Sustainable Management of Natural Resources Blog 3

Sustainable management of Natural Resources 

• Keep your text book open for reference.
• All the intext exercises as well as exercise given at the end of the chapter have to be done.

Learning Outcomes :

• importance of water as a universal solvent and as an elixir of life 
• justify the need to use Coal and petroleum judiciously

Water

• Water is a necessity for all terrestrial forms of life.
• In India places having water scarcity are also the places experiencing acute poverty.
• Despite the monsoon, there exists failure to retain groundwater due to loss of vegetation and release of effluents from industries.
• Decrease in fresh usable water due to the destruction of water table and disruption in water cycle

Rains and irrigation practices

• Intervention of government to pursue mega projects neglected the local irrigation methods
• Strict regulations on usage of stored water and building tanks, dams, and canals
• Optimum cropping patterns must be followed based on water availability.

Extra information

Involvement of local people (ex: kulhs)

• Himachal Pradesh had a canal irrigation system called as kulhs where flowing stream water was diverted to man-made channels which took it to villages down the hillside.
• The water was used first by the village farthest from the origin of the kulh. This helped water percolate in the soil.
• It was made defunct after government irrigation system took over and there is no amicable sharing of water as before.

Dams

• Dams can store large amounts of water and generate electricity.
• Mismanagement of dams causes exploitation and there is no equitable distribution of this resource.
• Criticism about large dams address:
  (i) Displacement of tribals without compensation
  (ii) Corruption and consumption of money without generation of benefits
  (iii) Environmental problems like deforestation.

Water harvesting

• Water harvesting encourages soil and water conservation in order to sustain and increase biomass.
• Increases income for the local community but also alleviates floods and droughts.
• Examples: Rajasthan’s tanks, Khadins
• The main purpose is to recharge groundwater.

Groundwater

Advantages:

• does not evaporate
• recharges wells and groundwater
• when flowing does not allow mosquitoes to breed
• does not come in contact with human contamination

Watershed management

It act as a raised area which is a source of run off water to low lying areas

It actually aims at developing primary resources of land and water to produce secondary resources of plants and animals for use in a manner which will not cause ecological imbalance.

Advantage of watershed management are as follows-

• Growing more trees in watershed areas, increasing the retention of more rain water and protection of soil from erosion.
• it reduces droughts and floods.
• It increases the life of downstream dams and reservoirs because of less silting.

Coal and petroleum

• Coal and petroleum are derived from fossil fuels which are non-renewable. 

Why should fossil fuels be used judiciously?

• Fossil fuels are formed over millions of years of degrading biomass and have a huge amount of carbon.
• On combustion in a limited supply of oxygen they form harmful gases oxides of carbon, sulfur and nitrogen that pollute the atmosphere which leads to global warming.
• Judicious use of fossil fuels addresses the efficiency of our machines and ensures sustainability of our resources for the future.

Home Assignment

Exercise on Page 278 and Page 280

Tomorrow we will start with the next chapter.
Take care.