Natural resources are the foundation of the economic development of any territory. They include water, land, forest, recreational, mineral components. All that India is rich in.
Peaceful country
India is a country with an ancient culture. Various civilizations have existed on the territory of the present state since the third millennium BC. But, characteristically, they were all peaceful. India developed not through external expansion, but through the subjugation of the invaders by its high culture, for which it has been famous since ancient times. The country has served as a source of many world geographical discoveries. The natural conditions and resources of India attracted other peoples here. The Europeans sought to reach it both by land and by sea.
What, besides finding these very paths, led to the discovery of the New World. The riches of India attracted the invaders. At first, Alexander the Great sought to expand his empire to the Indian Ocean at all costs. Then the Romans, Chinese, Mongols, Persians, Ottomans, British had the same desires. The Indians allowed themselves to be captured, and thenassimilated their invaders. If we briefly describe the natural resources of India, we can say that they allow the country to practically not need imports, while exporting a lot. And in ancient times, and in the present.
Waters of India
The most famous river of the country - the Indus - gave the name to the whole state - India. The natural resources of the water component, in addition to it, include the largest rivers not only in the country, but throughout Eurasia. These are the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and their numerous tributaries. They serve as the main for artificial irrigation of agricultural land. And almost sixty percent of the land in India is irrigated. There are practically no lakes in the country, groundwater is used faster than it is replenished by melting glaciers or precipitation. At the same time, rivers are mostly fed by rain, which negatively affects agriculture. During dry times, the rivers become shallow, and during the rainy season they often overflow their banks, which often leads to flooding of fields.
Land resources
If we evaluate the natural conditions and resources of India, it should be noted that, despite the presence of huge megacities in the country, it is mostly agricultural. With a pronounced plant-growing bias. Climate features allow you to get two or even three crops a year. But the presence of a high population density, intensive use of mineral fertilizers have led to the fact that the lands of India are not highly productive.
Crops use almost forty percent of the territory, which brought the country to fourth place in the world in terms of volumeagricultural production. India is the world leader in tea, pineapple and banana production. It ranks second in rice yield, third in tobacco, fourth in wheat and cotton. In addition, a special place in local agriculture is occupied by the production of spices - black pepper, cardamom and cloves, thanks to which many European merchants were enriched. The country has the largest number of cattle - up to fifteen percent of the world's number. At the same time, the cow is a sacred animal and is used not for meat production, but as draft power.
Land allocated for pastures is very small - no more than five percent. In India, poultry farming, pig breeding, and small cattle breeding are developed. River and sea fishing. The country is the largest producer of cotton fabric - more than twenty percent of the world's volume.
Forestlands
Forest spaces occupy more than twenty percent of the territory of a state like India. Natural resources of this type are actually scarce in the country. After all, most of the forests are tropical and monsoon, not suitable for economic needs, and logging in the Himalayas is prohibited. But at the same time, some wood derivatives, such as shellac and plywood, are harvested exclusively for export purposes. Taking into account the fact that forests supply the Indians not only with wood, but are also a source of rosin, resin, reed, bamboo, livestock fodder, the forest, along with agriculture, is the breadwinner.of people. In addition, wood components are used in many medical preparations.
Recreational ingredients
One cannot ignore the variety of climatic conditions and cultural values that India represents. The natural resources of the recreational type of the ancient state are represented primarily by the historical and cultural direction - all kinds of numerous monuments of different eras, starting from the world famous Taj Mahal.
The ecological direction of these natural resources is represented by national parks and exotic natural landscapes. Rest in the most famous place for its beaches in India - Goa - has already become a household name. Despite the absence in the country of the highest world peak - Chomolungma, skiing and mountaineering directions are developing in the country by leaps and bounds.
Mineral Resource Summary
A feature of the country is the presence on its territory of reliefs of all types: the highest world mountain range - the Himalayas, the Deccan plateau and the Indo-Gangetic plain. This was the basis for the fact that the minerals of India are numerous and varied. The main place of occurrence of ore rocks is the north-east of the country, where there are deposits of aluminum, titanium and iron ores, deposits of manganese, rare metals. The coal basins of the northeast, although they have a low quality of raw materials, are used to the maximum. The south of the country is rich in bauxites, gold, chromites and brown coal,the central part of the country - coal and ferrous metals. The coastal strip is endowed with reserves of monazite sands containing uranium ores. At the same time, the work of the mining industry is focused on the domestic market, but the extraction of iron ore, bauxite, mica and manganese is intended for export to other countries. The presence in India of deposits of precious metals - primarily gold and silver - has made this state a world leader in the production of jewelry.
Ore minerals
The Indian platform has become the basis of a separate metallogenic region, which contains entire basins and more than one ore deposit - iron, manganese, chromium. First of all, this concerns the explored reserves of iron ore, which number twelve billion tons. Mining is happening at such a high rate that the Indian metallurgy, although it ranks tenth in the world in terms of production, cannot cope with the processing of the entire amount.
Therefore, more than half of the iron ore is not processed in the country, but is exported abroad. The content of useful components in manganese ores and chromites mined in the central part of the country is as high as in iron. To this should be added the presence of large bauxite deposits with estimated reserves of more than three billion tons. In addition to them, there are reserves of polymetallic ores with a high content of zinc, lead and copper and associated precious metals.
Nuclear power
Valuabledeposits of ore resources contained in the coastal strip around the entire Hindustan peninsula. Monazite deposits contain radioactive thorium and uranium ores. Their active development allowed India to enter the list of world nuclear powers. In addition to radioactive elements, monazite sands contain titanium and zirconium.
Coal mining
Coal remains the main non-metallic mineral extracted from the bowels of the earth for India. Brown coal occupies a small volume in total production - less than three percent, the main emphasis is on hard coal. Its deposits are located mainly in the northeast of India. In terms of proven reserves, the country ranks only seventh in the world - about eighty billion tons. But for the extraction of this mineral, India holds the palm with more than seven percent of the world's production.
The main uses of coal are fuel (more than eighty percent of India's electricity is generated at thermal power plants) and raw materials (in metallurgy). Brown coal is used exclusively for energy purposes.
Oil production
Until the mid-fifties of the last century, the minerals of India, rich in hydrocarbons, were mined only in the extreme north-eastern lands of Assam. But with the rapid development of oil fields around the world, new oil-rich fields were discovered in Gujorat and on the shelves in the Arabian Sea, which is one hundred and twenty kilometers north of Mumbai. The extraction of black gold began to develop rapidly. Now India produces more thanforty million tons per year, which is about one percent of the world's production. The reserves of this product are estimated at more than eight hundred million tons, and according to this indicator, the country ranks twenty-second in the world. It is clear that this is not enough for domestic needs, and oil is one of the import priorities.
Diamonds
What else is rich in India? Non-metallic natural resources, in addition to the coal and oil noted above, are graphite, muscovite and, of course, diamonds. For more than two millennia, the country remained practically the only source of diamonds in the world. But the gradual colonization of various parts of the world map by Europeans led to the fact that India lost not only its uniqueness in this matter. Already by the eighteenth century, it turned out that the sources of diamonds in the country were depleted, and the world championship in the extraction of precious stones turned out to be Brazil.
But the South American state did not hold the palm for long. Now the largest number of diamonds is mined in South African Botswana, South Africa and Angola, as well as in Russia and Canada. But almost all the world's famous diamonds, which have their own names, originate from Indian mines.
Alternative energy
India's Natural Resources Assessment shows that the country is making the most of its existing reserves, but it doesn't stop there. The state is one of the world leaders in the use of alternative energy sources. India ranks fifth in the world in terms of wind generation.energy. This source occupies more than eight percent of the total power generated in the country.
And the potential for using solar energy exceeds six hundred terawatts. This is the only world power in which there is a corresponding ministry. Its activities are aimed at the development of renewable (solar, wind, tidal) and other alternative energy sources.
