwiched between two
impermeable layers of rock or sediments,
recharged only where aquifers intersects with the
land
 Surface Water – Streams, ponds, lakes…
Effects of Ground water Usage
 Subsidence
 when ground water withdrawal is more than its
recharge rate the sediments get compacted
 Results - Sinking of overlying land surface
- Structural damage to buildings
- Reversing the flow of sewers and
canals
 Lowering of Water Table

 Water Logging
Sustainable Water Management
 Building several small reservoirs instead of a
few mega projects
 Developing small catchment dams and
protecting wet lands
 Soil Management, and afforestation permits
recharging of underground aquifers, thus
reducing the need for big dams
 Treating and recycling municipal waste water
for agricultural use
 Preventing leakages from dams and canals
 Preventing loss in municipal pipes
 Effective rain water harvesting in urban
environment
 Water conservation measures in agriculture,
such as using drip irrigation
 Implementing methods to retain moisture and
re-vegetate the degraded areas
 MINERAL
RESOURCES
Mineral Resources
 Minerals – Naturally occurring, inorganic,
crystalline solids having definite chemical
composition and characteristic physical
properties
 e.g., Quartz, Feldspar, Biotite, Dolomite,
Calcite, Leterite…
 Composed of elements like silicon, oxygen
iron, magnesium, calcium, aluminum…
Uses and Exploitation
Development of industrial plants and machinery
Generation of energy – Coal, Liginite, Uranium
Construction, Housing and other Settlements
Transportation means
Communication – Telephone wires, cables,
Electronic devices
Medicinal uses
Formation of alloys
Agriculture – as fertilizers, seed dressings,
fungicides…
Jewellery
MINERALS
 Non-Metallic Minerals
graphite, diamond, quartz, feldspar…
 Metallic Minerals
Bauxite, Laterite, Hematite…
 Critical Minerals – essential for the economy of
a nation e.g., iron, aluminum, copper, gold…
 Strategic Minerals – required for the defence
of the country e.g., Manganese, Cobalt,
Platinum, Chromium…
Impacts of Mining
 Devegetation and Defacing of Landscape
 Subsidence of Land
 Ground water Contamination
 Surface water Pollution
 Air Pollution
 Occupational Health Hazards
Indian Scenario
 Jaduguda Uranium Mine, Jharkhand – exposing
local people to radio active hazards.
 Jharia Coal Mines, Jharkhand – underlying fire
leading to land subsidence and forced displacement of
people.
 Sukinda Chromite Mines, Orissa – Seeping of Cr6++
into river posing serious health hazard, Cr6++ being
highly toxic and carcinogenic.
 Kudremukh Iron Ore Mine, Karnataka – causing
river pollution and threat to biodiversity.
 East Coast Bauxite Mine, Orissa – Land
encroachment and issue of rehabilitation unsettled.
 North-Eastern Coal Fields, Assam – very high sulfur
contamination of groundwater.
Remedial Measures
It is desirable to adopt eco-friendly mining
technology.
The low grade ores can be better utilized by
using microbial leaching technique.
Thiobacillus ferroxidans has been successfully
and economically used for extracting gold
embedded in iron sulfide ores
Restoration of mined areas by re-vegetating
them with appropriate plant species.
 FOOD
RESOURCES
Food Resources
The main food resources – wheat, rice, maize,
barley, oats, pulses, sugarcane, other fruits and
vegetables, meat milk…
The FAO estimation – minimum calorific intake
on a global scale is 2,500 calories/day.
Undernourished - < 90% of min requirement
seriously under nourished - < 80%
Deficiency or lack of nutrition malnutrition
World Food Problems
Last 50 years
world grain production increased three
times  increase in per capita production by
about 50%
 population growth (mostly in less developed
countries)
Every year 40 million people die of under
nourishment and malnutrition
INDIAN SCENARIO
3rd largest producer of staple crops
300 million Indians are under nourished
Overgrazing
 Livestock wealth plays a crucial role in the rural life of
our country
 India leads in livestock population
 The huge population of live stock needs to be fed and
the grazing land or the pastures areas are not
adequate
 Livestock grazing on a particular piece of grass land
or pasture surpass the carry capacity
 Carrying capacity of any system is the maximum
population that can be supported by it on a
sustainable basis
However, most often, the grazing pressure is so high
that its carrying capacity is crossed and the
sustainability of the grazing land fails
Impacts of Overgrazing
 Land Degradation
 Overgrazing removes the vegetal cover over the soil and
the exposed soil gets compacted due to which the operative
soil depth declines
• Roots cannot go deep into the soil
• Adequate soil moisture is not available
 Organic recycling also declines in the ecosystem
Because → not enough detritus or litter remains on the soil to be
decomposed
 The humus content of the soil decreases and overgrazing
leads to organically poor, dry, compacted soil
 Due trampling by cattle the soil loses infiltration capacity,
which reduces percolation of water into the soil and as a
result of this more water gets lost from the ecosystem along
with surface runoff
Thus overgrazing leads to multiple actions resulting in
loss of soil structure, hydraulic conductivity and soil
fertility
Impacts of Overgrazing
 Soil Erosion
 Due to overgrazing by cattle, the cover of
vegetation almost gets removed from the land
 The soil becomes exposed and gets eroded by the
action of strong wind, rainfall etc…
 The grass roots are very good binders of soil
 When the grasses are removed, the soil becomes
loose and susceptible to the action of wind and
water
Impacts of Overgrazing
 Loss of useful species
 Overgrazing adversely affects the composition of plant
population and their regeneration capacity
 The original grassland consists of good quality grasses and
forbs with high nutritive value
 Heavy grazing – root stocks which carry the reserve food for
regeneration gets destroyed
 Replacement by secondary species
 The secondary species are hardier and are less nutritive in
nature
 Ultimately the nutritious, juicy fodder giving species like
Cenchrus, Dicanthium, Pancium and Heteropogon etc… are
replaced by unpalatable and sometimes thorny plants like
Parthenium, Lantana, Xanthium etc…These species do not
have a good capacity of binding the soil particles and,
therefore, the soil becomes more prone to soil erosion
Thus overgrazing makes the grazing land lose its regeneration
capacity and once good quality pasture land gets converted into
an ecosystem with poor quality thorny vegetation
Agriculture

 Slash and burn cultivation or shifting

cultivation
Modern agriculture

The types of agriculture are very different in their

process and their outputs in terms of yield as
well as their impacts on the environment
Traditional Agriculture and its Impacts
 It usually involves a small plot, simple tools, naturally
available water, organic fertilizers and a mix of crops
 It is more near to natural conditions and usually it
results in low production
The main Impacts of this type of agriculture are
 Deforestation
The slash and burn of trees in forests to clear the land for
cultivation and frequent shifting results in loss of forest cover
 Soil Erosion
Clearing of forest cover exposes the soil to wind, rain and
storms, thereby resulting in loss of top fertile layer of soil
 Depletion of Nutrients
During slash and burn the organic matter in the soil gets
destroyed and most of the nutrients are taken up by the
crops within the short period, thus making the soil nutrient
poor which makes the cultivator to shift to new area
Modern Agriculture and its Impacts
 It makes use of hybrid seeds of selected single crop
variety, high-tech equipments and lots of energy
subsidies in the form of fertilizers, pesticides and
irrigation water
 The food production has increased tremendously,
evidenced by the “green revolution”
The Impacts
 Impacts related to high yielding varieties
 Fertilizer related problems
 Pesticide related problems
 Water logging
 Salinity problems
Impacts related to high yielding varieties
 The use f high yielding varieties encourage
monoculture
 In case of an attack by some pathogen, there is
total devastation of the crop by the disease due
to exactly uniform conditions, which help in
rapid spread of disease
Fertilizer related problems
 Micronutrient Imbalance
Most of the chemical fertilizers used in modern agriculture have
nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium which are essential
macronutrients
Farmers use these indiscriminately to boost up crop growth.
 Nitrate Pollution
Nitrogenous fertilizers applied in the fields often leach deep into
soil and ultimately contaminate the ground water
The nitrates get concentrated in the water and when their
concentration exceeds 25 mg/L, they become the cause of a
serious health hazard called “Blue Baby syndrome”
 Eutrophication
Eutrophication means Over Nourishment
Due to eutrophication lakes get invaded by algal blooms; these
algae grows very fast by rapidly using up the nutrients, they
often are toxic and badly affect the food chain
Pesticide related problems
 Creating resistance in pests and producing new pests
Some individuals of the pest species usually survive
even after pesticide spray
The survivors give rise to highly resistant generations
About 20 species of pests are now known which have
become immune to all types of pesticides an are
known as “super pests”
 Death of non-target organisms
Many insecticides are broad spectrum poisons which not
only kill the target species but also several non-target
species which are useful to us
 Biological magnification
Many of the pesticides are not biodegradable and keep
on accumulating in the food chain, this process is
called as biomagnification
Water logging
 Over irrigation of croplands by farmers for good
growth of their crop usually leads to water logging
 Inadequate drainage causes excess water to
accumulate underground and gradually forms a
continuous column with the water table
 Under water logged conditions, pore spaces in the soil
get fully drenched with water and the soil-air gets
depleted
 The water table rises while the roots of the plant do
not get adequate air for respiration
 Mechanical strength of the soil declines, crop plants
get lodged and crop yield fails
Preventing excessive irrigation, sub-surface drainage
technology and bio-drainage with trees like Eucalyptus
are some of the remedial measures to prevent water
logging
Salinity Problems
 At present ⅓rd of the total cultivable land area
of the world is affected by salts
 In India about 7 million Hectares of land are
estimated to be salt affected
 Saline soils are characterized by the
accumulation of soluble salts like sodium
chloride, sodium sulphate, calcium chloride,
magnesium chloride…
The most common method for getting rid of salts
is to flush them out by applying more good
quality water to such soils. Another method is
laying under ground network of perforated
drainage pipes for flushing out the salts slowly
 ENERGY
RESOURCES
Energy Resources
 Energy consumption is considered as an index
of its development
 The first form of energy known was FIRE
 Wind and Hydropower have been in use for the
last 10,000 years
 The invention of steam engines replaced the
burning of wood by coal and coal was later
replaced to a great extent by oil.
In 1970’s due to Iranian revolution and Arab oil
embargo the prices of oil shoot up, leading to
exploration and use of several alternate
sources of energy
Growing Energy Needs

Per capita energy use and GNP

(Data from World Resources Institute, 1997)
Energy Sources
A source of energy is one that can provide adequate
amount of energy in a usable form over a long period
of time
These sources are of two types:
 Renewable Resources – which can be generated
continuously in nature and are inexhaustible
(also called as non-conventional energy sources)
e.g., wood, solar energy, wind energy, tidal energy, hydro
power, bio-mass energy, bio-fuels, geo-thermal energy and
hydrogen
 Non-renewable Resources – which have
accumulated in nature over a long span of time and
cannot be quickly replenished when exhausted.
e.g., coal, petroleum, natural gas and nuclear fuels like
uranium thorium…
Solar Energy
 Sun is the ultimate source of energy.
 The nuclear fusion reaction taking place inside the sun
release enormous quantities of energy in the form of
heat and light
 The solar energy received by the near earth space is
approx. 1.4kJ/m2-s (solar constant)
 Traditional uses – drying clothes and food grains,
preservation eatables, for obtaining salt from sea-
water…
 Techniques for harnessing Solar energy
→ Solar Heat Collectors → Solar Cells
→ Solar Cookers → Solar Water Heaters
→ Solar Furnaces → Solar Power Plants
Solar Heat Collectors
 These can be passive or active in nature
 Passive heat collectors are natural
materials like stones, bricks…which
absorb heat during day time and release it
slowly at night
 Active solar collectors pump a heat
absorbing medium (air or water) through a
small collector which is normally placed at
top of the building
They are also known as Solar Cell
photovoltaic cells
Solar cells are made of
thin wafers of semi-
conducting materials like
silicon or gallium
When solar radiations fall on them, a potential
difference is produced which causes the flow of
electrons and produces electricity
The potential difference produced by a single
PV cell of 4 cm2 size is about 0.4-0.5 volts and a
current of 60 mA is produced
A solar pump run by electricity
produced by solar cells
Simple box type solar cooker
Solar cookers make use
of solar heat by reflecting
the solar radiations using a
mirror directly on to a glass
sheet which covers the
black insulated box within
which the raw food is kept.
The food cooked in a
solar cooker is more
nutritious due to slow
It has limitation that it
heating
cannot be used at night
Solar Water Heater
 It consists of an insulated box painted black from inside
and having a glass lid to receive and store solar heat
 Inside the box it has black painted copper coil through
which cold water is made to flow in, which gets heated
and flows out into storage tank.
Solar Furnace
 Thousands of plane mirrors are arranged in concave
reflectors, all of which collect the solar heat and
produce a high temperature.
Solar Power Plants
 Solar energy is harnessed on a large scale by using
concave reflectors which cause boiling of water to
produce steam; the steam turbine drives a generator to
produce electricity
Wind Energy
 The high energy winds have lot
of energy in them as kinetic
energy due to their motion
 The driving force of winds is sun
 The wind energy is harnessed
by making use of wind mills
 The blades of the wind mill keep
on rotating continuously due to
the force of the striking wind
 the rotational motion of the
blades drives a number of
machines like water pumps, flour
mills and electricity generators
 A large number of wind
mills installed in clusters
are called wind farms, and
feed power to the utility
grid and produce a large
amount of electricity
 The minimum wind speed
required for satisfactory
working of a wind
generator is 15km/hr
 Wind energy is very useful
as it does not cause any air
pollution; after initial
installation cost, the wind
energy is very cheap
Hydro Power
 Water enters the plant when an intake gate is opened,
and moves through the penstock. Gravity and a
narrowing scroll case increase the pressure of the
water as it enters the turbine. Water exits the turbine
and is returned to the river. The turbine spins a rotor
directly above it, and electricity produced by the
interaction of rotor and stator is transmitted through a
transformer at the station and thence to the grid.

 Hydro power does not cause any pollution, it is

renewable and normally the hydro power projects are
multi purpose projects helping in controlling floods,
used for irrigation, navigation etc.
Tidal Energy
 Ocean tides are produced by gravitational
forces of sun and moo, and contain enormous
amount of energy.
 The tidal energy can be harnesses by
constructing tidal barrage
High Tide Low Tide
Ocean Thermal Energy
 The energy available due to the difference in
temperature of water at the surface of the
tropical oceans and at deeper levels is called
ocean thermal energy
 A difference of 20˚C or more is required
between surface water and deeper water of
ocean for operating Ocean Thermal Energy
Conservation power plants
 The warm surface water of ocean is used to
boil a liquid like ammonia, the high pressure
vapors of the liquid are then used to turn
turbine of a generator and produce electricity
Geothermal Energy
 The energy harnessed from the hot rocks
present inside the earth is called geothermal
energy
 High temperature, high pressure steam fields
exist below the earth’s surface in many places,
this heat comes from the fission of the
radioactive material naturally present in the
rocks
 Holes are drilled artificially upto the hot rocks
and and pipes are put through which the steam
gushes out at high pressure which turns the
turbine of a generator to produce electricity
Bio-mass Energy
 Bio-mass is the organic matter produced by the
plants or animals which include wood, crop
residues, cattle dung, manure, sewage…
 The bio-mass is directly used as a fuel but the
efficiency of such furnaces is very low and it
produces lot of smoke causing air pollution
 It is therefore more useful to convert the bio-
mass into bio-gas or bio-fuels
Bio-gas
 Bio-gas is mixture of methane, carbon dioxide,
hydrogen and hydrogen sulfide, the major constituent
being methane
 Bio-gas is produced by anaerobic degradation of
animal wastes in presence of water
 Bio-gas is non-polluting, clean and low cost fuel
 No storage problems (direct supply from plant)
 The sludge left over is a rich fertilizer containing
bacterial biomass with most of the nutrients preserved
as such
 Bio-gas plants in our country are basically two types:
1. Floating gas holder type
2. Fixed dome type
Floating gas holder type bio-gas plant
Fixed gas holder type bio-gas plant
Bio-Fuels
 Bio-mass can be fermented to alcohols like
ethanol and methanol which can be used as
fuels.
 Ethanol can be easily produced from
carbohydrate rich substances like sugarcane, it
burns clean and is non-polluting.
 Gasohol is a mixture of ethanol and gasoline
 Methanol is very useful as it burns at a lower
temperature than gasoline or diesel
Hydrogen as a Fuel
 As hydrogen burns in air it forms water
liberates a large amount of energy(150 kJ/gm)
 Due to its high calorific value, hydrogen can
serve as an excellent fuel; moreover, its non-
polluting and can be easily produced
 Production of hydrogen is possible by thermal
dissociation (at 3000 ˚K or above), photolysis
dissociation (breakdown of water in presence of
sunlight) or electrolysis of water (passing
electric current)
 Hydrogen is highly inflammable and explosive
in nature
Nuclear Fission
Nuclear Fusion
 LAND
RESOURCES
Land as a resource
 Land is a finite and valuable resource
upon which we depend for the basic
amenities of life
 Soil is classified as a renewable resource
 The rate of regeneration of soil is very
slow, about 200-1000 years are needed
for the formation of 1” of soil, depending
on the climate and soil type.
Land degradation
 With increasing population growth the demand
for arable land for producing food, fiber and fuel
wood are also increasing
 more and more pressure on the limited land
resource; degraded due to over exploitation
 Soil degradation is a real cause of alarm
because soil formation is an extremely slow
process
 Soil erosion, water-logging, salinization and
contamination of the soil with the various
industrial wastes … cause land degradation
Soil Erosion
 Soil erosion means wearing away of the soil; defined
as movement of soil components, especially surface
litter and top soil from one place to another
 Soil erosion results in loss of fertility because it is the
top soil layer that is fertile
Types
Normal erosion or geologic erosion
gradual removal of top soil by natural processes which
bring an equilibrium between physical, biological and
hydrological activities and maintain a natural balance
between erosion and renewal
Accelerated erosion
caused by anthropogenic activities; the rate of erosion is
much faster than the rate of formation of soil; Overgrazing,
deforestation, mining accelerated erosion
Agents causing soil erosion
Climatic Agents
Water and wind are the climatic agents of the soil erosion. Water
effects soil erosion in the form of torrential rains, rapid flow of
water along slopes, run-off, wave action and melting and
movement of snow
Wind affects soil erosion in the form of saltation (vertical
movement of soil under the influence of direct pressure of
stormy winds), suspension and surface creep
Biotic Agents
Excessive grazing, mining and deforestation are the major biotic
agents responsible for soil erosion
Due to these processes the top soil is disturbed or rendered
devoid of vegetal cover
Soil Conservation Practices
1. Conservational till farming
3. Contour farming
5. Terracing
7. Strip Cropping
9. Alley Cropping
Conservation till farming
 Special tillers are used to break up and
loosen the subsurface soil without turning
up the top soil
 The tilling machine make slits in the un-
ploughed soil and injects seeds,
fertilizers, herbicides and a little water in
the slit, so that the seed germinates and
the crop grows.
Contour Farming

 Growing of crops in rows across, rather

than up and down is called as contour
farming
 Each row planted horizontally along the
slope of the land acts as a small dam to
help hold soil and slow down loss of soil
through run-off water
Terracing
Strip cropping
Shelter Belt
Land Slides
 Various anthropogenic activities like hydro-electric
projects, large dams, reservoirs, construction of
roads and railway lines, construction of buildings,
mining … are responsible for clearance of large
forested areas.
 During the construction of roads, mining activities
etc., huge portions of fragile mountainous areas
are cut or destroyed by dynamite and thrown into
adjacent valleys and streams. These activities
weaken the already fragile mountain slopes and
lead to land slides
 They also increase the turbidity of various nearby
streams thereby reducing their productivity
Desertification
 Desertification is a process whereby the
productive potential of a rid and semi-arid land
falls by 10% or more
 Moderate desertification – 10-25% drop
 Severe desertification – 25-50% drop
 Very Severe desertification – >50% drop
 Desertification is characterized by devegetation
and loss of vegetal cover, depletion of ground,
salinization ans severe soil erosion
Causes
→ Deforestation, Overgrazing, Mining…
Conservation of Natural Resources
- Role of an individual
Equitable use of Resources for
Sustainable Lifestyle