IB Environmental systems and societies 7.1I Natural Resource Insecurity and Security Notes

The Consequences of Resource Insecurity

Resource insecurity ripples across economies, environments, societies and international relations.

1. Economic underdevelopment
   1. Mismanagement, corruption and weak infrastructure stop resource wealth becoming broad prosperity.
2. Environmental degradation
   1. Over-extraction drives deforestation, soil erosion, pollution and biodiversity loss.
3. Geopolitical conflict
   1. Finite or concentrated resources spark tension over control and access, and fuel resource nationalism.
4. Social instability
   1. Insecurity brings displacement, inequality and violence, sometimes with human-rights abuses such as forced and child labour.

Achieving Resource Security

1. Societies raise resource security by managing demand, using resources more efficiently and adopting new technology.
2. Food: precision agriculture
   1. Sensors and targeted watering and fertilising cut waste and raise yields.
3. Water: desalination and recycling
   1. Turning seawater into freshwater, helped by cheaper reverse osmosis, cuts reliance on rivers and aquifers.
4. Energy: renewables
   1. Solar, wind and hydro are local and sustainable, cutting dependence on imported fossil fuels.

Globalization Cuts Both Ways for Resource Security

1. Trade widens access to resources but deepens dependence on global supply chains that shocks can disrupt.
2. Food
   1. Imports add variety and cut prices, but heavy importers like Japan and the UAE were badly exposed in the 2008 food-price crisis.
3. Water
   1. Trade in water-intensive crops strains shared basins, as with India and Pakistan on the Indus.
4. Energy
   1. Relying on global markets can cut security, as the EU's dependence on Russian gas showed, while Norway has gained from being a stable exporter.

Skills: Investigating a Resource With Secondary Data

1. You can compare how two countries use a resource such as inorganic fertiliser using secondary data from Our World in Data, Gapminder and the World Bank.
2. India and Brazil both rely heavily on fertiliser to drive crop production, and both face soil degradation and water pollution as a result.
3. Plot fertiliser use over time as a line graph, and use per hectare of cropland as a bar graph to compare the two.
4. Test a correlation between fertiliser use and crop yield, and use a t-test to compare the mean fertiliser use of the two countries.

Pulling It Together

1. Insecurity is the problem, security strategies are the response, and globalization can help or hurt depending on how a country manages its dependence.
2. Strong answers pair a named example with the mechanism behind it.