Distribution of Natural Resources and Location of Industries

What the official syllabus says

UPSC Civil Services (Main) Examination, Paper II: General Studies I.

Distribution of key natural resources across the world (including South Asia and the Indian sub-continent); factors responsible for the location of primary, secondary, and tertiary sector industries in various parts of the world (including India).

Topics in detail

Natural resources: concepts

• Classification: renewable and non-renewable, biotic and abiotic, potential and developed
• Resource conservation and sustainable use

Distribution of key resources

• Metallic minerals: iron ore, bauxite, copper, manganese, gold; major producing regions of the world and of India
• Critical minerals: lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements; their concentration in a few countries
• Energy resources: coal, petroleum and natural gas (West Asia, Russia, the Americas), uranium; renewable sources (solar, wind, hydro)
• Water resources: river basins, groundwater, glaciers
• Forest resources and their distribution
• Fisheries: the major fishing grounds of the world
• Land and soil as resources
• South Asia and India: the Chota Nagpur plateau minerals, coalfields, oil and gas basins, hydropower potential

Location of industries: factors

• Raw materials, power, labour, market, transport, water, capital, technology
• Government policy, special economic zones and industrial corridors
• Agglomeration and industrial clusters; footloose industries
• Theories of industrial location (Weber’s least-cost theory)

Primary sector

• Agriculture: types of farming (subsistence, plantation, commercial grain, mixed, dairy) and their regions
• Mining and quarrying; forestry; fishing

Secondary sector

• Iron and steel: location in the world (Ruhr, Pittsburgh, China, Japan) and in India
• Cotton textiles, sugar, aluminium, cement, petrochemicals, fertilisers
• Automobiles and electronics; global value chains
• Industrial regions of India

Tertiary sector

• Information technology and business services: Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Silicon Valley
• Financial centres, ports and logistics hubs
• Tourism and its location factors
• Knowledge-based (quaternary) activities

Overlaps

• Industrial policy, infrastructure and energy are in General Studies III.