How engineering has a negative impact on the natural environment - Essay Example

Conferring to Balaban (2012), constructions are huge contributors to ecological deterioration. Moreover, it is quite clear that additional actions are required in order to make the building activities and the built environment ecological. Construction activities are among the major exploiters of both non-renewable and renewable natural resources. It depends profoundly on the natural environment to acquire raw materials that are used in these activities. These raw materials comprise of sand, timber, and aggregate for the construction process.

According to Horvath (2004), the construction activities devours 40% of the globe’s sand, gravel, and raw stones and 25% of the virgin timber annually. Additionally, it devours 16% of water and 40% of the energy. The mining of these natural resources brings about permanent alterations to the natural ecology of the coastal areas and the countryside, both from a scenic and an ecological point of view. The following transformation of these zones into geographically dispersed locations not only brings about extra consumption of energy, but also upsurges the volume of particulate matter into the air.

Construction activities and the extraction of raw materials also contribute to the build-up of pollutants in the air. The United States construction activities done by engineers is responsible for 20% of the waste found in water, 40% of the emissions to the atmosphere and 13% comprise of further releases. Dust and other releases comprise of particular poisonous substances such as sulphur oxides and nitrogen. They are released in the course of transportation and production of materials along with from site activities.

They have triggered serious dangers to the natural ecology. Further, dangerous materials like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are applied in fire-fighting systems, refrigeration plants, air conditioning, and insulation and have serious effects on the ozone layer. The ozone is a vapour