Environmental Systems and Societies · Topic 7: Natural resources

ES7.1 — Natural resources: uses and management

Environmental Systems and Societies · SL / HL · syllabus-mapped notes

1. Natural resources, capital and income

   Resources as raw materials and energy; natural capital as the stock, natural income as the goods and services it yields, and what framing nature this way implies.

2. Ecosystem services, renewability and value

   Life-supporting ecosystem services, the renewable/non-renewable split, and the nine value types of natural capital, whose value is dynamic.

3. Managing use: sustainability, security and choice

   Why natural capital must be managed, what resource security means, and the factors and perspectives shaping a society's resource choices.

4. HL: Managing and intervening in resource use

   Government, NGO and social-movement strategies that steer use of natural capital, and how the SDGs frame sustainable resource management.

5. HL: Environmental impact assessments

   How an EIA addresses sustainability in development projects, how guidance varies by country, and how public EIAs give citizens a stakeholder role.

6. HL: Resource insecurity and security

   Unsustainable extraction, short-term economic pressure, the causes and consequences of resource insecurity, and how security can be improved.