Resources and Development

1What Is a Resource?

Look around your own house. A table is wood. A phone is metal, glass and plastic.
Even the water in your tap is a resource. But not everything around us is a resource
in the way geographers use the word.

Notice the three conditions in that definition. Oil under the ground, for
example, becomes a resource only once people have the technology to extract it and
a use for it. This is why the chapter says something that surprises most students
on first reading:

1.1 How Resources Are Classified

The same resource can be classified in four completely different ways, depending on
which question you are asking about it. Learn each base together with its two or
more categories as one unit.

2Development of Resources, and Sustainable Development

It was believed that resources are free gifts of nature. Because of this belief, humans used resources indiscriminately, and
three connected problems appeared:

An equitable distribution of resources has become essential for a sustained
quality of life and global peace. If the present trend of resource depletion by a
few individuals and countries continues, the future of our planet is in danger.
Therefore, resource planning is essential for the sustainable existence of all
forms of life, and sustainable existence is a component of sustainable
development.

The response to this chain of problems is the idea of sustainable development.

Gandhiji blamed greedy, selfish individuals and the exploitative nature of modern
technology for resource depletion at the global level. He was against mass
production, and wanted production done by the masses instead.

3Resource Planning

Planning is the widely accepted strategy for the judicious (wise) use of resources.
It matters even more in a country like India, which has enormous diversity in the
availability of resources. Some regions are rich in one type of resource but
deficient in another; some are self-sufficient overall; some have an acute
shortage of vital resources.

This is exactly why India needs balanced resource planning at the national, state,
regional and local levels.

3.1 Resource Planning in India: the Three Steps

India has made concerted efforts towards these goals since the First Five Year
Plan, launched right after Independence.

The history of colonisation shows this clearly. Resource-rich colonies were the
main attraction for foreign invaders, and it was the coloniser’s higher level of
technological development, not the resources alone, that let them exploit those
colonies and establish supremacy over them. India experienced this in different
phases of colonisation, which is why resource development in India depends not just
on the resources available but also on technology, the quality of human resources,
and historical experience.

4Conservation of Resources

Resources are vital for any developmental activity, but irrational consumption and
over-utilisation can create serious social, economic and environmental problems.
Conserving resources at every level, from a single household to the whole planet,
has been a concern of leaders and thinkers for a long time (see the timeline in
Section 2 above: Club of Rome, Schumacher, the Brundtland Commission and the Rio
Earth Summit are all part of this same conservation story).

5Land Resources

We live on land, we carry out our economic activities on land, and we use it in
many different ways: it supports natural vegetation, wildlife, human life,
economic activity, and transport and communication systems. But land is an asset of
a finite magnitude, and India cannot make more of it, so using the available
land carefully and with planning matters.

India’s land comes under a variety of relief features: mountains, plateaus,
plains and islands. About 43% of the land area is plain, mountains account for 30%
of the total surface area, and about 27% of the area is plateau. Each serves a
different purpose:

Plains provide facilities for agriculture and industry. Mountains ensure the
perennial flow of some rivers and provide facilities for tourism, along with
ecological benefits. The plateau region possesses rich reserves of minerals,
fossil fuels and forests.

6Land Utilisation

Land resources in India are used for five broad purposes, each with its own
sub-categories.

7Land Use Pattern in India

How land gets used depends on physical factors, such as topography, climate and
soil type, and on human factors, such as population density, technological
capability, culture and tradition.

Land-use data is missing for the other 7% of the area because most north-eastern
states except Assam have not completed their land-use reporting, and some areas of
Jammu and Kashmir occupied by Pakistan and China have also not been surveyed.

Comparing the two pie charts of Fig. 1.4 (1960-61 and 2019-20), the net sown area
and the land under forests have changed only marginally. The land under permanent
pasture has also decreased. Most of the “other than current fallow” lands are
either of poor quality or the cost of cultivating them is very high, so they are
cultivated only once or twice in about two to three years. The livelihood of
millions of people who live on the fringes of forests depends on the forests. A
part of the land is termed waste land: waste land includes rocky, arid and desert
areas, while land put to other non-agricultural uses includes settlements,
roads, railways, industry, etc.

The share of net sown area varies hugely between states:

8Land Degradation and Conservation Measures

We have shared our land with past generations and will share it with future ones
too. About 95% of our basic needs for food, shelter and clothing come from land.
Human activities have not only degraded land directly, but have also sped up the
natural forces that damage it.

Some human activities such as deforestation, overgrazing, mining and
quarrying have contributed significantly to land degradation. The cause
named by the chapter is different in different states, so learn each cause
with its states.

Mineral processing (grinding limestone for cement, or calcite and soapstone for
ceramics) throws huge amounts of dust into the atmosphere, which settles on land
and retards the infiltration of water into the soil. In recent years, industrial
effluents as waste have become a major source of land and water pollution in many
parts of the country.

9Soil as a Resource

Soil is the most important natural resource. It is the medium of plant growth
and supports different types of living organisms on the earth. Soil is a living
system: it takes millions of years to form soil up to a few centimetres in depth.
Relief, parent rock or bed rock, climate, vegetation and other forms of life, and
time are important factors in the formation of soil, and natural
forces such as temperature change, running water, wind, glaciers and decomposer
organisms keep contributing to it. Soil is made of both organic material
(humus) and inorganic material.

10Classification of Soils

India’s varied relief, climate and vegetation have produced several distinct
types of soil, classified by their formation, colour, thickness, texture, age and
chemical and physical properties.

10.1 Alluvial Soils

This is the most widespread and important soil in India. The entire northern
plains are made of it. It is deposited by three great Himalayan river systems:
the Indus, the Ganga and the Brahmaputra. It also extends through a narrow
corridor into Rajasthan and Gujarat, and appears in the eastern coastal deltas of
the Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri rivers.

Alluvial soil contains sand, silt and clay in various proportions. Moving
inland towards the river valleys, the soil particles become somewhat bigger; in the
upper reaches of a valley, near the break of slope, the soils are coarse. Such
coarse soils are common in piedmont plains such as the Duars, Chos and
Terai.

Alluvial soil is rich in potash, phosphoric acid and lime, making it ideal for
sugarcane, paddy, wheat and other cereal and pulse crops. Because it is so
fertile, alluvial-soil regions are intensively cultivated and densely
populated. Soils in the drier areas are more alkaline, and can be productive
after proper treatment and irrigation.

10.2 Black Soil (Regur)

Black in colour, and also known as regur soil or black cotton soil because
it is ideal for growing cotton. Climatic condition along with the parent rock
material are believed to be the important factors for its formation. It is typical
of the Deccan Trap (basalt) region and is made up of lava flows. It covers the plateaus of Maharashtra, Saurashtra, Malwa, Madhya
Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, extending south-east along the Godavari and Krishna
valleys. It is made of extremely fine, clayey material, holds moisture very well,
and is rich in calcium carbonate, magnesium, potash and lime, though poor in
phosphoric content. In hot weather it develops deep cracks, which help in the
proper aeration of the soil. When wet it becomes sticky and difficult to work on,
so it has to be tilled immediately after the first shower or during the
pre-monsoon period.

10.3 Red and Yellow Soils

Red soil develops on crystalline igneous rocks in low-rainfall areas of the
eastern and southern Deccan plateau. Yellow and red soils are also found in
Odisha, Chhattisgarh, the southern part of the middle Ganga plain, and along the
piedmont zone of the Western Ghats. The red colour comes from iron diffusing
through crystalline and metamorphic rocks; the same soil looks yellow when it
occurs in a hydrated form.

10.4 Laterite Soil

The word “laterite” comes from the Latin word later, meaning brick.
Laterite forms under tropical and subtropical climates with alternating wet and
dry seasons, as a result of intense leaching caused by heavy rain. It is mostly
deep to very deep, acidic (pH below 6.0), and generally short of plant nutrients.
It is found mainly in southern states, the Western Ghats region of Maharashtra,
Odisha, parts of West Bengal and the north-eastern states. Where it supports
deciduous or evergreen forest it is humus-rich, but under sparse, semi-arid
vegetation it is humus-poor. After proper soil conservation techniques, laterite
soil in the hilly parts of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu is used to grow tea
and coffee, and the red laterite soils of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala
suit cashew nut cultivation.

10.5 Arid Soils

Arid soils range from red to brown, are generally sandy and saline. In some
areas the salt content is so high that common salt is obtained simply by
evaporating water. Because the climate is dry and hot, evaporation is fast, so
these soils lack humus and moisture. Rising calcium content lower down forms a
Kankar layer that restricts water infiltration. After proper irrigation these
soils become cultivable, as has happened in western Rajasthan.

10.6 Forest Soils

Found in hilly and mountainous areas with sufficient rainfall, forest soil’s
texture varies with the mountain environment: loamy and silty on valley sides,
coarse-grained on the upper slopes. In the snow-covered Himalayan areas these
soils are heavily denuded, acidic and low in humus, but in the lower parts of
valleys, especially river terraces and alluvial fans, they are fertile.

10.7 All Six Soil Types at a Glance

11Soil Erosion and Soil Conservation

This natural balance gets disturbed by human activities such as deforestation,
overgrazing, construction and mining, and by natural forces such as wind, glaciers
and water.

The chapter describes four methods of soil conservation: