In the previous two articles in this series on the importance of natural resources (Part 1 – subsurface energy resources, Part 2 – other subsurface resources), we focused on resources buried deep – hundreds of metres or more – underground. So when we talk about surface resources, I want to include things that are easily accessed from the surface. Some, such as sand and gravel, require a bit of digging or quarrying. Potable (fresh) groundwater can be accessed in shallow wells, and is generally in hydraulic communication with surface water bodies, so we will also count that as a surface resource.
Natural resources at the surface
Humanity relies on so many natural resources at the surface that it takes some thought to appreciate them. Here are the most important:
- Potable (fresh) water resources
- Surface water – rivers and lakes
- Shallow groundwater
- The oceans
- Soils and agriculture
- Forests and other natural vegetation
- Building materials – sand and gravel, stone
Because there are so many resources, used in so many different ways, we can only touch briefly on them here.
Potable water
Everyone needs fresh water just to survive, and much more to live a modern and prosperous life. We drink, bathe, wash things, and water our potted flowers. We use fresh water for agriculture, including our livestock and pets, and industry consumes immense amounts to create all the products we use. A person might need to drink only a couple of litres of water per day, but per-capita water consumption in rich nations runs into hundreds of litres per day when all uses are considered.
On top of direct consumption, let’s not forget that hydroelectricity – harnessing the energy from moving water – is by far humanity’s largest source of renewable electricity. Hydro does not actually remove water from the environment, but our big hydro dams certainly influence ecosystems and the water cycle. Huge volumes of fresh water are used to cool thermal power generation facilities (coal, gas, and nuclear). This water is not removed from the environment although it is heated up, sometimes to the detriment of ecosystems.
Fresh water resources ultimately come from rain and snow, filling rivers and lakes, and recharging fresh groundwater supplies. Fresh water is very unequally distributed across the earth, and historically has been a major controller of human settlement and migration patterns.
In modern times, as populations and water demands grow, access to adequate fresh water resources is becoming a more critical issue in many places. Pollution has destroyed some of our best resources, and populations outgrow local water supplies with increasingly dire consequences. Excess groundwater withdrawal is degrading or destroying major aquifers in many places, while areas such as Western Canada face long-term issues as water demands exceed meltwater runoff from shrinking glaciers.
Despite its huge intrinsic value, fresh water is a cheap commodity – so it is hard to face spending a lot of money to build pipelines or facilities to purify saline or polluted water.
The oceans
It is not so much the water itself that is of great resource value in the oceans, because we cannot drink salt water, or use it directly in most industrial applications. But the oceans host a lot of resources, such as:
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- Food and related products – e.g., fish, shellfish, algae, and kelp
- Transportation – the resource value is in moving goods around the world cheaply and efficiently
- Sea-bed minerals – not very important today, but as our need for critical minerals grows, miners are surveying the sea floor for rich deposits of various metal ores
- Wave- and tidally generated electricity – again, limited applications today, but people are working toward harnessing the vast energies of moving water within the oceans.
Soils and agriculture
Soils are complex mixtures of minerals and organic materials found almost everywhere on earth. They range from little more than sand in deserts and other barren lands, to thick, organic-rich accumulations beneath our most productive farmlands.
Soils host almost all of our food and specialty crops, as well as plants that support livestock. We would quickly starve without them. But like our fresh water resources, soils are threatened by overuse and by farming practices that pollute the soil or expedite its erosion.
Forests
Forest resources have served humanity since we, well, climbed down from the trees. Wood is our original energy source – and was our most important fuel until coal overtook it in the early 20th century. But humanity still burns as much wood today as it did back in the 1800s – it is an essential energy source for billions of people.
Much of our food comes from the forest or from planted orchards.
Wood also provides construction materials for everything from furniture to houses. Applications are expanding as engineered wood products support bigger and taller buildings with a much lower carbon footprint than those built with concrete.
And while digital media has reduced newsprint consumption and paper files, there are still enormous markets for pulp and paper products – all made from forest materials.
Forest resources are massive and diverse, covering huge areas of every continent except Antarctica and Greenland (although the fossil record shows that forests covered those lands in the distant past). But human demands threaten forest resources, as they threaten water and soil resources. Large areas of Europe were stripped of their forests for firewood before coal came on line in the 1800s. Advanced management practices have been developed to restore forests where they have been harvested – but best practices are not always followed, and we have learned over the past decade in particular that 20th-century fire prevention strategies (Smokey the Bear – I am talking to you!) have actually increased the severity of big forest fires because forests did not burn naturally in smaller fires over the years.
Building materials
When thinking about resources, people often forget about building materials including sand, gravel, and quarried stone. Yet we use them just about everywhere – underneath and in our buildings, laying down roads, and creating all sorts of essential infrastructure. In fact, the value of industrial building materials exceeds just about every other commodity type.
While sand and gravel seem to be everywhere, they have highly variable properties, so finding the right grade, size, and sorting to do various jobs can be a big challenge. Like fresh water, we use such large volumes of sand and gravel that transportation is a major cost challenge, driving us to find resources as close as possible to the point of use. That can create conflicts in which exploiting sand and gravel deposits might disrupt groundwater flow, particularly in areas where people have water wells.
Parting thoughts on water and land resources
We rely on water and land resources for our very survival – particularly the absolute basics such as water to drink and food to eat. As populations grow and our needs and demands change, we risk outgrowing available water and land resources.
We have developed many ways to augment or make better use of the resources available to us – fertilizers and advanced farming techniques, dams to retain and redirect water resources, water treatment facilities to repair polluted water supplies, and advanced forest management practices, to name a few.
But securing adequate resources is an ongoing battle – and one that we are losing in many places.
(Brad Hayes, BIG Media Ltd., 2025)
