for department of women studies

FOR DEPARTMENT OF WOMEN STUDIES

Dr. Meenakshi PrasadAssistant Professor

P.G. Deptt. of GeographyMagadh University

Bodh Gaya

Source : google images

Content

• Meaning of Resource

• Some Important Definitions

• Resource, Resistance & Neutral Stuffs

• Factors affecting Cognition, Values & Use of Resources

• Functional Theory of Resources

• Types of Resources

Meaning of Resource

The biotic and abioticsubstances which help in the fulfillment of human needs & desires are termed as resource. Air, water, forest, soil, etc. are regarded as resources as they satisfy human needs.


Some Important Definitions

• Encyclopedia of Social Sciences defines resources as ‘those aspects of man’s environment which facilitate the satisfaction of human wants and the attainment of social objectives.’

• Fisher has said that resources are ‘anything that can be used to satisfy a need or desire’.

• Smith & Phillips define resources as merely ‘environment functioning in the service of man’.

• Zimmermann has defined resources as ‘features of environment which are considered to be capable of serving man’s needs. They are given utility by the capabilities & wants of man’. He further elaborates that ‘the word resource does not refer to a thing or substance but to a function a thing or substance may perform or to an operation in which it may take part, namely the function of attaining a given end such as satisfying a want’.

• It may be concluded that for a substance to become a resource it must have two attributes – functionality & utility

• The utility of a substance reflects its functionality

• The above varies with space & time , for eg. DamodarRiver was known as the sorrow of Bengal until it was tamed by setting up of Damodar Valley Corporation

• It also varies from region to region depending upon the cultural level & characteristics of a region. For eg. Niagra falls in North America is a resource as they generate hydro-electric power which is used to run the

mills of New England Region while the Stanley fall on the Congo river in Africa may not be called a resource under the present socio-economic set-up of Congo Democratic Republic.

• Resources have both tangible & intangible aspects. Minerals, wood, water are tangible things which are important resources. Simultaneously, intangible things such as knowledge, health, social organisation, political stability, freedom, government policies, etc. are also resources as they help in satisfying human needs & fulfilling his aspirations.

Resources, Resistances & Neutral stuffs

• Resource – Anything that benefits man or leads to human welfare is resource. Natural materials such as soil for growing crops, coal for power generation, river water for irrigation are resources. Human & Cultural aspects like high educational level, good health, morality, optimum population, development of machines & tools, commercial & financial facilities, scientific management, good government, etc. are resources

• Resistance – Anything that hinders or harms man & his progress is called a resistance. In nature barren & unproductive waste land, diseases, disasters are resistances. In human & cultural field racial conflicts, illiteracy, over population, greed, war, conservative attitude, economic depression, abortive policies, etc. are resistances.

• Neutral Stuff – Substances in nature which do not affect man either favourably or unfavourably are called neutral stuff. For Eg. A large amount of energy is stored in the movement of tides & sea-waves in India but until we learn to harness them feasibly it is a neutral stuff.

• All material & non-material things of the world fall under one of the three categories, i.e. resource, resistance or neutral stuff

• According to Zimmermann ‘only human appraisal turns the neutral stuff of the earth into resources’.

• In the early stages of human history there were more resistances & neutral stuffs & less resources.

• With the progress in society & technical knowhow, man has kept on turning neutral stuffs & many resistances into resources thereby increasing the stock of resources.

• A progressive society or country has lesser resistances & neutral stuffs & more resources. Example – France, Germany, U.K.

• A backward society or country has less resources and more resistances & neutral stuffs. Example – African countries like Democratic Republic of Congo

• Resources & resistances exist together

• According to Zimmermann, ‘ the extent of human satisfaction is a function of resources and resistances & not of resources alone’.

RESOURCE RESISTANCE

NEUTRAL STUFFSource : google images

Factors Affecting Resource

Cognition, Value & Use

Cultural factors

Social Factors

Political

Factors

Technological Factors

Economic Factors

Many factors influence our cognition of Resource, its value & uses

Cultural Factors:• The perception of resources is a cultural one• Different cultures exist in the world each having a

different set of values• The value assigned to an object in one culture may be

regarded as a nuisance in another• Whaling provides a classic example. The Inuits of North

America historically used whales as a source of food, its fat as fuel and its bones for their arts & crafts. The usage continues even today. Today, most Americans appreciate the beauty & majesty of whales and value them as an aesthetic resource and not a consumable one. They are protesting against whaling.

• Culture also determines a society’s view towards its natural environment thereby influencing the utilisation of resources. This view may range from technocentrism, i.e. human domination & control of nature to ecocentrism,i.e. living in harmony with nature.

• Another powerful aspect of culture is religion. Religious views of a society influence the usage of resources at hand. For example – meat industry (beef & pork) is well developed in Argentina but in India due to religious factors it has not developed, though India has the largest cattle population in the world.

MAN, CULTURE & NATURE (After ZIMMERMANN, 1951)


Social Factors:• Social conditions like ethnicity, gender, education &

income influence how societies cognize resources, assign value to them and use them

• For example, higher income households all over the world use more energy as compared to lower income households.

• With the passage of time the cultural make-up of societies change thereby influencing the cognition & use of resources. For example – during the initial colonial period in America shrimps & lobster were fed to servants as cheap food resources. The influx of Southern European immigrants in the late 19th century changed this cheap food resource into a valuable delicacy.

Technological Factors:• Technological factors relate to man’s knowledge & skills

in exploiting resources

• A waterfall becomes a resource only when a hydroelectric power plant is set up to generate electricity from it

• Technology develops with time, however the technological level is not the same all over the world. For example – in France tidal energy is used in a big way but in India it is not yet commercially harnessed

• Technology also increases the functional capacity of a resource which brings us to the concept of ‘phantom pile’.

Phantom Pile

• The concept of phantom pile was given by Zimmermann.

• When the physical loss of a natural resource (shrinkage in its weight & volume) is over compensated by the expansion of its functional capacity it is know as the concept of ‘phantom pile’.

• The functional capacity can be expanded with growth & improvement in technology.

• Example to explain the concept of phantom pile :

Let us assume that India had a coking coal reserve of 2000 million tonnes in 1950 & at that time 2 tonnesof coking coal was needed to smelt one tonne of iron-ore and the coke oven plants yielded very few by-products. With the advancement in technology at present a tonne of coking coal can smelt two tonnesof iron-ore & the coke oven plants are yielding a large number of by-products. Thus, the functional capacity of coking coal has increased four fold in smelting of iron-ore & the yield of by-products has doubled. On the whole its functional capacity has increased five folds. Lets assume that during the past half a century we have used up 500 million tonnes

of coking coal. Now 1500

million tonnes of the original

pile remains. Due to

improvement in technology

the functional capacity of this

1500 million tonnes pile has

expanded to an imaginary pile of 7,500 million tonnes(1500x5). Thus, the physical loss of the coking coal deposit is now over compensated by the expansion of its functional capacity. This is the phanton pile.


Economic Factors :

• A resource is only exploited if it can be done with profit.

• The best quality Anthracite coal in India is found in Kargil in Jammu & Kashmir but it is not exploited at present as its remote location makes doing so unfeasible.

• The cognition & use of a resource is affected by its pricing which is influenced by its abundance or scarcity.

• As a resource becomes scarce its value may increase.

• The scarcity may be absolute or relative

• Absolute scarcity occurs when the supplies of a particular resource are insufficient to meet present & future demand. For Example – the dwindling supply of certain land resources such as wilderness could lead to an absolute scarcity. Punjab is having an absolute scarcity of forests as they have been destroyed due to green revolution

ANANTPUR DISTRICT – PUNJABDESERT LIKE SITUATION DUE TO

LOSS OF WILDERNESS


• Relative scarcity occurs when there are disparities in the distribution of a resource. Open space was not considered a resource until it became relatively scarce in urban areas.

• Relative scarcity also occurs when one group controls the ownership or distribution of resources at the expense of another group. The relative scarcity of petroleum created by the OPEC countries during the 1970’s was the cause of energy crisis

URBAN OPEN SPACES


Political Factors :

• Policies of the Government may encourage or discourage the usage of a natural resource or may decide upon how it should be perceived.

• For example – the Indian government has declared the Sentinel island of Andaman & Nicobar a reserved area for the primitive tribe living there. Outsiders cannot go there.

• A variation in system of governance may bring variation in resource use

Functional Theory of Resources

• This theory was given by Zimmermann• Zimmermann has said, ‘Resources are not, they

become’. This statement is the basis of the functional theory of resources

• The fuctional theory postulates that: (i)Resources are functional & operational, (ii)They are man’s creation (iii)They are dynamic

• The essence of this theory is that a substance becomes a resource only when its functionabilityto satisfy a human need is developed by man. Moreover, resources are not only natural or physical but they are cultural as well

TYPES OF RESOURCES

Resources can be classified into different categories based of the following criteria :

• Origin

• Distribution & Frequency of Occurance

• On the basis of Exhaustibility

• Stage of Development

• Ownership

• Renewability

Based on Origin

Natural

Biotic Abiotic

Human Knowledge Man-made

Natural Resource – These are substances which occur naturally in nature & are capable of fulfilling human wants. They can be further classified as biotic & abiotic resources. Biotic resources are obtained from biosphere. They have life, for example – plants & animals. The abiotic resources are composed of non-living things, such as minerals like iron-ore.

Human Resource – Human resource is augmented labour. In the words of Nobel Laureate Robert Solow, it is labour which has improved its efficiency given the level of knowledge, skill & technology.

NATURAL RESOURCE HUMAN RSOURCE


Knowledge Resource – It is the creation of knowledge which is based on past stock. Current knowledge is created on the basis of past knowledge. For example –Beethoven’s symphony

Man-made Resource –These are resources which are manufactured by man, for example –buildings, computer, phone

KNOWLEDGE RESOURCE

MAN-MADE RESOURCE

• Man made resources are dependent upon knowledge resource & human resource. Therefore if we do not double count them then of the basis of origin we can have two broad classification, i.e. Natural Resources & Man-made Resources.

• There are two approaches of sustainability – strong sustainability & weak sustainability

• Strong sustainability implies that there can be no substitution or trade-off of natural resources with man-made resources. The logic is that natural resources cannot be recreated & therefore we do not have the right to deplete them.

• Weak sustainability on the other hand implies that man-made resources can substitute natural resources & this is required for development because natural resources serve as raw material for production. Therefore for any economy to continue production implies automatically that there would be some substitution of natural resources with man-made resources.

Zimmermann has classified the resources on the basis of their distribution & frequency of occuranceinto the above four types :

Ubiquities – Resources that are found everywhere, for example – oxygen in the air

Based on Distribution

Ubiquities Commanalities Rarities Uniquities

• Commonalities – Resources that occur in many places, for example –tillable soil

• Rarities – Resources that occur only in a few places, for example – tin

• Uniquities – Resources occuring only at one place, for example –commercial cryolite found in Greenland

Tin

Soil

Source : all google images

Based on Exhaustibility

Inexhaustible Exhaustible

Inexhaustible Resource – These

are resources that cannot be

exhausted. For Example –Air,

Solar Energy

Inexhaustible Resource : Solar EnergySource : google images

Exhaustible Resource – These are those resources which will get exhausted if their critical mass is not maintained for them to reproduce themselves. For example – Eco-system of a lake where over fishing is practised will leave the lake with so few fish that they will not be able to reproduce themselves & eventually will die out.

Fisheries : An Exhaustible Resource


Based on Stage of Development

Developed Potential Stock Reserve

Developed Resource – Also known as actual resource, there are resources which have been fully surveyed & their quality & quantity has been fully detemined for utilisation and they are being used by man. For example –Coal reserves of Ranigunj & Jharia in India, petroleum resource in Assam

Potential Resource – These are those resources which are found in a particular region but are yet to be put to use. There is a possibility that they may be used in future. For example – Amazon river of South America has vast potential to be developed as a power resource in future. In India Gujarat has huge potential for the development of tidal & wind energy Amazon River- A Potential Resource


Stock – The materials in the environment which have the potential to satisfy human needs but human beings do not have the appropriate technology to access them are included among stock. Water for example is a compound of two inflammable gases oxygen & hydrogen which can be used as a source of energy but we do not have the technology for it.


Reserve – It is that part of an actual/developed resource which can be developed profitably in future. Example – the deep seated coal reserves of DamodarValley coal fields in India


Based on Ownership

Individual Community National International

Individual Resource – Such

resources are owned privately

by individuals. For Example –

plantations, ponds, wells, etc.

A Banana Plantation : Individual ResourceSource : google images

Community Resource –These are resources which are accessible to all the members of a community. Grazing grounds & burial ground in villages and public parks & play grounds in urban areas are examples of such resources Public Park : A Community Resource


National Resource – These are resources that belong to the nation. For Example –roads, canals, railways, land within the political boundary of a nation, territorial waters & the resources within it are national resources. The term territorial water refers to the oceanic area upto 12 nautical miles (19.2 km) from the coast. The country has legal power to acquire even private property for public good. For example –nationalisation of coal mines in India

Indian Railways : A National Resource


International Resource – The oceanic resources beyond 200 km of the exclusive Economic Zone of countries belong to open ocean & are termed as international resources. No individual or country can utilise these resources without the consensus of International Instituitions.


Based on Renewability

Renewable

Non-living Living

Flow

Non-renewable

RecyclableNon-

recyclable

Renewable Resource – Renewable or replenishableresources are those resources which can be renewed and replenished by physical, chemical & biological processes. These resources are divided into three sub-categories, i.e. non-living, living & flow resources.

(a)Non-living renewable resources are those renewable resources that come from abiotic sources, for example – land, water, air, minerals(b)Living renewable resources are those that come from living or biotic sources, for example –flora & fauna.(c)Flow or continuous renewable resources are resources which do not need regeneration, for example – tides, solar energy

Non-renewable Resource – These are those resources whose process of formation & replenishment is very slow and takes a very long geological time period. They take millions of years to be formed. For example – coal, iron ore, etc. These Non-renewable resources are further divided into two categories, i.e. recyclable resources & non- recyclable resources.

(a)Recyclable resources are those which can be processed to be used again and again. For example – copper, aluminium, etc.

(b)Non-recyclable resources are those which once used perish. For example – fossil fuels & uranium

References

• Gautam, A : ‘Geography of Resources: Exploitation, Conservation & Management’, Sharda Pustak Bhawan, Allahabad, 2017

• Singh, J & Singh, K : ‘Aarthik Bhugol ke Mool Tatva’, Gyanoday Prakashan, Gorakhpur, 1999

• Harun, M: ‘Aarthik Bhugol ke Mool Tatva’, VasundharaPrakashan, Gorakhpur, 2004

• https://www.kcesmjcollege.in/ICT/Geography/Natural%20Rsources.pdf

• https://www.slideshare.net/sadiazaman522/resource-concept-and-classificat

https://www.kcesmjcollege.in/ICT/Geography/Natural%20Rsources.pdf

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