BEAUTIFUL NATURE

NATURAL RESOURCES

RESOURCE: Anything useful or can be made useful to humans to meet their needs and wants

NATURAL RESOURCE:

·         A resource available directly /indirectly from nature in raw form

·         Goods and services supplied by nature or environment

Examples: Fresh air, water, soil, land, forest etc.

·         Natural resources are differentiated from manufactured goods. For example, trees, fish are natural resources, but furniture and prepared meals are not natural resources.

·         Solar energy, coal, wind and water are natural resources while electricity is not a natural resource

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TYPES OF NATURAL RESOURCES:

·         Living and Nonliving

·         Renewable: Solar energy, winds, tides

·         Non-renewable: Minerals (metallic and non-metallic) and fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas)

NATURAL RESOURCES DEPLETION:

Resources are utilized at a faster rate than they are replaced

NATURAL REPLACEMENT RATE/ SUSTAINABLE YIELD (SY)

·         Sustainable yield or natural replacement rate is the highest rate at which a renewable resource can be used without decreasing its potential for natural replacement.

·         If sustainable yield is more than the base supply of natural resources that resource starts declining and gradually it leads to degradation of resource.

BIODIVERSITY

Concept

Biodiversity is essential for human survival and economic well being. It plays prominent role in modulating in ecosystem function, stability and resilience.  Biodiversity refers to the totality of genes, species and ecosystems of a region. The term ‘biological diversity’ was first defined as including two related concepts, genetic diversity (the amount of genetic variability within species) and ecological diversity (the number of species in a community of organisms) by Norse and McManus (1980). The term biodiversity was coined by Walter Rosen for the National Forum organized by the National Research Council under the title ‘Biodiversity’ (Wilson 1988).

Definition

Variability among living organisms from all sources, including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.

                                               (United Nations Environment Programme 1992)
Value of Biodiversity

Human derive many direct and indirect benefits from the living world. The uses of the biodiversity have been described below:

(a) Direct Values:

·                   Consumptive use values

It refers to value of natural products consumed directly, without passing through market, e.g. hunting, firewood.

·                   Productive use values

It is the value of commercially harvested products.

     This type of value of biodiversity is basically economic Value. These include:

·         Source of Food: Biodiversity is the source of food (grains, fat, oils, fibres, etc.),

·   Drugs and medicines: Biodiversity is a rich source of substances with therapeutic purposes.

·         Industrial products: Industrial products like timber, oil, lubricants, food flavours, industrial enzymes, cosmetics, perfumes, fragrances, dyes, paper, waxes, rubber, latexes, resins, poisons, cork are obtained from plants. Wool, silk, fur, leather, lubricants, waxes are derived from animals. Biodiversity provides feed for livestock. It also provides biomass and biofuels as source of energy.

(b) Indirect Values:

Non-consumptive use value is the value provided by biological resources without being consumed. These values include:

·    Recreational: Sport, tourism and other recreations (Parks, sanctuary, biosphere reserve, safari, bird watching, angling)

·    Religious: Many of the plants and animals are considered sacred e.g. Ocimum sanctum (Tulsi), Ficus religiosa (Pipal), Prosopis cinererie (Khejri).

·     Ethical: All species have an ethical values associated with them as all species have an inherent right to co-exist.

·         Aesthetic: Value of beauty borne by nature

·         Emotive: emotional attachment with plants and animals

·         Ecological: Ecosystem services

ECOSYSTEM

·     An ecosystem is a natural system consisting of all plants, animals and microorganisms (biotic factors) in an area functioning together with all the non-living physical (abiotic) factors of the environment.

·     In any ecosystem communities or living organisms interact with their physical environment in such a way that there is a well defined flow of energy forming clear trophic levels and material cycles within the system.

·   Term ‘Ecosystem’ was first of all given by British ecologist Arthur Tansley (1935). He described it as the interactive system established between biocoenosis (a group of living creatures) and their biotope (the environment in which they live). Thus, he defined Ecosystem as “System arising out of interactions between living and non-living components of environment.”

·     "Ecosystem" means a dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their non-living environment interacting as a functional unit" (Convention on the Biological Diversity, 1992).

TYPES OF ECOSYSTEM

It is mainly of two types:

·        Natural Ecosystems

·        Artificial Ecosystems

STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF ECOSYSTEM

a.  Structure of Ecosystem includes:

·        Abiotic Components

·        Biotic Components

·        Climatic Conditions

b.  Function of Ecosystem includes

·        Energy Flow

·        Material cycles or biogeochemical cycles

ENVIRONMENT

Environment is the sum total of all biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) factors that surround and potentially influence an organism.

The word ‘Environment’ has been derived from the French word ‘environner’.

Environment is defined as sum total of all the external conditions and factors that surround and influence the organisms and are responsible for their wellbeing and development.

Environment Science is defined as that branch of science which deals with the study of environment and various aspects related to environment.

Environmental Sciences in its broadest sense is the science of the complex interactions that occur among the terrestrial, atmospheric, aquatic, living and anthropogenic environments. It includes all the disciplines, such as chemistry, biology, ecology, sociology, and environment that affect or describe these interactions.

Environmental Chemistry: It may be defined as the study of the sources, reactions, transport, effects and the fates of chemical species in water, soil, air and living environments, and the effects of technology thereon.

Ecology: (Oikologie, made of two Greek words, i.e., Oikos- house or dwelling+ Logos- study). Thus literary meaning of ecology is, study of organisms at their home,

Ecology can be defined as the branch which deals with inter-relationship between environment and organisms.

The term ‘Ecology’ was first coined by Ernest Haeckel in 1868.

Ecological Factors: Any external thing, substance or condition which has effect on living organisms is called ecological factors or factor and totality of all these factors constitute environmental complex or environment.

There are four major types of factors:

       A.   Climatic Factors

·         Light

·         Temperature

·         Humidity

·         Precipitation

·         Wind

·         Fire

     B.   Topographic Factors

These are related with physical geography of earth and are also called ‘physiographic factors’

Altitude

Direction of mountains and valleys

    C.   Edaphic Factors

·         Soil type and properties

     D.   Biotic Factors

·         Positive Interactions: Mutualism, Proto-corporation, Commensalism

·         Negative interactions: Parasitism, Predation, Competition, Amensalism