World Natural Resources and Location of Industries

What the official syllabus says

UPPCS Main Examination, General Studies I.

Distribution of major natural resources of World: Water, Soils, Forests in reference to South and South-East Asia with special reference to India. Factors responsible for the location of industries (with special reference to India).

Topics in detail

Two parts: the distribution of water, soils and forests, with the focus moving from the world to South and South-East Asia to India; and the factors that decide where industries are located, with Indian examples.

Water

• Global water: oceans, ice caps and glaciers, groundwater, surface water; the small share of usable fresh water
• Major river basins of South and South-East Asia: Indus, Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna, Irrawaddy, Chao Phraya, Mekong
• India: Himalayan and peninsular rivers, groundwater use and depletion, water stress
• Shared rivers: the Indus Waters Treaty (1960) and India's decision of April 2025 to hold it in abeyance, the Ganga water treaty with Bangladesh (1996)
• Conservation: watershed management, rainwater harvesting, micro-irrigation

Soils

• Soil formation and soil profile; world soil groups
• Soils of the tropics of South and South-East Asia: laterite, alluvial deltas, volcanic soils
• Soils of India (ICAR classification): alluvial, black, red and yellow, laterite, arid, saline, peaty, forest and mountain soils; where each occurs and what it grows
• Soil erosion, salinity and waterlogging; soil conservation; Soil Health Cards

Forests

• World forest types: tropical rainforest, monsoon forest, temperate, coniferous
• Rainforests and mangroves of South-East Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia); deforestation for plantations
• Forest types of India: tropical evergreen, moist deciduous, dry deciduous, thorn, montane, littoral and swamp (mangroves of the Sundarbans)
• India State of Forest Report (Forest Survey of India); National Forest Policy, 1988

Other resources in the regional view

• Minerals and energy of South and South-East Asia: tin (Malaysia, Indonesia), oil and gas, coal
• India's mineral belts: the Chota Nagpur plateau, Odisha, the Karnataka-Goa belt

Factors of industrial location

• Raw materials (weight-losing and pure), power, labour, market, transport, capital, water
• Government policy, incentives and special economic zones; agglomeration and industrial clusters
• Alfred Weber's least-cost theory of industrial location

Indian examples

• Iron and steel: Jamshedpur, Bhilai, Rourkela, Bokaro, Durgapur near ore and coal; Visakhapatnam on the coast
• Cotton textiles: Mumbai and Ahmedabad (market, port, humid climate, cotton)
• Sugar: Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra (perishable cane, mills near fields)
• Aluminium: near bauxite and cheap power (Odisha; Renukoot in Uttar Pradesh)
• Petrochemicals near refineries and ports (Jamnagar); IT services in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune
• Industrial corridors such as the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor

Overlaps

Uttar Pradesh's natural resources, minerals and industrial development are in General Studies VI; industrial policy is in General Studies III.