CLASSIFICATION OF RESOURCES
Resources may be
looked upon from several angles, and, hence, may be classified in different
ways which are : (a) presence or absence of inanimate matters, (b) exhaustible or inexhaustible, (c) ownership and (d) distribution.
(a) Inanimate
resources exist in solid, liquid or gaseous forms. Water, fuel, minerals,
metallic are some of the examples. Animate resources are comprised of those
derived out of man, animal, fishes etc.
(b) Resources
may be classified as exhaustible and inexhaustible. Exhaustible or fund
resources refer to those which diminish in the process of utilisation, for
example, coal, iron ore, petroleum and she like. Again some natural things are
self-renewable and their supplies continue perennially. The climatic seasons or
the periodic rainfall of a region will unmistakably rotate for year after year.
The velocity of flowing water which yields hydel power is permanent. Forests,
if judiciously exploited, are also a flow resources.
(c) The nature of ownership also
classifies resources into three main categories – individual, national and
international. Individual or personal resources include one’s material
possessions like cash, land, buildings etc. His personal qualities such as his
moral character, knowledge and skill, good health are again individual
resources. National resources are the sum total of all the individual resources
owned by the denizens of a country. At the same time, resources owned
collectively by the nation such as, public parks, state railways, forests,
country’s mineral deposits, water power potentiality, state owned river valley
projects and such invisible things as national character favourable for social
welfare are national resources. International resources, quite understandably,
consist of the material and non-material things of the world, leading to the
welfare of the human race.
(d) On the basis
of distribution resources may be ubiquitous or they may be localised.
Ubiquitous resources refers to those occurring everywhere, such as , oxygen in
the atmosphere or sunshine. Localised resources are concentrated at specific
places, exercising great influence on the development of human economic
activities. These are coal, iron ore, bauxite and many others.
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