Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
ing upstream may cause serious displacement of people, agriculture, and transportation systems, all
of which may occur at great cost.
Trading-off
Resources:
The
Consequences
of
Resource Use
Further complicating resource geography is the fact that production and consumption of one natural
resource may occur at the expense of another. The result may be deterioration of environmental con-
ditions over specific geographic areas. Here are three examples from a wide range of possibilities:
Fossil fuels and air quality:
Americans desire low-cost access to gasoline, which they
consume in massive quantities. Americans also desire clean air. The atmosphere, unfortu-
nately, is the gathering place of pollutants that result from gasoline consumption. As a result,
urban areas in particular, with their high concentrations of motor vehicles, often suffer high
levels of atmospheric pollutants.
Fossil fuels and land subsidence:
Louisiana has the dubious distinction of being the only
state that is measurably shrinking. The culprit is extraction of oil and natural gas in coastal
parts of the state, which is causing the land to subside. As a result, coastal habitat and the land
itself is being lost. Similar topographic events are occurring in other areas, though not neces-
sarily with the same dramatic results.
Strip mining and soil loss:
In some areas large and valuable coal deposits are found just
below Earth's surface. The safest and most economical way to extract these resources is to
strip away the
overburden
(the soil and rock between the surface and resource) and then dig
up the coal. This process is called
strip mining,
and its by-product is a deeply scarred surface
(see Figure 16-7).
Formerly, strip-mining companies were allowed to do their thing and move on without devot-
ing any effort to repair the damage. Now, however, laws require major land reclamation. But
even the best repair job cannot fully restore some lands to their former status. In a rather cruel
twist of geography, some of the country's most valuable coal reserves lie underneath some of
the best Midwestern farmland. Fortunately, land reclamation has been fairly successful in that
region, but full repair may take several years, and does not always result in land that is as pro-
ductive as it was before. Some people question whether the trade-off of coal for soil is worth
it.
