CBSE Class 8 Geography Chapter 2 ‘Land, Soil, Water, Natural Vegetation and Wildlife Resources’ Notes

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Welcome to Online Tutorial Classes! We are excited to present a valuable resource for CBSE students studying Class 8 Geography. In this post, we will delve into the comprehensive and easy to learn notes from CBSE class 8 Geography Chapter 2 ‘Land, Soil, Water, Natural Vegetation and Wildlife Resources’ from the CBSE curriculum and provide you with a comprehensive notes and worksheets to help you master this important topic.

Chapter 2 ‘Land, Soil, Water, Natural Vegetation and Wildlife Resources’ of CBSE Class 8 Geography focuses on the importance and conservation of natural resources like land, soil, water, vegetation, and wildlife. It discusses the threats these resources face, various conservation methods, and the impact of human activities. The chapter also covers landslides and their mitigation.

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CBSE class 8 Geography Chapter 2 ‘Land, Soil, Water, Natural Vegetation and Wildlife Resources’ Overview

CBSE Class 8 Geography Chapter 2, ‘Land, Soil, Water, Natural Vegetation and Wildlife Resources’, explores the significance of natural resources. It discusses land types and uses, soil formation, water as a crucial resource, and the diversity of natural vegetation and wildlife.

The chapter emphasizes the need for conservation due to threats like deforestation, soil erosion, water scarcity, and poaching. It presents various conservation methods and the impact of human activities on these resources. It also covers the concept of landslides, their causes, effects, and mitigation mechanisms. The chapter underscores the importance of maintaining a balance in the ecosystem and the ethical duty of every citizen towards conservation.

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CBSE class 8 Geography Chapter 2 ‘Land, Soil, Water, Natural Vegetation and Wildlife Resources’ Notes

Mamba’s Life in Tanzania

• Mamba lives in a small village in Tanzania, Africa.
• She wakes up early to fetch water and walks a long distance.
• Her family owns a piece of rocky land around their small hut.
• Her father grows maize and beans on the land, which is not enough to feed the family for the whole year.

Peter’s Life in New Zealand

• Peter lives in New Zealand, in a region known for sheep rearing.
• His family runs a wool processing factory.
• Their sheep yard is situated on a wide grassy plain and is managed scientifically using the latest technology.
• Peter’s family also practices organic farming to grow vegetables.

Factors Influencing Lifestyle Differences

• Quality of land, soil, water, natural vegetation, animals, and technology usage significantly impact lifestyle variations.
• Availability and quality of resources determine economic activities and living conditions in different regions.

Land

• Land is among the most important natural resources.
• It covers only about 30% of the total area of the earth’s surface, and all parts of this small percentage are not habitable.
• The uneven distribution of population in different parts of the world is mainly due to varied characteristics of land and climate.
• The rugged topography, steep slopes of the mountains, low-lying areas susceptible to water logging, desert areas, thick forested areas are normally sparsely populated or uninhabited.
• Plains and river valleys offer suitable land for agriculture. Hence, these are the densely populated areas of the world.

Land Use

• Land is used for different purposes such as agriculture, forestry, mining, building houses, roads, and setting up industries.
• The use of land is determined by physical factors such as topography, soil, climate, minerals, and availability of water. This is commonly termed as Land use.
• Human factors such as population and technology are also important determinants of land use pattern.
• Land can be classified on the basis of ownership as private land and community land.
• Private land is owned by individuals whereas, community land is owned by the community for common uses like collection of fodder, fruits, nuts, or medicinal herbs.
• These community lands are also called common property resources.

Land Availability and Quality

• People and their demands are ever-growing but the availability of land is limited.
• The quality of land also differs from place to place.
• People started encroaching the common lands to build up commercial areas, housing complexes in the urban areas, and to expand the agricultural land in the rural areas.
• Today the vast changes in the land use pattern also reflect the cultural changes in our society.
• Land degradation, landslides, soil erosion, desertification are the major threats to the environment because of the expansion of agriculture and construction activities.

Conservation of Land Resource

• Growing population and their ever-growing demand has led to a large-scale destruction of forest cover and arable land.
• The present rate of degradation of land must be checked.
• Methods used to conserve land resources include afforestation, land reclamation, regulated use of chemical pesticide and fertilisers, and checks on overgrazing.

Soil

• Soil is the thin layer of grainy substance covering the surface of the earth and is closely linked to land.
• Landforms determine the type of soil.
• Soil is made up of organic matter, minerals, and weathered rocks found on the earth through the process of weathering.
• The right mix of minerals and organic matter make the soil fertile.

Factors of Soil Formation

• The major factors of soil formation are the nature of the parent rock and climatic factors.
• Other factors include topography, role of organic material, and time taken for the composition of soil formation.
• These factors differ from place to place.

Degradation of Soil and Conservation Measures

• Soil erosion and depletion are the major threats to soil as a resource.
• Both human and natural factors can lead to degradation of soils.
• Factors which lead to soil degradation include deforestation, overgrazing, overuse of chemical fertilisers or pesticides, rain wash, landslides, and floods.

Methods of Soil Conservation

• Mulching: The bare ground between plants is covered with a layer of organic matter like straw to retain soil moisture.
• Contour barriers: Stones, grass, soil are used to build barriers along contours. Trenches are made in front of the barriers to collect water.
• Rock dam: Rocks are piled up to slow down the flow of water, preventing gullies and further soil loss.
• Terrace farming: Broad flat steps or terraces are made on the steep slopes to provide flat surfaces for growing crops, reducing surface runoff and soil erosion.
• Intercropping: Different crops are grown in alternate rows and are sown at different times to protect the soil from rain wash.
• Contour ploughing: Ploughing is done parallel to the contours of a hill slope to form a natural barrier for water to flow down the slope.
• Shelter belts: In the coastal and dry regions, rows of trees are planted to check the wind movement to protect soil cover.

Landslides

• Landslides are defined as the mass movement of rock, debris, or earth down a slope.
• They often take place in conjunction with earthquakes, floods, and volcanoes.
• A prolonged spell of rainfall can cause heavy landslides that can block the flow of a river for quite some time.
• The formation of river blocks can cause havoc to the settlements downstream on its bursting.
• In the hilly terrain, landslides have been a major and widely spread natural disaster that often strikes life and property.

Case Study

• A massive landslide hit Pangi village near Reckong Peo in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh and damaged a 200-meter stretch of old Hindustan-Tibet road, National Highway – 22.
• This landslide was triggered by intense blasting at Pangi village.
• Due to the blasting, this weak zone of slope collapsed and caused intense damage to the road and nearby villages.
• The Pangi village was completely vacated to avoid any possible loss of life.

Mitigation Mechanism

• Advancement in scientific techniques has empowered us to understand what factors cause landslides and how to manage them.
• Some broad mitigation techniques of landslide are as follows:
  • Hazard mapping: To locate areas prone to landslides. Hence, such areas can be avoided for building settlements.
  • Construction of retention wall: To stop land from slipping.
  • Increase in the vegetation cover: To arrest landslide.
  • Surface drainage control works: To control the movement of landslide along with rainwater and spring flows.

Water

• Water is a vital renewable natural resource.
• Three-fourths of the earth’s surface is covered with water, hence it is called the ‘water planet’.
• Life began in the primitive oceans about 3.5 billion years ago.
• Oceans cover two-thirds of the earth’s surface and support a rich variety of plant and animal life.
• Ocean water is saline and not fit for human consumption.

Fresh Water

• Fresh water accounts for only about 2.7% of the total water on Earth.
• Nearly 70% of this occurs as ice sheets and glaciers in Antarctica, Greenland, and mountain regions, which are inaccessible.
• Only 1% of freshwater is available and fit for human use, found as groundwater, surface water in rivers and lakes, and as water vapour in the atmosphere.
• Fresh water is the most precious substance on earth.
• Water can neither be added nor subtracted from the earth, its total volume remains constant.
• Water is in constant motion, cycling through the oceans, the air, the land and back again, through the processes of evaporation, precipitation, and runoff, referred to as the ‘water cycle’.

Usage of Water

• Humans use huge amounts of water for drinking, washing, and production.
• Water is used for agriculture, industries, and generating electricity through reservoirs of dams.
• Increasing population, rising demands for food and cash crops, increasing urbanisation, and rising standards of living are the major factors leading to shortages in the supply of fresh water.

Problems of Water Availability

• There is scarcity of water in many regions of the world, including most of Africa, West Asia, South Asia, parts of western USA, north-west Mexico, parts of South America, and entire Australia.
• Countries located in climatic zones most susceptible to droughts face great problems of water scarcity.
• Water shortage may be a consequence of variation in seasonal or annual precipitation or the scarcity is caused by over-exploitation and contamination of water sources.

Conservation of Water Resources

• Access to clean and adequate water sources is a major problem facing the world today.
• Steps have to be taken to conserve this dwindling resource.
• Discharge of untreated or partially treated sewage, agricultural chemicals, and industrial effluents in water bodies are major contaminants.
• These contaminants pollute water with nitrates, metals, and pesticides, most of which are non-biodegradable and reach human bodies through water.
• Water pollution can be controlled by treating these effluents suitably before releasing them in water bodies.
• Forest and other vegetation cover slow the surface runoff and replenish underground water.
• Water harvesting is another method to save surface runoff.
• The canals used for irrigating fields should be properly lined to minimise losses by water seepage.
• Sprinklers effectively irrigate the area by checking water losses through seepage and evaporation.
• In dry regions with high rates of evaporation, drip or trickle irrigation is very useful.
• The valuable water resource can be conserved by adopting these means of irrigation.

Natural Vegetation and Wildlife

• Natural vegetation and wildlife exist only in the narrow zone of contact between the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere, known as the biosphere.
• In the biosphere, living beings are inter-related and interdependent on each other for survival, forming an ecosystem.
• Plants provide us with timber, shelter to animals, oxygen, protection for soils, act as shelter belts, help in storage of underground water, and give us fruits, nuts, latex, turpentine oil, gum, medicinal plants, and paper.
• Wildlife includes animals, birds, insects, and aquatic life forms.
• They provide us milk, meat, hides, and wool.
• Insects like bees provide us honey, help in pollination of flowers, and play an important role as decomposers in the ecosystem.
• Birds feed on insects and act as decomposers.
• Vultures, due to their ability to feed on dead livestock, are scavengers and considered vital cleansers of the environment.
• All animals, big or small, are integral to maintaining balance in the ecosystem.

Distribution of Natural Vegetation

• The growth of vegetation depends primarily on temperature and moisture.
• The major vegetation types of the world are grouped as forests, grasslands, scrubs, and tundra.
• In areas of heavy rainfall, huge trees thrive, forming forests.
• As the amount of moisture decreases, the size of trees and their density reduces.
• Short stunted trees and grasses grow in regions of moderate rainfall, forming the grasslands of the world.
• Thorny shrubs and scrubs grow in dry areas of low rainfall, where plants have deep roots and leaves with thorny and waxy surfaces to reduce loss of moisture through transpiration.
• Tundra vegetation of cold Polar Regions comprises of mosses and lichens.

Conservation of Natural Vegetation

• Today, there are many more people in the world than there were two centuries back.
• To feed the growing numbers, large areas of forests have been cleared to grow crops.
• Forest cover all over the world is vanishing rapidly.
• There is an urgent need to conserve this valuable resource.

Conservation of Natural Vegetation and Wildlife

• Forests are our wealth. Plants give shelter to the animals and together they maintain the ecosystem.
• Changes of climate and human interferences can cause the loss of natural habitats for the plants and animals.
• Many species have become vulnerable or endangered and some are on the verge of extinction.
• Deforestation, soil erosion, constructional activities, forest fires, tsunami, and landslides are some of the human and natural factors which accelerate the process of extinction of these resources.
• One of the major concerns is the poaching which results in a sharp decline in the number of particular species.
• The animals are poached for collection and illegal trade of hides, skins, nails, teeth, horns as well as feathers. Some of these animals are tiger, lion, elephant, deer, black buck, crocodile, rhinoceros, snow leopard, ostrich, and peacock.
• These can be conserved by increasing awareness.

Protection of Natural Vegetation and Wildlife

• National parks, wildlife sanctuaries, biosphere reserves are made to protect our natural vegetation and wildlife.
• Conservation of creeks, lakes, and wetlands is necessary to save the precious resource from depletion.

Balance in the Environment

• There is a balance in the environment if the relative number of species is not disturbed.
• Human activities in several parts of the world have disturbed the natural habitats of many species.
• Due to indiscriminate killings, several birds and animals have either become extinct or are on the verge of extinction.

Awareness Programmes

• Awareness programmes like social forestry and Vanamohatasava should be encouraged at the regional and community level.
• School children should be encouraged to bird watch and visit nature camps so that they appreciate the habitat of varied species.

Laws Against Trade and Killing of Birds and Animals

• Many countries have passed laws against the trade as well as killing of birds and animals.
• In India, killing lions, tigers, deers, great Indian bustards, and peacocks is illegal.
• An international convention CITES has been established that lists several species of animals and birds in which trade is prohibited.
• Conservation of plants and animals is an ethical duty of every citizen.

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