Economics
Natural Resources
Natural resources are materials or substances that occur in nature and can be used for economic gain. They are often classified as renewable or non-renewable and include resources such as water, air, minerals, forests, and wildlife. These resources are essential for the production of goods and services and play a crucial role in the functioning of economies.
Written by Perlego with AI-assistance
Related key terms
1 of 5
12 Key excerpts on "Natural Resources"
eBook - PDF- Jon M. Conrad(Author)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
1 Basic Concepts 1.0 renewable, nonrenewable, and environmental resources Economics might be defined as the study of how society allocates scarce resources. The field of resource economics , would then be the study of how society allocates scarce Natural Resources, such as stocks of fish, stands of trees, fresh water, oil, and other naturally occurring resources. A distinction is sometimes made between resource and environmental economics , where the latter field is concerned with the way wastes are disposed and the resulting quality of air, water, and soil serving as waste receptors. In addition, environmental economics is concerned with the conservation of natural environments and biodiversity. Natural Resources are often categorized as being renewable or nonrenewable. A renewable resource must display a significant rate of growth or renewal on a relevant economic time scale. An economic time scale is a time interval for which planning and management are meaningful. The notion of an economic time scale can make the clas-sification of Natural Resources a bit tricky. For example, how should we classify a stand of old-growth coast redwood or an aquifer with an insignificant rate of recharge? While the redwood tree is a plant and can be grown commercially, old-growth redwoods may be 800 to 1,000 years old, and the remaining stands may be more appro-priately viewed as a nonrenewable resource. While the water cycle provides precipitation that will replenish lakes and streams, the water contained in an aquifer with little or no recharge may be economi-cally more similar to a pool of oil (a nonrenewable resource) than 1 2 Resource Economics to a lake or reservoir that receives significant recharge from rain or melting snow. A critical question in the allocation of Natural Resources is, “How much of the resource should be harvested (extracted) today?” Finding the “best” allocation of Natural Resources over time can be regarded as a dynamic optimization problem.
eBook - PDFMineral Economics
Development and Management of Natural Resources
- O. Rudawsky(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Elsevier Science(Publisher)
At the same time, the interaction of land with all other factors of production should also be studied. All of these aspects are briefly presented and discussed in the current chapter; mineral and energy resources are specially emphasized. Natural Resources - Concepts and Applications The term Natural Resources is not easily defined. A vogue definition could be stated as follows: ...A resource is something that is useful and valuable in the condition in which we find it. In its raw or unmodified state it may be an input into the process of producing something of value, or it may enter con-sumption directly and thus be valued as an amenity... (Randall, 1981, pp. 13-14). 2 Charles W. Howe refers to Natural Resources as ...all the living and nonliving endownment of the earth,...traditional usage confines the term to naturally occurring resources and systems that are useful to humans or could be under plausible technological, economic, and social circumstances... (1979, p. 1) There are various ways of distinguishing among Natural Resources by classes. Howe lists the following as the major classes of Natural Resources: ...(1) Agricultural land; (2) forest land and its multiple products and services; (3) natural land areas preserved for esthetic, recreational, or scientific purposes; (4) the fresh and salt water fisheries; (5) min-eral resources that include the mineral fuels and nonfuels; (6) the re-newable nonmineral energy sources of solar, tidal, wind, and geothermal systems; (7) water resources; and (8) the waste-assimilative capacities of all parts of the environment... (p.l). In this book, the emphasis is put on the fifth and sixth classes, although the other groups, and especially human resources (somehow not included in Howe's list), are not totally ignored.
eBook - PDF- Dhankhar, Rajesh(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Daya Publishing House(Publisher)
I Natural Resources Introduction Forest Resources Water Resources Mineral Resources Food Resources Energy Resources Land Resources Role of an Individual in Conservation of Natural Resources INTRODUCTION n broad terms, a resource or natural resource, is an asset available to be used when needed by an organism or group of organisms. In other words, a resource is something useful for humanity, but the concept of utility can change because of technological, economical, and environmental factors. The sum total of all physical, chemical and social factors which compose the surrounding of man is referred to as environment and each element of these surroundings constitute resource on which man draws in order to develop a better life. Any material which can be transformed in a way that it becomes more valuable and useful can be termed as resource. It is possible to obtain valuable items from any resource. This ebook is exclusively for this university only. Cannot be resold/distributed. Ramade (1984) defined a resource as a form of energy or matter which is essential for the functioning of organisms, population and ecosystem. In the case of human beings, a resource, in his words, “is any form of energy or matter essential for fulfilment of physiological, socio-economic and cultural needs, both at the individual level and that of the community”. The functioning of ecosystem or of technological civilisation involves a continuous flow and consumption of energy. In light of this fact, a resource may be defined as one of the various forms of primary source of energy present in nature. The five basic ecological variables are energy, matter, space, time and diversity, sometimes together called natural resource. Classification of Natural Resources Resources may be classified on the basis of the following. 1. Availability (i) Inexhaustible: These resources are unlimited in quantity and quality. With the passage of time quality may be degraded but not the quantity.
eBook - ePub- V. Kerry Smith(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- RFF Press(Publisher)
2 such as air and water. Whether public intervention is required in the allocation of the former is at least a moot question about which we shall have much to say later; but in the case of the public goods, appropriate allocation inevitably will require some type of government action. There is a third category of Natural Resources— those which are normally publicly managed but which are really private goods, as for example, forests. A clear distinction has to be made between these resources and true public goods.Although it is often clear whether the good is a public good, a private good, or a publicly provided private good, there are some ambiguous cases. The fish in a lake are often thought of as a public good although fish caught by one individual may reduce the amount available to others, and property rights for fishing in a lake could be given to an individual. The appropriate method of organizing the allocation of such goods is one of the more important issues in the economics of Natural Resources.Third, I have not yet defined what I mean by Natural Resources. Presumably a natural resource is any commodity or factor which is provided by nature and not produced, or producible, by man. Although such a definition is not very precise, it will suffice for our purposes. (Most of what we think of as Natural Resources, such as oil, require human activity to convert them into a useful form and indeed to extract them from the ground. Moreover, the supply of many Natural Resources, say fish, can be affected by human activity.) It will, however, be useful to consider some polar cases. These are exhaustible Natural Resources, the supply of which is fixed and cannot be augmented; renewable Natural Resources such as fish, the supply of which can be increased (renewed) after utilization; inexhaustible but nonaugmentable resources, for example, land; and recyclable resources.In fact, many cases do not fall into these neat categories; land—at least arable land—can be augmented as well as depleted. A resource which was perfectly recyclable would essentially be inexhaustible but nonaugmentable, while so long as some of the resource cannot be recovered for reuse, a recyclable resource is like an exhaustible natural resource.
eBook - PDF- Sam Stuart(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Pergamon(Publisher)
2 Resources and Raw Materials Defined Introduction One cannot discuss any problem without understanding the terms employed in the discussion. This applies particularly to resources and raw materials, because many differences of opinion - for example, concerning the length of time that minerals can be expected to last - are attributable to the use of different concepts. In the present chapter, the terms are discussed with reference to figure 2. Substances are elements, chemical compounds or mixtures having specific chemical or physical properties. Natural Resources are those substances in the soil, water or the atmosphere which in principle can or could be used by man. In the ultimate analysis a natural resource represents the properties possessed by certain substances or combinations of substances, e.g. having a certain electrical conductivity, being hard or being resistant to acids. This becomes particularly apparent when soil, air or water are referred to as Natural Resources, because the important thing may well be, not the actual substances present in the resource but the properties of those substances - for example, being a basis of biological production (soil, water ), or having the capacity to absorb and carry off substances(water). 'Resources' are those parts of Natural Resources which are known and accessible and which it is believed can, come to be used under foreseeable technological and economic conditions. Reserves are those parts of resources which are already sufficiently known and accessible to be utilized profitably with the available technology. Raw materials, finally, aqp substances or mixtures of substances which, in one form or another, are used in industrial or other processes in order to manufacture a product. We may already here observe that the raw material, reserve and resource concepts are not timeless. New technology and changes in the prices of raw materials may have the effect of widening the resource base.
eBook - PDFResources Society and the Future
A Report Prepared for the Swedish Secretariat for Futures Studies By
- Tomas Bertelman, Ernst Hollander, Carl-Axel Olsson(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Pergamon(Publisher)
2 Resources and Raw Materials Defined Introduction One cannot discuss any problem without understanding the terms employed in the discussion. This applies particularly to resources and raw materials, because many differences of opinion - for example, concerning the length of time that minerals can be expected to last - are attributable to the use of different concepts. In the present chapter, the terms are discussed with reference to figure 2. Substances are elements, chemical compounds or mixtures having specific chemical or physical properties. Natural Resources are those substances in the soil, water or the atmosphere which in principle can or could be used by man. In the ultimate analysis a natural resource represents the properties possessed by certain substances or combinations of substances, e.g. having a certain electrical conductivity, being hard or being resistant to acids. This becomes particularly apparent when soil, air or water are referred to as Natural Resources, because the important thing may well be, not the actual substances present in the resource but the properties of those substances - for example, being a basis of biological production (soil, water ), or having the capacity to absorb and carry off substances(water). Resources* are those parts of Natural Resources which are known and accessible and which it is believed can, come to be used under foreseeable technological and economic conditions. Reserves are those parts of resources which are already sufficiently known and accessible to be utilized profitably with the available technology. Raw materials, finally, are substances or mixtures of substances which, in one form or another, are used in industrial or other processes in order to manufacture a product. We may already here observe that the raw material, reserve and resource concepts are not timeless. New technology and changes in the prices of raw materials may have the effect of widening the resource base.
Available until 4 Dec |Learn moreEconomic Growth
International Edition
- David Weil(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
The roles of resource prices and property rights are particularly relevant when we examine how economic growth affects the environment. The key difference between a clean environment and other Natural Resources is that most of the time, no one owns a clean environment, so no market price is attached to creating pollution. For this reason, environmental degradation—particularly for the aspects of the environment that are least subject to property rights, such as the atmosphere—is more likely to be a problem associated with economic growth than is a shortage of Natural Resources.
We begin by examining the different forms of Natural Resources, their measurement, and their use in economic activity.NATURAL RESOURCE CONCEPTS16.1Nonrenewable Resources
A nonrenewable resource is one that exists in a fixed quantity on the earth. When a nonrenewable resource is consumed, it is gone forever. A common measure of the availability of a nonrenewable resource is the level of current reserves, or the known quantity of the resource that can profitably be extracted at current prices using existing technology. Changes in the quantity of current reserves are brought about through four processes. The first two of these are the obvious ones: discoveries of new stocks of the resource raise reserves and depletion of existing stocks lowers reserves. The third way in which reserves can change is when the price of the resource changes: for example, if the price rises, then known deposits that were previously not worth extracting can become economically viable, increasing reserves. Finally, changes in technology can also make it worthwhile to extract a resource from a known deposit, even if the resource’s price has not changed. In recent years, an important example of this effect has been the development of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), a technique that allows for the recovery of natural gas and oil from deep shale formations.To look in more detail at data for a nonrenewable resource, we examine the most important one in the world today: oil. In 2011, oil accounted for 33% world energy production, followed by coal (28%), natural gas (22%), renewables (11%), and nuclear (5%).1
- Raymond F. Mikesell(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- RFF Press(Publisher)
I: The Role of Natural Resources in Economic Development In order to clarify the purpose of gathering information about Natural Resources, it is necessary to be clear about their economic significance. Failure to follow the dictates of common sense in thinking about the economic significance of Natural Resources may result in considerable mismanagement. The purpose here is not to put forward a theory of economic development or even to indicate adherence to one of the many current versions. Instead, the much more limited goal is to point out some aspects of the exploitation of Natural Resources that are important and with which any useful view of the process of economic growth ought to be consistent. Natural Resources as a Capital Stock To start with, no particular type of natural resource is essential to a high level of national income or to economic progress. We can assert with confidence that a country’s endowment of Natural Resources need not exercise a determining influence on the course of its national income over time—if it is able to trade. “All” that is necessary for economic progress is the availability of a substantial quantity of services of capital and labor—with a considerable part of the capital embodied in persons—plus a social system with certain characteristics favorable to systematic improvement of production practices. And the more capital per person the better. The truth of this observation is evident from the economic success of countries with limited Natural Resources and the success of countries with greatly different natural endowments. To enjoy economic success, a country must have access to Natural Resources, but this can be had through trade with other nations with a different or better natural endowment
- Boss, Andrew(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Biotech(Publisher)
Chapter 4 Natural Resources in Relation to Farming Agriculture is one of the basic industries of America, since it is the source of supply for food and clothing, which are the primary needs of mankind. Its foundations are laid in the great Natural Resources which constitute the basic wealth of the nation. To understand the agricultural industry and the art of farming, knowledge of these resources, their relationships, and importance is required. Therefore, a brief discussion of these factors follows. Natural Resources Natural Resources are the great storehouses of Nature’s own products which may be used for human benefit. Some of these, such as air and sunshine, are so abundant as to be practically unlimited in quantity and are inexhaustible. For these there need be no concern. Others, of which land, forests, and minerals are examples, are so limited as to be unequal to present or possible future needs. Past generations have lived upon these resources, and individuals have built up great fortunes by converting the easily available materials into other forms of personal wealth. In many instances the conversion has been accompanied by great waste. The present generation, if it is to enjoy a good living standard, must gain its livelihood and wealth from the utilisation of these resources. They should be used to the best advantage, however, and without unnecessary waste and exhaustion. The present generation should use, protect, and improve them wherever possible in This ebook is exclusively for this university only. Cannot be resold/distributed. consideration of the welfare of future generations. These Natural Resources, while at times remote from one another, are often interlocked. Forests grow upon land that is needed for food or feed crops. They must be cleared to provide farm land. Crop land must sometimes be sacrificed so that mineral resources, such as coal, iron, or oil, may be extracted from it.
eBook - PDF- C. Gopalakrishnan(Author)
- 2000(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
Part V The Economics of Renewable Resources 13 Economics of Production from Natural Resources Vernon L. Smith I Introduction This paper attempts to provide a unified theory of production from Natural Resources. A single model of an industry is used to describe a dynamic process of recovery from such technologically diverse resources as fish, timber, petroleum, and minerals. Recovery from each of these resources is seen as a special case of a general model, depending upon whether the resource is replenishable, and on whether production exhibits significant externalities. A model of centralized management, with particular reference to “common property” resources, such as fish- eries, under stationary conditions, is also discussed and compared with competitive recovery in the stationary state. The paper builds directly upon, and has been much influenced by, the basic contributions of Gordon [6] and Scott [11] [12]. II Environmental technology The economy of man consumes two fundamental kinds of naturally occurring resources: (1) Replenishable resources, such as fish, timber, bison, and the whooping crane, and (2) nonreplenishable resources, such as petroleum, natural gas, and the products of mines. The second category is often called “exhaustible resources,” which is something of a misnomer since both types of resources are capable of exhaustion. The American bison, once of value to the American economy, is such a case, as also were the native trout of Lake Michigan. 1 This particular dichotomy is important analytically in that the first category of resources is capable of regeneration, as man consumes a flow of the 279 C. Gopalakrishnan (ed.), Classic Papers in Natural Resource Economics © Chennat Gopalakrishnan 2000 resource, while the second represents a fixed stock whose inventory can only be diminished over time.
- J. A. Butlin, John Alfred Butlin(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Taylor & Francis(Publisher)
111 Obvious examples are the supplies of coal, oil, natural gas and other fossil fuels, and the natural phosphate and potash deposits used for the manufacture of agricultural fertilisers. Natural resource economics 41 Determining an optimal utilisation policy is probably at its most straightforward with this resource type, involving simply the allocation of a fixed quantity between competing uses (here separated by time) according to appropriate marginal conditions -the kind of problem that economists cut their teeth on. In Fig. 3.4 the length of the horizontal axis OS is indicative of the magnitude of the resource stock; MSB 0 and MSB 1 represent the benefits derived from current and future consumption respectively, the latter having been drawn 'backwards' to accentuate the fact that future consumption is ultimately constrained by the amount of resource left unutilised after demand in t 0 has been satisfied. If these two curves are indicative of the level of resource demand in the two periods, MEC 0 and MEC 1 show the equivalent 'supply' curves in terms of the marginal costs of extracting the resource from its natural state. 11 In Fig. 3.4a the available stock exceeds the maximum that would be consumed over the planning horizon -the resource is to all intents and purposes available to society in unlimited supply (e.g. sea water for desalination or world coal stocks, the complete utilisation of which cannot be foreseen). Although theoretically user costs would be incurred at levels of current consumption in excess of Q 1 (at which point the residual stock is just sufficient to satisfy the maximum future demand), they are of no relevance to resource use policy. Assuming rationality, utilisation in 4 1 will not exceed Q 0 where marginal benefit in consumption is equal to the marginal cost of resource extraction (i.e. net marginal social benefits from consumption are zero).
eBook - PDFResource Constraints and Global Growth
Evidence from the Financial Sector
- Efundem Agboraw, Aled Jones(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Pivot(Publisher)
2 Economics and Natural Resource Constraints 23 depends not only on the current rate of production but also on past production. The accumulated production affects both cost and demand. The cost of extraction increases as the mine goes deeper; and durable substances, such as gold and diamonds, by their accumulation influence the market (Hotelling 1931). In a hypothetical market with free competition, Hotelling assumes the resource owner is indifferent whether he receives a price for a unit of his product now or a price after some time has elapsed. This will not apply to monopoly, where the form of the demand function is bound to affect the rate of production, but is characteristic of completely free competition. The various units of the mineral are then to be thought of as being at any time all equally valuable, excepting for varying costs of placing them upon the market. If interest rates vary among the resource owners, this fact will also affect the order of extraction. In an imperfect market situation, if the resource stock is in under monopolistic protection, the marginal value to the owner of the stock of resource left in the ground will be equal to the marginal profit it can bring on the flow market once extracted. To a monopolist, this is less than the net price. The asset markets equilibrium condition will still require that the rate of return on the resource stock be equal to the rate of interest. Only now the rate of appreciation of the ‘in-situ’ value is not measured by the rate of change of the net price, but by the rate of change of the monopolist’s marginal profit. Hence, marginal revenue will rise at the rate of interest (Gaitan et al. 2006). Natural Resources are as important to the growth and development of an economy as physical and human capital. Natural Resources are part of the real wealth of a nation and they are the natural capital where all the other forms of capital are made (OECD 2011).
Index pages curate the most relevant extracts from our library of academic textbooks. They’ve been created using an in-house natural language model (NLM), each adding context and meaning to key research topics.
