Managing and protecting resources

By Simon Aldrich, David Blau, Don Galya and Paul Reed

The natural resources – air, water, land, and biological resources – that comprise the global ecosystem are faced with unprecedented pressures. These include not only a rapidly increasing human population but also the active transition of many societies from subsistence living standards towards those enjoyed by developed societies.

Rising consumer demand in populous developing areas combined with constant pressure for more resources from affluent developed economies is putting a huge strain on the world’s ecosystem and its natural resources.

Examples of how these trends are impacting include:

• global climate change
• disruption and imbalance in the water supply
• habitat and biodiversity loss from urban sprawl
• air, water, and soil contamination
• resource depletion (mineral wealth, fishing, forestry etc.)
• marine environment degradation (coral reef deterioration, seawater pollution).

As Western society has developed through the Industrial Revolution into today’s technologically sophisticated and rapidly changing world, we have learned significant lessons about our environment and its management. These lessons have demonstrated how uncontrolled industrial and economic development along with basic or inappropriate technology have often led to adverse impacts on local and regional environments.

It is now self-evident that the pressures imposed by development are exerting negative impacts on a regional and even global scale. These global effects, such as climate change, are not completely understood but are creating major concerns.

However, the news is not all bad. Human ingenuity, assisted by the application of advanced technology, has an almost infinite capacity to comprehend these threats to the global environment and to develop measures to mitigate their worst impacts.

We have a wealth of technical capability that is currently being applied to a very wide range of projects where the management and protection of resources is an essential component of the work.

Facing the challenges

Many efforts are already underway to improve management and protection of our global natural resources.

Water resources planning
Water resources planning is one of the gravest challenges facing society today. Water use is growing at twice the rate of global population. Over one billion people currently lack a safe and reliable water supply source. Over 2.4 billion people are without adequate sanitation.

The solutions lie in more effective long-range planning for water and more comprehensive watershed management. Components of the solution include careful attention to demand-side management and demand reduction; more efficient use of existing supplies; greater use of groundwater storage and recovery; greater use of recycled water; and reduction of system losses.

Sustainable infrastructure
The use of sustainable practices can greatly reduce negative impacts on our natural resources. The process starts with a mind-set that is dedicated to securing the best possible balance between environmental considerations and physical requirements. This balance will dictate how land can best be used and how transportation systems should be planned. As more businesses see the true advantages of sustainable practices, we are extending the approach into all aspects of natural resource management. This involves incorporating natural resource protection and conservation criteria upfront in project formulation and design. For example, in a stormwater management scheme, the structural engineering elements are frequently balanced with ‘low structural’ techniques such as controlling the amount of impervious cover, bioswales, retention and reuse, and proper use of vegetation.

Renewable energy
The consumption of fossil fuels in energy production has been identified as a major contributor to atmospheric greenhouse gases and potential global climate change effects. Predictions indicate that climate change could have significant adverse effects on natural resources. In addition, fossil fuel usage contributes to the depletion of a dwindling non-renewable resource. Renewable energy sources – including biofuels, wind, solar, geothermal, and water (hydropower, tidal, wave) power – conserve non-renewable energy reserves and reduce the potential for future climate change-induced impacts on natural resources.

Ecosystem restoration
Human interference with the landscape, including building development, habitat modification, hydrological disturbance and associated pollution, have resulted in the degradation and loss of numerous aquatic, wetland, and terrestrial ecosystems. Typical aquatic ecosystem impairments include loss of habitat, accelerated nutrient-induced eutrophication, contamination by toxic pollutants and pathogenic micro-organisms, loss of biodiversity due to invasive species, migration blockage, and hydrological imbalance and disruption. Restoration of impaired ecosystems is an important component of sustainable natural resource management.

Setting course for a naturally sustainable future

The scale of global pressures on natural resources means that good stewardship will become increasingly important in the future. Several recent studies, based on population growth scenarios up to 2050, suggest that, for everyone to be able to enjoy the consum-ption levels and lifestyle of Western society, the global natural resource requirement would range from between 2 to 3.8 Planet Earths. In response to such studies, ‘green thinking’ has become increasingly mainstream as has the notion that ‘business as usual’ is no longer a long term option for the planet.

To protect and manage our natural resources effectively, we need a new way of thinking that is more global in its approach. Enlightened politics will have to be coupled with a philosophical re-evaluation of standard economic models and objectives, and new technology and best practices for environmental management and engineering. This new approach will have to be developed at a global level, and then incorporated into high-level decision-making forums that have the authority to transform the vision into reality.

Because of the need for programs and approaches to be embraced by many countries, cultures, and political systems with varying economic and development goals, this will inevitably be a complex process. But this should not be allowed to act as a deterrent.

Short-term expediency will no longer be a useful policy tool. However, the risk of the new approach being forced to the sidelines by social and geo-political objectives will remain one of the greatest challenges for our global society.

Within the context of the new approach, there will be numerous sustainable measures that focus on minimizing our impact on natural resources. Most of our activities as a society can be managed to ease the pressure. A relatively quick ‘win’ will be the institution of energy conservation measures into the mainstream, to minimize wastage and lessen pressure on energy resource use. This will require relatively manageable changes in lifestyle and investments in appropriate technologies. A significantly greater technology investment will be necessary to make renewable energy into a viable mass energy solution on a global basis.

Transportation will also need radical re-structuring, and we will have to rethink our relationship with ‘Big Oil’. Arguments rage over when the peak of the oil ‘spike’ will be reached. But even if new sources maintain sufficient fossil fuel supplies, global climate change concerns will trigger fossil-fuel reduction initiatives. Because of the current lack of viable mass alternatives for transportation, this will require new technological advancements.

Natural resource usage ‘footprints’ can be minimized by creating and retro-developing communities to meet better sustainability standards by applying good infrastructure and engineering design, including lifestyle patterns and utility networks. This needs to be combined with an attitude that values our resources and seeks to incorporate protection and conservation within any development or activity.

Human activities have always exerted pressure on their environments and natural resources. The difference now is that the stakes are global in nature and the timeframe is critical. The timetable imposed by global climate change, combined with our lifestyle practices and economic growth scenarios, will increase the pressures on our natural resources and our ability to respond effectively.

We have recently seen considerable ‘greening’ of the corporate and political agenda in Western societies, with sustainability and environmental management becoming an increasing norm within the corporate governance agenda. Whilst this is to be celebrated, the next decade will give us a better understanding of the timeframe that we, as a species, have available to us to either manage the process or merely react to events as best we can.