Resources and Development Test - 6

In the states of Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, over irrigation is responsible for land degradation due to water logging leading to increase in salinity and alkalinity in the soil. The excessive irrigation may lead to lodging of the crop, may fall on the ground under the effect of strong winds. Due to excess water the roots of the plant may not be able to provide necessary anchorage in the wet soil. Thus, excessive watering may damage the crop and reduce the quantity and quality of the produce. This also results in wasting of expensive water.

Mountains account for 30 per cent of the total surface area of the country and ensure perennial flow of some rivers, provide facilities for tourism and ecological aspects. In tourism prospects millions of tourists from different parts of the country as well as from abroad throng the Himalayan tourist centres to enjoy their natural beauty and to escape from the summer heat of the plains. The increasing popularity of winter sports and the craze to enjoy snowfall has increased the rush of tourists in winters also. Srinagar, Dalhousie, Dharamshala, Chamba, Shimla, Kulu, Manali, Mussoorie, Nainital, Ranikhet, Almora, Darjeeling, Mirik, Gangtok, etc. are important tourist centres in the Himalayas.

The oceanic resources beyond 200 nautical miles of the Exclusive Economic Zone belong to open ocean and no individual country can utilise these without the concurrence of international institutions. India obtained a wide exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of about 2.172-million km2 in the sea all along the 7500 km long coastline around her. The living and nonliving resources in this zone, which measures about two-third of the landmass of the country, are exclusive to India, so also the trading and transport facilities navigated through this area. 

All the minerals, water resources, forests, wildlife, land within the political boundaries and oceanic area upto 12 nautical miles (22.2 km) from the coast termed as territorial water and resources therein belong to the nation. Territorial waters or a territorial sea, as defined by the 2013 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is a belt of coastal waters extending at most 12 nautical miles (22.2 km; 13.8 mi) from the baseline (usually the mean low-water mark) of a coastal state.

India has got the right to mine manganese nodules from the bed of the Indian Ocean from that area which lies beyond the exclusive economic zone. India’s exclusive rights to explore polymetallic nodules from seabed in Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) have been extended by five years. These rights are over 75000 sq. km of area in international waters allocated by International Seabed Authority for developmental activities for polymetallic nodules. The estimated polymetallic nodule resource potential is 380 million tonnes, containing 4.7 million tonnes of nickel, 4.29 million tonnes of copper and 0.55 million tonnes of cobalt and 92.59 million tonnes of manganese.  India is the first country to have received the status of a pioneer investor in 1987 and was allocated an exclusive area in Central Indian Ocean Basin by United Nations (UN) for exploration and utilization of nodules. 

Agenda 21 is a non-binding action plan of the United Nations with regard to sustainable development. It is a product of the Earth Summit (UN Conference on Environment and Development) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. It is an action agenda for the UN, other multilateral organizations, and individual governments around the world that can be executed at local, national, and global levels. It aims at achieving global sustainable development. It is an agenda to combat environmental damage, poverty, disease through global co-operation on common interests, mutual needs and shared responsibilities. One major objective of the Agenda 21 is that every local government should draw its own local Agenda 21.

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 ‘Resource’. Resources are a function of human activities. Human beings themselves are essential components of resources. They transform material available in our environment into resources and use them.

According to their age alluvial soils can be classified as old alluvial (Bangar) and new alluvial (Khadar). The bangar soil has higher concentration of kanker nodules than the Khadar. It has more fine particles and is more fertile than the bangar.

The resources which can be renewed or reproduced by physical, chemical or mechanical processes are known as renewable or replenishable resources. Some renewable resources have essentially an endless supply, such as solar energy, wind energy and geothermal pressure, while other resources are considered renewable even though some time or effort must go into their renewal, such as wood, oxygen, leather and fish. Most precious metals are considered renewable as well; even though they are not naturally replaced, they can be recycled because they are not destroyed during their extraction and use.

The state of Rajasthan is very well endowed with solar and wind energy but lacks in water resources. Rajasthan faces one the greatest scarcity of water resources in the country. It has 14% of India's cultivable area, 6% of population and about 11% of country's livestock but it has only 1% of surface water and 2% of ground water. Thus, Rajasthan a state with about 10% of land area has only around 1% of country's water resources.