OVERUSE OF NATURAL RESOURCES

                                        OVERUSE OF NATURAL RESOURCES

         Natural resources economically referred to as land or raw materials occur naturally within environments that exist relata natural form. A natural resource is often characterized by amounts of biodiversity existent in various ecosystems.

The first harmful environmental impact wasting water brings is that excessive water consumption cause arid and cracked land and makes crops hard to grow. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, although the earth holds a large amount of water, only 3 percent of it is fresh water. And among the little 3 percent, 80 percent of it is permanently frozen in glaciers and at the polar ice caps. The other 20 percent of fresh water is found in surface bodies or underground. Everyday, people from all over the world live on this 20 percent of fresh water. Some people may argue that there are some countries use water purification systems and take some amount of fresh water from the sea. This is true, I admit. However, compared to the supply that people get from rivers, lakes or ground water, the water that is purified from the sea is a miniscule amount. Almost 6.7 billion people in the world still rely heavily on the surface or ground fresh water. Unfortunately, not everyone is aware the water that we survive on comes from such a small amount. This ignorance leads to wasting water everywhere. In order to meet the large demand, people have to overuse water from rivers, lakes and underground. However, this action leads to a detrimatal effect on the eco-system. Due to overuse such as excessive irrigation, the size of rivers and lakes are shrinking year by year, and, even worse, some have already disappeared. Consequently, some species of fish and aquatic plants that live in the water are dying and certain types of crops like paddy rice are no longer able to grow. Although farmers believe more water means more crops, the overuse of water leads to worse land and fewer crops. A real example would be the Aral Sea in central Asia. Due to large irrigation for cotton and rice, the lake has lost more than 60% of its water. And “the lake has shrunk from over 65,000 sq km to less than half that size, exposing large areas of the lake bed”, according to USGS report.

Excessive water consumption also leads to the overuse of ground water. Originally, fresh water on earth has a recyclable system. The ground or underground water flows into the sea, and is evaporated by sunshine, and becomes vapor or steam. Then it will flow to the air as clouds, and under certain appropriate conditions, it will fall as rain to the surface or underground. However, the natural system is now broken by humans’ excessive use. Due to the large consumption, underground water is pumped up before it gets replaced. Day by day, the level of underground water keeps declining, and the ground falls down due to the lack of support, which in turn causes land subsidence.nowadays, the land subsidence problem is severe in America. The USGS states on the web page,”In the United States, more than 80 percent of the identified subsidence in the Nation has occurred because of exploitation of underground water, and the increasing development of land and water resources threatens to exacerbate existing land-subsidence”. Land subsidence could bring vital damage to human beings. For example, in some flat-lying coastal areas where loss of ground elevation may either cause inundation or increase the potential for flooding by tides and storm surges.y tides and storm surges.Ground water being overused also triggers sea water intrusion. When ground water is extracted, the spaces that water occupy become empty, which gives sea water chance to intrude. Consequently, once sea water fills out the spaces, some remaining fresh water will be polluted and the soil will become saline-alkali when it absorbs the salty water. This type of soil will keep crops from growing and in turn, worsens the problem of feeding world population.

All in all, excessive water consumption causes unestimatable damage to human beings, because it causes arid and cracked land which keeps the crops from growing, decreases of groundwater levels and land subsidence that results in sea water intrusions pollution.

The exploitation of nature's resources occurs when we consume more than can be replaced naturally. For example this happens when we cut trees down and do not replace those we have felled.Each time that more trees are felled than can be replaced naturally, it causes the forest to gradually disappear and with it, all of the species dependent on this habitat for survival. Currently the rate of tree-felling is 10 times quicker than the rate of natural reforestation.

The exploitation of the sea also belongs in this category. More than 70 percent of the fish we consume are over-farmed. The trawlers have become so efficient that very few fish remain behind as the nets collect the day's catch.  As the human population continues to increase and our natural resources continue to decrease,   mankind’s lifestyle is continuing to contribute to atmospheric pollution, depletion of water resources, deforestation, and the extinction of wildlife. These are all important issues concerning the well being of our planet and future generations to come. Stabilizing the human population, conservation and investing in renewable energy resources are the keys to protecting the carrying capacity of the earth’s natural resources and reducing the effects of global warming. 

 Human population has become an ever growing global issue today. Human population is measured by the birth rate and the death rate (Axia, 2010).With advancements in medicine and technology humans are living longer lives. The efficiency of industrialization has also played are large role in keeping up with the pace of producing food and maintaining an exponential population growth. The evidence of this exponential population growth started in the year 1800 in which the population first reached one billion; by the year 2000, the population had reached six billion (Axia, 2010). No one knows the carrying capacity of the earth’s natural resources but we do know it has a limited supply of these resources for the fact there is only one planet. Because of the increasing human population this problem has lead to over consumption of water supplies like depletion of aquifers (Axia, 2010). When the aquifers are used up there will be no more clean water to drink, which is necessary for human existence. The construction of urbanization has disrupted most of the earth’s landscape and decreased wildlife habitats (Axia, 2010). Urbanization and deforestation have lead to the extinction of many species that can hinder some breakthroughs in medicine (Axia, 2010). And the overuse of nonrenewable resources such as coal, oil etc.

Today the sustainable collective use of natural resources is a greater challenge than ever before.2002). Despite intensive scientific efforts, the problem of sustainable collective consumption of natural 

resources has become even bigger today, and it is expected to grow in importance in the future, with 

further depletion of the world’s resources and simultaneous increasing demand due to widespread 

modernization and over-population. To study sustainable collective consumption, experiments with different populations under different conditions would be needed, which is nearly impossible to realize within real human populations.