The Cost of Natural Resources

The high cost of oil in the Global South continues to have a detrimental effect on its population. What are the primary natural resources that are used in your state? If this natural resource became unavailable, how would that affect the state’s economy? How does the harvesting or collecting of this natural resource affect the natural environment  Cost of Natural Resources Assignment Paper

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Cost of natural resources

Natural resources is a collective term that refers to substances that occur naturally in nature and can be economically exploited with little to no processing. They take much time to occur using natural processes that are mediated by the environment. Within my state, the most commonly used natural resources are petroleum, gas, coal, air and water. Among these few examples, the most commonly used natural resource is fresh water. Although more than 50% of the earth is water, only as much as 3% of the water is fresh water and only 2% of the fresh water is potable and is considered appropriate for domestic consumption that includes cooking and drinking. Although technological advances are reversing this issue by constructing water treatment plants, the truth is that demand for fresh water far exceeds supply.

The situation is only expected to worsen owing to the changing global climate that has increased polar ice melts as well as influenced rain patterns (Wang, 2014). Given this situation, the question then becomes: ‘how would the state’s economy be affected if fresh water become unavailable? Fresh water scarcity would result in high water costs that have a negative effective on the economy by increasing operating costs and reducing profit margins. The firms that are unable to accept the new margins would relocate to other states with viable and reliable fresh water that can be accessed at lower costs. This would be particularly true for the agricultural industry that uses more than half of the state fresh water supply. In essence, the lack of water would have a domino effect on the economy by causing the local state commerce to decline, reducing incomes, reducing tax revenues and reducing employment opportunities so that the population would also decline. Harvesting water would help in ensuring that fresh water remains available, especially when previously unavailable fresh water sources are targeted to include rain run offs that can be used in agricultural activities (Camp & Heath-Camp, 2016). In this respect, fresh water is an important natural resource.

References

Camp, W. & Heath-Camp, B. (2016). Managing our natural resource (6^th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

Wang, Y. (2014). Encyclopedia of natural resources – water and air – vol. 2. New York, Y: Taylor & Francis.  Cost of Natural Resources Assignment Paper