Productivity In Natural Resource Industries

Several senior natural resource analysts study the role played by innovation, particularly technological innovation, in the pursuit of heightened productivity. Increasing the output of a given input improves a firm‘s bottom line, makes it more competitive internationally, and reduces the potential for resource depletion and shortages. Thus, high productivity is a necessary ingredient of economic prosperity. This book illustrates the importance of technological innovation in achieving an acceptable level of output and efficiency. In this important new offering, a team of resource scholars describes and chronicles the development of recent innovations in selected natural resource industries. The authors also reveal the causes, sources, and net effect of such innovation on productivity. In all of these sectors productivity has increased considerably since the early 1980s, although the level of improvement varies across industries. To what degree did technological innovation contribute to that increase? Individual detailed case studies detail important innovations in America‘s coal, petroleum, copper, and forest industries. The primary focus is on extraction and production technologies, although the existence and importance of innovation in other areas such as management technique also enter the picture. For example, the combination of new technology with restructuring seems to have breathed new life into a floundering U.S. copper industry. The authors describe the origin and diffusion of important innovation, and the concluding chapter quantifies the net effect of such innovation on productivity.

Several senior natural resource analysts study the role played by innovation, particularly technological innovation, in the pursuit of heightened productivity. Increasing the output of a given input improves a firm‘s bottom line, makes it more competitive internationally, and reduces the potential for resource depletion and shortages. Thus, high productivity is a necessary ingredient of economic prosperity. This book illustrates the importance of technological innovation in achieving an acceptable level of output and efficiency. In this important new offering, a team of resource scholars describes and chronicles the development of recent innovations in selected natural resource industries. The authors also reveal the causes, sources, and net effect of such innovation on productivity. In all of these sectors productivity has increased considerably since the early 1980s, although the level of improvement varies across industries. To what degree did technological innovation contribute to that increase? Individual detailed case studies detail important innovations in America‘s coal, petroleum, copper, and forest industries. The primary focus is on extraction and production technologies, although the existence and importance of innovation in other areas such as management technique also enter the picture. For example, the combination of new technology with restructuring seems to have breathed new life into a floundering U.S. copper industry. The authors describe the origin and diffusion of important innovation, and the concluding chapter quantifies the net effect of such innovation on productivity.

This book provides a factual analysis of material flows and resource productivity in OECD countries in a global context.

The National Research Council's Science and Technology for Sustainability Program hosted two workshops in 2011 addressing the sustainability challenges associated with food security for all. The first workshop, Measuring Food Insecurity and Assessing the Sustainability of Global Food Systems, explored the availability and quality of commonly used indicators for food security and malnutrition; poverty; and natural resources and agricultural productivity. It was organized around the three broad dimensions of sustainable food security: (1) availability, (2) access, and (3) utilization. The workshop reviewed the existing data to encourage action and identify knowledge gaps. The second workshop, Exploring Sustainable Solutions for Increasing Global Food Supplies, focused specifically on assuring the availability of adequate food supplies. How can food production be increased to meet the needs of a population expected to reach over 9 billion by 2050? Workshop objectives included identifying the major challenges and opportunities associated with achieving sustainable food security and identifying needed policy, science, and governance interventions. Workshop participants discussed long term natural resource constraints, specifically water, land and forests, soils, biodiversity and fisheries. They also examined the role of knowledge, technology, modern production practices, and infrastructure in supporting expanded agricultural production and the significant risks to future productivity posed by climate change. This is a report of two workshops.

The second edition of this landmark book explores how natural resources contribute to development in poor economies.

This book develops and articulates a new perspective on the relationship between natural resources and development by foregrounding issues of innovation, knowledge, and industrial dynamics. Despite growing academic attention to the relationship between economic development and natural resources in social sciences, the issue has received rather limited attention in the field of Innovation Studies. This is problematic given the centrality of innovation and technological change for growth and development. Against that background, this book makes three contributions. Firstly, it summarizes and synthesizes existing insights about learning and innovation in Natural Resource Based Industries. Secondly, it develops new insights based on original research work. Thirdly, it distils and explains the remaining research challenges in the field. Containing important insights for researchers, businesses, and policymakers, this book will be useful to all those with an interest in navigating a natural resource based development pathway. This book was originally published as a special issue of Innovation and Development.

Natural resources are naturally occurring substances that are considered valuable in their relatively unmodified (natural) form. A natural resource's value rests in the amount of the material available and the demand for it. The latter is determined by its usefulness to production. A commodity is generally considered a natural resource when the primary activities associated with it are extraction and purification, as opposed to creation. Thus, mining, petroleum extraction, fishing, hunting, and forestry are generally considered natural-resource industries, while agriculture is not. This book presents the latest information from around the globe in this diverse and important field of research.

The theme of the 1989 agricultural symposium was " innovation in resource management ". It directs attention to the importance of technological and institutional innovation with which to conserve, as well as to increase, the productivity of the natural resource base on which agricultural development depends. In a period when many areas of the world are under pressure to increase agricultural production and/or are subject to increased ecological stress, innovation is urgently required to respond to these challenges. The symposium revolved around discussion groups on natural resource management ( water resource management, watershed management and soil conservation, the use of ground water, land tenure and productivity ), biotechnology, and livestock and cropping system interactions.