Natural resources are the basis of the economic development of any territory. They include water, land, forest, recreational, mineral components. All that India is rich in.
Loving country
India is a country with an ancient culture. On the territory of the present state, various civilizations existed from the third millennium BC. But, which is characteristic, they were all peace-loving. India did not develop due to external expansion, but due to the conquest of the invaders by its high culture, which it has been famous for a long time. The country has served as a source of many world geographic discoveries. The natural conditions and resources of India attracted other peoples here. Europeans sought to reach it both by land and by sea.
Which, in addition to finding these very paths, led to the discovery of the New World. The wealth of India beckoned the invaders. First, Alexander of Macedon sought at all costs to expand his empire to the Indian Ocean. Then the Romans, Chinese, Mongols, Persians, Ottomans, English had the same desires. The Indians allowed themselves to be captured, and then assimilated their invaders. Briefly describing the natural resources of India, we can say that they allow the country practically no need for import, and at the same time export a lot. And in the old days, and in the present.
Waters of india
The country's most famous river, the Indus, has given its name to the entire state, India. The natural resources of the water component in addition to it include the largest rivers not only of the country, but of the whole of Eurasia. These are the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and their numerous tributaries. They serve as the main for artificial irrigation of agricultural land. And in India, almost sixty percent of the land is irrigated. There are practically no lakes in the country, groundwater is used faster than replenishment by melting glaciers or precipitation. At the same time, the nutrition of rivers is mostly rain, which negatively affects agriculture. In dry times, rivers become smaller, and in the rainy season they often come offshore, which often leads to flooding of the fields.
Land resources
If we evaluate the natural conditions and resources of India, it should be noted that, despite the presence of huge megalopolises in the country, it is mostly agricultural. With a pronounced crop bias. Climate features allow you to get two or even three crops per year. But the presence of a high population density, the intensive use of mineral fertilizers have led to the fact that the lands of India do not have high productivity.
Almost forty percent of the territory is used for crops, which brought the country to fourth place in the world in terms of agricultural production. India is a world leader in the production of tea, pineapple and banana. It ranks second in rice crop, 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 have enriched. The country has the largest number of cattle - up to fifteen percent of the global number. In this case, the cow is a sacred animal and is used not for meat production, but as a draft force.
There is very little land allocated for pasture - not more than five percent. In India, poultry, pig farming, 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 global volume.
Forests
Forest spaces occupy more than twenty percent of the territory of a state such as India. Natural resources of this type are practically scarce in the country. After all, most of the forests are tropical and monsoon, unsuitable for household needs, and deforestation in the Himalayas is prohibited. But at the same time, some wood derivatives, such as shellac and plywood, are procured exclusively for export purposes. Given the fact that the forests supply the Indians not only with wood, but also are a source of rosin, resin, reed, bamboo, livestock feed, the forest, along with agriculture, is the breadwinner of people. And woody components are used in many medical preparations.
Recreational components
One cannot ignore the diversity 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 from 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. Holidays in the place of India, the most famous for its beaches - on Goa - has already become a household name. Despite the absence of the highest world peak in the country - the Chomolungma, ski and climbing directions are developing in the country by leaps and bounds.
Brief description of mineral resources
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 served as the basis for the fact that the mineral resources of India are numerous and diverse. The main 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. 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 bauxite, gold, chromite and brown coal, the central part of the country is rich in coal and ferrous metals. The coastal strip is endowed with reserves of monazite sands containing uranium ores. At the same time, 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 proven reserves of iron ore, which totals twelve billion tons. Mining is taking place at such a high rate that Indian metallurgy, although it occupies the tenth place in the world in terms of production volumes, cannot cope with the processing of the entire quantity.
Therefore, more than half of the iron ore is not processed in the country, but 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. This should add the presence of large bauxite deposits with estimated reserves of more than three billion tons. In addition to them, there are deposits of polymetallic ores with a high content of zinc, lead and copper and their accompanying precious metals.
Nuclear power
Separately, it is necessary to single out valuable deposits 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 in the total production is insignificant - less than three percent, the main emphasis is on stone. Its deposits are located mainly in northeast India. According to explored reserves, the country occupies only seventh place in the world - about eighty billion tons. But for the extraction of this fossil, India holds the palm with more than seven percent of global production.
The main areas of use 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, India’s hydrocarbon-rich minerals were mined only in the extreme northeastern lands of Assam. But with the rapid development of oil fields around the world, new oil-rich fields were discovered in Gujarat and on the shelves in the Arabian Sea, which is one hundred and twenty kilometers north of Mumbai. Extraction of black gold began to develop rapidly. Now India produces more than forty million tons per year, which is about one percent of global production. The reserves of this product are estimated at more than eight hundred million tons, and the country ranks twenty-second in the world by this indicator. 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 has remained virtually the only source of diamonds in the world. But the gradual colonization of various parts of the world map by Europeans has led to the fact that India has lost not so much uniqueness in this matter. By the eighteenth century, it turned out that the sources of diamonds in the country were depleted, and Brazil won the world championship in the extraction of precious stones.
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
An assessment of India’s natural resources allows us to note that the country uses its existing reserves to the maximum, but does not stop there. The state is one of the world leaders in the use of alternative energy sources. India is in fifth place in the world in terms of wind energy production. This source occupies more than eight percent of the total energy 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 (sun, wind, tides) and other alternative energy sources.