Introduction

• Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications.
• Natural resources have commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest, and cultural value.
• Natural Resources include: Sunlight, Air (Atmosphere), Water, Land, Minerals, Vegetation, and Wildlife.
• Natural Resources can be classified based on their source of origin, stages of development, renewability, and ownership.
• Biotic resources are those that originate from the biosphere and have life, such as flora and fauna, fisheries, livestock, etc.
• Abiotic resources originate from non-living and inorganic material, including land, water, air, rare-earth elements, and heavy metals (ores, such as gold, iron, copper, silver, etc.).
• Fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum are also included in the category of biotic resources, as they are formed from decayed organic matter.
• Potential resources are those that are known to exist but not been utilized yet, such as petroleum in sedimentary rocks.
• Actual resources are those that are quantified and currently being used, such as wood processing.
• Reserves are part of an Actual Resource that can be developed profitably in the future.
• Stocks are resources that are surveyed, but cannot be used due to lack of technology, such as hydrogen vehicles.
• Renewable Resources are those that are replenished naturally and can be used at a certain rate, such as solar energy, air, wind, water, etc.
• Non-renewable resources cannot be renewed easily and are used at a certain rate, such as minerals.
• Resources are non-renewable when their rate of consumption exceeds the rate of replenishment/recovery, such as fossil fuels.
• Individual resources are those owned by individuals.
• Community resources are accessible to all the members of a community.
• National resources belong to the nation, such as minerals, forests, wildlife.
• International resources are regulated by international organizations, such as international waters.
• Air is the Earth's atmosphere, a mixture of many gases and tiny dust particles, and is the gas in which living things live and breathe.
• The weight of air creates atmospheric pressure.
• The atmosphere is a mixture of about 78% nitrogen, 21% of oxygen, and 1% other gases, such as Carbon Dioxide.
• Air can be polluted by carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, smoke, and ash, causing smog, acid rain and global warming, and damaging health.
• Air has been used to create technology, with ships moving with sails and windmills using the mechanical motion of air, and aircraft using propellers to move air over a wing.
• Pneumatics use air pressure to move things.
• Air power is also used to generate electricity.
• Soil is considered as an ecosystem, medium for plant growth, acts as an engineering medium, habitat for soil organisms, belonging to thousands of species, and recycling system for nutrients and organic wastes.
• Water exists as a solid, liquid, and gas.
• Water is transparent, tasteless, odorless and colorless inorganic compound (H2O).
• Sunlight is scattered and filtered through Earth's atmosphere, with a global average of 164 watts to 340 watts per square meter over a 24-hour day.
• Sunlight takes about 8.3 minutes to reach Earth from the surface of the Sun.
• Soil is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life.
• Land makes up 29% of Earth's surface.
• The land surface is covered by regolith, a layer of rock, soil, and minerals.
• Land terrain consists of mountains, deserts, plains, plateaus, glaciers etc.
• Sunlight is a portion of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun, in particular infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light.
• Water covers 71% of the Earth's surface, with seas and oceans making up 96.5%, groundwater making up 1.7%, glaciers and the ice caps making up 1.7%, and air as vapor, clouds and precipitation making up 0.001%.
• Rock is any bulk solid geologic material consisting of one type of mineral, or may be an aggregate of two or more different types of minerals.
• The ultraviolet radiation in sunlight has both positive and negative health effects, it is both a requisite for vitamin D3 synthesis and a mutagen.
• Soil is formed under the influence of climate, terrain, organisms, and parent materials, in thousands of years.
• Land is the solid terrestrial surface not submerged by ocean or water body.