Resource depletion
Topic: Environment and Sustainable Development · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 7 "Environment and Sustainable Development"
Meaning
Resource depletion means that intensive extraction exhausts a resource. Non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels have a fixed stock, so every tonne used is gone for good. Renewable resources such as forests or groundwater also get depleted when we use them faster than they regenerate. Once a resource runs down, the country has to spend heavily on exploration, research and new technology to find substitutes. That spending is part of the opportunity cost of environmental damage, which means what society gives up because of it.
Example
Groundwater is renewable, but Class 10 notes that about 300 districts saw water levels fall by more than 4 metres in 20 years. Farmers must now dig deeper borewells and pay more to pump. That money could have gone to other uses.
Don't confuse with
- Environmental degradation: this is a fall in the quality of the environment, such as polluted air, eroded soil or cut forests. Depletion is about the quantity of a resource running out.
Related concepts
- Environment
- Biotic and abiotic components
- Functions of the environment
- Renewable resources
- Non-renewable resources
- Reserves-to-production life
- Hotelling rule
- Carrying capacity
- Absorptive capacity
- Environmental crisis