Resources Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Resources - Essay Example It is an established fact that humans need certain basic things to survive in this world, which include food, clothing and shelter. Rapid population growth and increased urbanization have made shelter one of the most critical problems around the world. The earth’s carrying capacity or the amount of inhabitants it can sustain in terms of food, water and housing is limited and specific (Ehrlich, 1990). The increasing population does not commensurate with the resources as there is no change in resources. Resultantly, there is going to be an extreme shortage of resources with every passing day. Besides the reduced availability of land for accommodation, there are a number of other devastating effects of over population. All other resources like food, clean water are inter linked with the land; at present more than 99% of food supply comes from land and only 1% is obtained from oceans and other water habitats (Pimentel et al., 1994). The other implication of rapid growth and less land availability is the issue of human and factories’ waste, which if not disposed off properly, can cause a number of health problems like typhoid and cholera (United Nation, 1991, p. 219). The world is becoming a place where the human population is becoming more and more crowded thereby increasing the needs of life. The challenges for the engineers in provision of basic needs to humans like water, sanitation, nutrition, health care, safety are also increasing with every passing day. In next 20 years, expected increase in population is two billion, out of which 95% in developing and 5% in under developed countries. Such huge growth is going to increase the extraordinary requirement for energy, food, waste disposals, health care, ecological onslaught, telecommunication and transportation networks. The role of engineers in providing matching response to these requirements will be very critical and vital (Amadei,