Natural Resource Depletion

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Introduction
Human wants, needs, and actions have created large impacts on the Earth’s environment. Although populations have been dependent on natural resources for thousands of years, in the past few decades our consumption of resources has rapidly increased. This has caused the depletion of many important resources like fresh water, as well as the looming possibility of scarcity of widely used non-renewable resources like oil. The planet is experiencing a lack of waste assimilating resources due to over-exploitation, which has further exacerbated climate change issues. Without sustainable resource management, the future for the world’s natural resources and a healthy planet looks grim. This paper will outline both renewable and non-renewable resource depletion, the causes of resource depletion, and the proper resource management necessary to maintain the world’s incredibly important supply of resources.

Natural Resources
Natural resources are the elements of the environment and nature that supply humans with services (Roberts, 2011, p. 7). All resources have value or utility, and can be considered ‘natural capital’ (Elkin, 2013). The services resources provide can be divided into two main groups: economic goods and attributes of nature. Economic goods are resources like oil, gas, metals, forests or minerals, which can be classified as raw materials, as well as flows of energy (Elkin, 2013). These goods are available on the market to be purchased and sold. Typically these types of resources are for human’s wants, although some can be essential for human’s survival. Attributes of nature are different in that they cannot be purchased or sold in the market, but they supply us with something priceless like clean air and water, ...

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Neumayer, E. (2000). SCARCE OR ABUNDANT? THE ECONOMICS OF NATURAL RESOURCE AVALIABILITY. JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, 14 (3), 307-335.

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World Health Organization. (2009). 10 facts about water scarcity. Retrieved from < http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/water/en/index.html>

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