Exhausted natural resources: examples. Exhausted natural resources are renewable and non-renewable

The increase in the number of mankind is not an endless process. The most important factor against this is the limited nature of natural resources and the depletion of the most important of them. Natural resources are all that a person uses in the process of his life. The broad meaning of this expression implies absolutely everything that serves the interests of mankind, and the narrow meaning of this concept includes only sources for material production.

Classification of natural resources

Depending on the types of use in the farm, natural resources are divided into industrial and agricultural.

If possible, interchangeability resources are divided into interchangeable and irreplaceable.

By sources of origin, resources are biological, mineral and energy.

By the degree of exhaustibility, resources are divided into exhaustible and inexhaustible. Exhausted natural resources, in turn, are divided into non-renewable and renewable. Often a third group is identified - partially (not fully) renewable. These are such exhaustible natural resources, which have a much slower recovery rate than their consumption level. Sometimes this recovery stretches over several generations of humanity, and sometimes - for millennia. If we talk about exhaustible natural resources, examples of them will lead anyone. Non-renewable - this oil, gas, coal, renewable - representatives of flora and fauna.

What is inexhaustible

The inexhaustible resources of mankind knows little, but uses at the current time even less. First of all, this category includes solar energy. In the second - its earthly manifestations: the wind and tides.

They are interconnected with solar energy and sometimes put with it in one row, called the general concept - climatic resources. There are also water resources - the endless expanses of the World Ocean, used by mankind by less than one percent. The energy of the earth's interior is practically not used by man, but it is also attributed to inexhaustible resources, because it has great potential.

The renewable resource base of the planet

As already mentioned, the exhaustible natural resources include three categories - renewable, non-renewable and partially renewable. The first can be restored in a natural way or with the participation of a person. Humanity helps in the artificial cleaning of water and air masses, increasing the fertility of lands, restoring forest tracts and increasing the number of fauna representatives. It should be noted that it was active human activity that already led to a significant reduction of such a component of the concept of exhaustible renewable natural resources, as biological resources. Over the past four hundred years from the surface of the planet disappeared about a hundred species of animals, more than a hundred species of birds, not to mention the representatives of the flora.

At the moment, thousands of species of animals, birds, fish, mollusks, and plants are under threat of extinction. All this happens in connection with the destruction of their existing habitat - the increase of cities, drainage of marshes, melioration, the creation of reservoirs. In addition, this is facilitated by commercial hunting, environmental pollution and other factors of human activity. To combat this problem, national parks and reserves, Red books have been created, national laws have been adopted aimed at reducing environmental pollution.

Partially renewable resources

Exhausted natural resources also include a land fund that is more than thirteen million hectares. They give mankind almost ninety percent of the food. The remaining ten bring forests and the World Ocean. Forests are very necessary for the planet, because they play a leading role in the cycle of carbon and oxygen in the earth's atmosphere, help regulate the flow of water, and avoid soil erosion. But for all their importance there is an annual decrease in forest area by almost twenty million hectares. And basically it happens "thanks" to the person. Woods are cut for the production of wood of both valuable types and conventional wood for the woodworking and paper industries. Deforestation for fuel is thriving in Central Africa, poor in other fuels. This leads to desertification of lands and promotion of the world's largest desert of the Sahara into the interior of the continent. In addition, people sometimes reduce the area of forests to increase the area of land.

And although the soil is exhaustible renewable natural resources, the recovery period of even one inch of their thickness is almost a millennium. That gives the full right to attribute them to partially renewable. Degradation of the soil cover of the planet is facilitated, again, by a man who pollutes the soil with its activities, contributes to their salinization and waterlogging, desertification and erosion.

Non-renewable reserves of the planet

Exhaustible non-renewable natural resources are, first of all, all mineral raw materials and fossil fuels.

They are restored in the process of evolution, but, unlike renewable and even partially renewable resources, this process is unnoticed for humanity, because the process will take hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years. Exhausted natural resources, such as metals, can be reused after recycling, and fuel - coal or oil - does not differ in such a property. Increasing intensity of development of mineral deposits affects the progressive depletion of the planet's interior. Today, one and a half times more resources are extracted than thirty years ago. And in fifteen years it is expected to increase this figure by another fifty percent.

To avoid depletion of mineral resources

In addition to the direct mining of minerals, the development of subsoil affects the change in the surrounding relief, contributes to the contamination of soils, air and water, which leads to the death of plant and animal life. To avoid this, mankind should have exhaustible non-renewable natural resources, such as oil and gas, extracted in large quantities from the shelves of the World Ocean.

It is possible to extract from ocean waters and other mineral resources, but for this purpose it is necessary to develop the necessary technologies. Indeed, to date, from the entire table of periodic elements, it is advantageous to extract only sodium, chlorine, magnesium and bromine. While the ocean waters are not ready to give the person other chemical elements, it is more rational to use the bowels of the planet.