Land Resources

Landforms like hills, valleys, plains, river basins and wetlands include different resource-generating areas that the people living in them depend on. Many traditional farming societies had ways of preserving areas from which they used resources. For example, in the 'sacred groves' of the Western Ghats, requests to the spirit of the grove for permission to cut a tree, or extract a resource, were accompanied by simple rituals. The outcome of a chance falls on one side or the other of a stone balanced on a rock gave or withheld permission. The request could not be repeated for a specified period.

If land is utilized carefully, it can be considered a renewable resource.
The roots of trees and grasses bind the soil. If forests are depleted, or grasslands overgrazed, the land becomes unproductive and wasteland is formed. Intensive irrigation leads to waterlogged and salinized soil, on which crops cannot grow. Land is also converted into a non-renewable resource when highly toxic industrial and nuclear wastes are dumped on it.
Land on Earth is as finite as any of our other natural resources. While mankind has learnt to adapt his lifestyle to various ecosystems world over, he cannot live comfortably for instance on polar ice caps, under the sea, or in space in the foreseeable future.

Man needs land for building homes, cultivating food, maintaining pastures for domestic animals, developing industries to provide goods, and supporting the industries by creating towns and cities. Equally importantly, man needs to protect wilderness area in forests, grasslands, wetlands, mountains, coasts, etc., to protect our critically valuable biodiversity.

Thus, a rational use of land needs careful planning. One can develop most of these different types of land uses almost anywhere, but Protected Areas (national parks and wildlife sanctuaries) can only be situated where some of the natural ecosystems are still undisturbed. These PAs are important aspects of good land use planning.