I do not have any background on economics. So my question might sound too simple and I hope it to be clear enough. I am curious about the following:
Is there any formal definition of a relationship between resource availability and demand? Intuitively I would expect that resource shortage, demand would increase. But this is not expected by the law of demand, assuming that the price of the resource would increase. Am I confusing something here?
Thank you, best
EDIT 1: @Brythan Thank you for your answer. @EnergyNumbers and @erik thank you for your contributions. They were very useful to understand these concepts deeper. I was reading a little more about this and I wonder if the concept of scarcity is instead better applied here. I reformulate my question:
(1) does supply-induced scarcity implies that demanded is greater than supply?
(2) what is the correlation between supply-induced scarcity and quantity demanded?
EDIT 2: To be more clear, I understand that scarcity does not necessarly refer "to whether a good is in shortage or surplus, nor to whether there are only a few or whether there are many". That is to say that scarcity is not the same as availability. Instead, scarcity "refers to the possible existence of conflict over the possession of a finite thing" (https://mises.org/library/goods-scarce-and-nonscarce). The scarcity of a good (or a resource) happens when supply is not sufficient to meet the demand. "Supply-induced scarcity occurs when environmental degradation, pollution, natural variation or a breakdown in the delivery infrastructure constrains or reduces the total supply or local availability of a specific resource. As the supply of natural resources is reduced, options for pursuing productive livelihood strategies are undermined, potentially creating competition between livelihood groups." (http://www.un.org/en/events/environmentconflictday/pdf/GN_Renewable_Consultation.pdf). That is, supply-induced scarcity is correlated with the resource availability.
Now concerning the questions (1) and (2), it seems reasonable to say that in circumstances of supply-induced scarcity, when a decrease on the availability of a resource happens, because supply is not sufficient to meet the demand, the quantity demanded is higher than in circumstances closer to equilibrium. Does this make sense to you?
Now returning to my original question:
Is there any formal definition of a relationship between resource availability and demand?
I do not know how to answer it. But taking into account the conclusions above it seems plausible to say that there is a relationship between resource availability and quantity of demand (instead of demand): in circumstances of supply-induced scarcity the quantity of demand may increase.
What do you think?