1. Resources and Development

• Everything available in our environment, which can be used to satisfy our needs, provided it is technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally acceptable can be termed as a resource.
• Wind, water, sunlight, etc. are renewable resources.
• Non-renewable resources include recyclable substances like metals and non-recyclable materials like fossil fuels.
• Results of indiscriminate use of resources are:

  • depletion of resources
  • concentration of resources in few hands
  • global ecological crises such as global warming, ozone layer depletion, pollution, etc.
• Sustainable economic development means that development should take place without causing damage to the environment and developmentin the present should not compromise with the needs of the future generations.
• The Rio de Janeiro earth summit was convened in 1992 for addressing urgent problems of environmental protection and social economic development at the global level.
• Agenda 21 is the declaration signed by the world leaders in 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, which took place at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
• Agenda 21 aims to combat environmental change, poverty, disease through global cooperation on common interest, mutual needs, and shared responsibilities.
• Resource planning is necessary for the conservation of resources and to maintain the balance in distribution of resources.
• Resources can contribute to development only when they are accompanied by appropriate technological development and institutional changes.
• Gandhiji was very apt in voicing his concern about resource conservation in these words: "There is enough for everybody's need and not for everybody's greed."
• Gandhiji placed he greedy and selfish industries and exploitative nature of modern technology as the root cause for resource depletion at the global level. He was against mass production and wanted to replace it with the production by masses.
• India has land under a variety of relief features; namely mountains, plateaus, plains and islands.
• About 43% of the land area in India is plain, mountains account for 30% and plateaus account for 27% of the total surface area of the country.
• In India land resources are used for the following purposes:

  • Forest
  • Land not available for cultivation like barren and wasteland, and land put to non agricultural uses.
  • Other uncultivated land (padtures, culturable waste land)
  • Fallow land, which include current fallow (left without cultivation for one or less than 1 agricultural year) and other than current fallow (left uncultivated for the past 1-5 years.)
  • Net sown area.
• The physical extent of land on which crops are sown & harvested is known as net sown area.
• Area sown more than once in an agricultural year, plus net sown area is known as gross cropped area.
• Land use pattern is determined by physical factors such as topography, climate, soil types and human factors such as population density, technological capacity, culture, etc
• Total geographical area of india is 3.28 million sq km.
• Activities like overgracing, deforestation, mining and quarrying have contributed significantly in land degradation.
• Afforestation, proper management and control of grazing, planting shelter belts of plants, stabilization of sand dunes by growing throny bushes, proper management of wasteland, control of mining activities, proper discharge of industrial effluents and wastes can reduce land and water degradation
• Soil is the most important renewable resource.
• Alluvial soil is the most widely spread and important soil. It contains various proportions of sand salt and salt and clay.
• According to the rage, alluvial soils can be classified as old alluvial (bhangar) and new alluvial (khadar). Khadar is finer and more fertile than bhangar.
• Alluvial soils contain adequate proportion of potash, phosphoric acid and lime.
• alluvial soil is ideal for the growth of sugar cane, paddy, wheat and other cereals and pulses.