• intrinsic quality: the inward quality like purity (for mining), value when pure.
• density, concentration, distribution, fragmentation: the occurrence, distribution, patchiness, dilution.
• quantity, volume: the total amount, available amount, abundance, stock, reserve, perhaps in relation to use or need,
• resilience, sensitivity: resilience to exploitation, recovery, ease of recycling, capacity to restore, integrity to function, sensitivity to technological discoveries, resource substitution.
• value to nature: how organisms depend on it, rarity, importance to life, threat to life.
• value to humans: value for functioning of society, personal value, spiritual value.
• conservation value: the importance of keeping some, to stem the outflow, to make it last.
• down-stream effects: the effects exploitation may have on other people, organisms, places, environment.
• technology & innovation:This factor was added as an afterthought to sharpen our ideas of any resource, with a view (or guess) into the future. Technology and innovation can influence all of the above factors, sometimes considerably.

The typical path of a resource starts with extraction, followed by concentration. Then it is transported to where it is used, then sold, and finally it is discarded (wasted) to be dispersed in rubbish heaps. All along this path, energy is added and wastes are produced. Where resources are not recycled, it may indicate that it is more expensive to purify them from garbage than from the minerals found in nature.

attribute (L: ad=toward; tribut= tribe; tribuere= to assign (between tribes)) a quality ascribed to a person or thing; a characteristic quality.
intrinsic (L: intrinsecus=inward) inherent, essential, belonging naturally.

In the case of fossil fuel, however, its extraction is not limited by what one is willing to pay, but by how much energy it costs to discover, drill, pump and distribute. If more energy is needed to lift one unit of oil from a well, than the energy contained in that unit, then that well has become uneconomic, regardless of the amount of fuel still left behind.

Reserves are known about in the course of mineral exploration. Some exploration is done by governments, in order to assess the wealth of a nation; some is done by mining companies. If the demand is high, companies will be encouraged to step up their explorations, in order to find more reserves. Thus the quantity in known reserves, is not necessarily the maximum. As present stocks run out, more reserves will be discovered. Eventually, miners discover fewer and fewer reserves, which leads one to conclude that their maximum is close to being reached. It is believed that fossil oil has reached such a stage, known as "peak oil".

See also the table of resource quantities and reserves.
 
 
 

Natural resilience In the course of the evolution of our biosphere, sudden changes have happened, testing the planet's resilience. Although punctuations of mass extinctions have occurred, the planet as a whole has survived. It is important to know how nature evolved resilience, because it affects the management of resources and would also be applicable to other situations like businesses.

An ecosystem consists of communities of organisms which somehow function together to cycle nutrients and energy. If an ecosystem did not function as one, it would fall apart completely. The resilience of functioning is called integrity.

resilience (L: re=again; salire=to jump; to rebound) the ability to resume its original shape after bending, stretching, compressing, etc. The ability of a resource to restore after exploitation.

integrity (L: in= not/without; tangere= to touch; integer=whole/ untouched) wholeness, soundness. Functioning of an ecosystem or resource as if untouched.

• overcapacity: organisms can live happily within a range of living conditions or amounts of food. If more food is available, organisms do better, but if less is available, they won't die immediately. Their range of accommodation creates overcapacity. Reproduction has always had overcapacity, for any species with inadequate capacity of reproduction would go extinct.
• replication: replication is achieved by every species' ability to reproduce, and ecosystems do better if they extend over large areas (replication by area). They do better still when divided by natural barriers like mountains, rivers and seas, so that several distinct but similar ecosystems are formed. This is another form of replication.
• diversity: the more species contribute to the functioning of an ecosystem, the better it is able to adapt, because each species needs to adapt less this way.
• connectivity: the ability of species to migrate to neighbouring parts of an ecosystem. Many ecosystems do not consist of only one contiguous area but of many 'islands', separated by mountains, rivers and seas. A disaster ocurring to one such island may not spread to adjacent areas, and it can recover from gradual migration of species back into the damaged area.
• adaptability: the ability to adapt to changing circumstances. Predators and grazers may switch their food sources in periods of aversity. A richly varied gene pool allows a species to evolve over time to changed circumstances. Rapidly reproducing species such as insects, are very adaptable.

The graph on right sketches the general history of human resource use over time. Horizontally the time axis from year 1500 to today, and vertically a logarithmic scale running over four decades. The red graticules divide the scale further, as in : 1,2,5,10,20,50,100,... etc. In the top left corner three straight lines corresponding with growth rates of 100x, 10x, 5x in a century. The advantage of this kind of 'log-lin' diagram is that growth rates can be compared, which would not be easy with a linear vertical scale. Please note that any line on an angle in such a graph, is one of exponential growth (like explosions). The ones curving upward are exponential growths with increasing growth rates, which should alarm anyone, since such growth rates are sure to reach some ceiling.

The black curve shows population growth, which increased gradually, roughly doubling every two centuries. This growth was made possible by the inventions of agriculture and trade. Suddenly from around 1950, this curve steepened to a rate of 4x per century. As we know, we expect the world population to double within the coming forty years. This growth was possible due to medical technology, hygiene and sanitation, which almost doubled life expectancy. At the same time, more food became available thanks to the green revolution with artificial fertilisers and improved crops.

Looking at the thick green curve, one can see GDP keeping up with this, but suddenly around 1850, it rose steeply, flattened slightly during the depression-war period, but then taking off again, much steeper than population, at a rate of close to 20x per century. At the same time, GDP per person increased (thin green line), which did not mean that everyone on the planet shared in the process, but that the growth of GDP vastly outran the growth in population. GDP is closely related to society's use and waste of resources, most important of which is energy.

The thick red curve shows overall energy use, which before 1800 consisted entirely of biomass, mainly firewood, and which followed the rate of population growth. However, suddenly in 1800, the use of coal increased at the rate of 20x per century, partly replacing firewood, but mainly powering a new economy, the industrial revolution. Then from 1900, oil took over, while coal tapered to a rate of 4x per century, still keeping up with population.

The drastic increase in the use of oil is caused by:

• population increase: the human population is increasing rapidly.
• growth of the labour force: as agriculture fed more mouths, more people became available for industry.
• increased wealth: as people had more to spend, they bought more goods.
• energy-using inventions: people used appliances, heaters and lights, while industry used energy to replace labour.
• energy-intensive products: steel, aluminium, fertilisers, plastics, etc.
• non-fuel uses: plastics, solvents, lubricants, paints, chemicals, biocides, etc.
• convenience: oil displaced coal and firewood, being cleaner, easier to transport and store, and to use in small quantities.

The history of fishing is different again. It took off after boats were equipped with motors, able to go further afield. After a most spectacular increase over less than a century, fishing levelled off around 1980, and after reaching its peak, went into decline again. After having overfished the most popular fish stocks, most of the catch now goes into the manufacture of poultry and pig food.

The reason these curves are discussed here, is to show that resource use is closely linked to economic output. It follows then that nearly all the planet's resources follow a similar pattern, and that their exploitation is bound to grow at a rate of at least 20x per century. Another reason is to show how important it is to know the historic demand and yield for a resource, particularly when drawn on a logarithmic scale. Notice also the concept of resource substitution, that of firewood by coal and then coal by oil. In the diagram, all three are expressed in oil equivalents. Here are the actual data of the graph above:

 

In this diagram, the extraction behaviour of oil, gas and soil are shown with time as the horizontal axis. The flow of oil is mainly restricted by the porosity of the rock (see drawing). Initially, the oil flows by itself, pushed by gas pressure in or above the well. As the pressure reduces, the oil flows more slowly until eventually it needs to be assisted by pumps. Once the energy to pump oil starts to become equal to the energy value in the oil obtained, pumping becomes uneconomical and the well is shut. Deep wells are thus shut sooner than shallow ones.
For gas the situation is somewhat different, being over a thousand times more agile. The speed at which gas can be extracted is therefore limited by the network above the well. When gas flow begins to slow down, the end of its economic life is reached rapidly, also because it has to be pumped into a high pressure network.
For a whole oil or gas field, consisting of hundreds of wells, one drilled after another, the overall result follows that of a bell curve (red), depending on how fast it has been opened up. Notice that the bell curve is not shown to scale. It should be much taller and wider.

For cropland soil, the situation is entirely different. How soil degrades, depends entirely on the type of soil, the kind of irrigation, climate and slope. However, in all cases almost the same curve is followed. First the soil loses fertility rapidly after deforestation. The forest humus is consumed rapidly by bacteria and fungi, as the soil is ploughed. In order to keep fertility up, the soil is fertilissed artificially, but after some 10-200 years, the soil begins to degrade; first slowly but then faster . Eventually bare desert-like soil remains, without the fertile top soil. Irrigation in dry climates appears to accelerate the process; many soils being lost in only 10 years. Flat soils in temperate zones, where rainfall equals evaporation, keep longest. See our large chapter on soil.

This diagram shows the concept of overshoot of a natural population depending on a living resource like food. Curve A shows stable growth towards the limit imposed by the amount of food. Curves A, B and C show hypothetical behaviour of physical systems reaching equilibrium. It can be gradually, like A, or with a few small oscillations, or leading to permanent oscillations. Such physical systems never lead to an outcome like curve D, where the maximum is overshot, and the population crashes afterwards to a level from which it can not re-emerge. Yet this is the typical behaviour found when overexploitation changes the environment (like extraction '[poisoning' the wells), such that it suffers permanent loss of quality. Most collapsed human civilisations have been through this process, and our present civilisation faces a similar fate.

These examples serve to illustrate that resource management is not always self-evident, and that knowledge about physics and ecology, the nature of the resource, is essential.

Ostrom, E. 1990: Governing the Commons: the evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge Univ Press.
NIWA, 1996. No51. Science for sustainable fisheries: an information paper prepared for the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology.
Munasinghe (eds), 1995: Defining and measuring sustainability: the biogeophysical foundations. UN University. World Bank Washington DC.

• utilitarian: the resources we use to live or to make products.
• inexhaustible: resources which cannot be exhausted, like sunlight, water and air (wind). However, these can become polluted and rendered unusable. Once water is captured in reservoirs, it can be exhausted temporarily.
• non renewable: resources that are finite, like fossil fuels, minerals.
• large: larger than we can possibly use, like sand, rock, nitrogen, some minerals like gypsum and salt.
• small: eventually becoming scarce and extinct, like fossil fuels, many minerals, many aquifers.
• renewable: (natural capital) resources which are in principle infinite, as long as we don't exceed their rate of renewal.
• living: renewed by living organisms.
• ecosystems: large systems and their services, like soil, biodiversity, ocean, air, land.
• populations: like plankton, fishes, fishing, pasture, timber, monoculture, forests.
• non-living: physical substances.
• fixed reservoir: filling a fixed reservoir.
• fixed supply: water in aquifers, ground water, sea sand, geothermal energy.
• variable supply: water in hydro lakes, hydro energy.
• variable reservoir: ?
• direct: cannot be stored: solar radiation, wind, waves, surface water.
• fixed non-utilitarian: living space, niche space, caves, cracks. These resources are used but not used up.
• non-utilitarian human: resources which have value, and which are used, but not used up.
• economic: businesses, corporations, land, living space, homes, buildings, plant (machines), knowledge, patents, franchises.
• social: clean water, clean air, vistas, sunsets, parks, amenities.
• cultural: resources which have value within a culture.
• labour: trades, blue collar workers, white collar workers, professions, skills, knowledge, etc.
• capital: financial markets, savings, mortgages, land, infrastructure, etc.
• spiritual: historical, religious, artistic.

The prices for renewable resources are also going up: meat, fish, timber, produce, coffee, tea, rubber.

Note that the drop in price for non-renewable resources was not caused by finding unlimited quantities, but by using modern technology and the benefits of increased scale (through rapid demand). For the mining of minerals, vast quantities of fossil fuel are used, and as its price went down, so went the price of all other minerals.

That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. (Aristotle)

But in nature, predators have open access to their prey and grazers to their grass, yet no tragedy is occurring here. Obviously a better explanation must be found.