Understanding natural resources

You need to understand the importance of different types of natural resource and the impacts of their exploitation in order to write about them effectively in exam answers. This Building on the Basics summarises the way in which resources are grouped, and the issues around their use, using a topical case study of the mining of rare earth elements (REEs)

Renewable resources are those which should always be there for humans to use

The term ‘natural resources’ covers a huge range of materials. Organising the different types into groups will help you structure examination answers about resource use. One common grouping is non-renewable resources. These may also be referred to as ‘finite’, ‘stock’ or ‘wasting’ resources. All these terms relate to the fact that these types of resources have been created by long-term physical processes over geological timescales and therefore cannot be replaced. This group includes:

■ fossil fuels such as coal and oil