Renewable resource
[2] In 1962, Paul Alfred Weiss defined renewable resources as: "The total range of living organisms providing man with life, fibres, etc...".
For example, as groundwater is usually removed from an aquifer at a rate much greater than its very slow natural recharge, it is a considered non-renewable resource.
[4] The remaining unfrozen freshwater is found mainly as groundwater, with only a small fraction (0.008%) present above ground or in the air.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that in coming decades, cropland will continue to be lost to industrial and urban development, along with reclamation of wetlands, and conversion of forest to cultivation, resulting in the loss of biodiversity and increased soil erosion.
Monoculture is a method of growing only one crop at a time in a given field, which can damage land and cause it to become either unusable or suffer from reduced yields.
Experts predict that crop yields will be halved within thirty to fifty years if erosion continues at present rates.
[16][17] The phenomenon called peak soil describes how large-scale factory farming techniques are affecting humanity's ability to grow food in the future.
Methods to combat erosion include no-till farming, using a keyline design, growing wind breaks to hold the soil, and widespread use of compost.
An important renewable resource is wood provided by means of forestry, which has been used for construction, housing and firewood since ancient times.
A large variety of lubricants, industrially used vegetable oils, textiles and fibre made e.g. of cotton, copra or hemp, paper derived from wood, rags or grasses, bioplastic are based on plant renewable resources.
A large variety of chemical based products like latex, ethanol, resin, sugar and starch can be provided with plant renewables.
Historically, renewable resources like firewood, latex, guano, charcoal, wood ash, plant colors as indigo, and whale products have been crucial for human needs but failed to supply demand in the beginning of the industrial era.
[25] Early modern times faced large problems with overuse of renewable resources as in deforestation, overgrazing or overfishing.
[25] In addition to fresh meat and milk, which as food items are not the topic of this section, livestock farmers and artisans used further animal ingredients as tendons, horn, bones, bladders.
Some confined wool production and sheep to large state and nobility domains or outsourced to professional shepherds with larger wandering herds.
British agriculturist Charles Townshend recognised the invention in Dutch Waasland and popularised it in the 18th century UK, George Washington Carver in the USA.
Clover is able to fix nitrogen from air, a practically non exhaustive renewable resource, into fertilizing compounds to the soil and allowed to increase yields by large.
[29] Besides the still central role of wood, there is a sort of renaissance of renewable products based on modern agriculture, genetic research and extraction technology.
[30][31] The success of the German chemical industry till World War I was based on the replacement of colonial products.
The predecessors of IG Farben dominated the world market for synthetic dyes at the beginning of the 20th century[32][33] and had an important role in artificial pharmaceuticals, photographic film, agricultural chemicals and electrochemicals.
After the loss of the German colonial empire, important players in the field as Erwin Baur and Konrad Meyer switched to using local crops as base for economic autarky.
[34][35] Meyer as a key agricultural scientist and spatial planner of the Nazi era managed and lead Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft resources and focused about a third of the complete research grants in Nazi Germany on agricultural and genetic research and especially on resources needed in case of a further German war effort.
[34] A wide array of agrarian research institutes still existing today and having importance in the field was founded or enlarged in the time.
There were some major failures as trying to e.g. grow frost resistant olive species, but some success in the case of hemp, flax, rapeseed, which are still of current importance.
[34] During World War 2, German scientists tried to use Russian Taraxacum (dandelion) species to manufacture natural rubber.
An unexpected outcome of the subsidies was the quick increase of pellet byfiring in conventional fossil fuel plants (compare Tilbury power stations) and cement works, making wood respectively biomass accounting for about half of Europe's renewable-energy consumption.
Manufacturing sources of bioasphalt include sugar, molasses and rice, corn and potato starches, and vegetable oil based waste.
[56] Bioethanol is an alcohol made by fermentation, mostly from carbohydrates produced in sugar or starch crops such as corn, sugarcane or switchgrass.
[72] Some renewable resources, species and organisms are facing a very high risk of extinction caused by growing human population and over-consumption.
[74] Internationally, 199 countries have signed an accord agreeing to create Biodiversity Action Plans to protect endangered and other threatened species.
