What are problems of overpopulation?

In the last three decades, the world population that lives in urban areas has tripled. Earth cannot replenish its resources at the same rate that humans are currently consuming them, and its replenishment rate may continue to slow as climate change continues to affect both land and the oceans. Add to this an increasing urbanization of the world’s population as a result of economic growth and you have a situation where land, water, and wildlife are all at risk.

World population growth moving towards large urban areas means that more and more people are living indoors and close to sources of contamination such as factories and large concentrations of vehicles. The UN Population Division reports that the urban population has increased significantly over the past 30 years: in 1975, one in three lived in urban areas; In 2007 it was more than every second person.

The distances that viruses can travel today are also problematic. In the past, viruses spread more slowly and outbreaks became isolated because people traveled very little outside of their small communities. Nowdays a virus runs among a huge urban population and with it millions of travelers and visitors can spread it across the US and the rest of the world within days and weeks.

For several years, the world’s health experts have worried about the possibility of a flu pandemic, an outbreak they predict could kill hundreds of millions of people worldwide. However, it doesn’t affect only humans. The national and international movement of livestock and other agricultural products, and even wildlife migration patterns, can spread viruses through animals, birds, insects, and other wild animals, and damage ecosystems and natural environments.

Examples include disease outbreaks such as that caused by E.coli bacteria, which contaminate vegetable crops stored in grocery shops in America.

Large population groups are putting pressure on water, energy, and agricultural resources. It is predicted that next year’s grain supplies would be 53 days long (meaning that if no additional supplies arrive, there would be enough stored for 53 days). This compares to in 1999–2000, enough for 115 days. Researchers report that the decline is because we’re consistently not producing as much grain as we consume.

People need to find ways to reduce their water use while increasing their food production but in an environmentally responsible way. People need to understand where the problems are coming from, including land clearance, water use practices, and the breaking of links in the food chain so that solutions can be found.

One of the major concerns of modern society is that the amount of land available in the world for cultivating and maintaining herds of livestock (such as cattle and sheep) is insufficient to meet the food needs of people. The causes are urbanization and deforestation for economic development (combined with the fact that large parts of the world are unsuitable for agriculture).

Land clearance has a number of negative impacts on ecosystems, including the following: When forests or wetlands are replaced, for example, by agriculture or construction, soil erosion occurs. Earth can even be seen over farmland in drier areas as topsoil disappears leaving the resulting soil with fewer nutrients.

Land erosion removes forest cover and other vegetation that would otherwise consume and store carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, reducing the country’s ability to manage greenhouse gases. Food and other essential goods need to be transported to villages and towns to support people who no longer produce their own food and clothes. This increases the energy consumption for transport. Mass-production farming methods are necessary to produce the food needed for growing populations.

The amount of waste requiring disposal in urban areas increases with a population in part because as people move away from the country that supports them, their concern about reducing waste through techniques such as composting decreases.

Water supplies are decreasing due to rapid population growth in developing countries and the way people in developed areas consume water. It is important that people reduce the amount of water they use each day to ensure there is enough of this resource to support not only the people who live on the planet but all of its ecosystems. After all, these ecosystems are at the heart of global agricultural production.

According to the United Nations Development Programme, lack of water and sanitation in developing countries is responsible for the deaths of nearly 2 million children each year and causes health problems for almost half the population of those countries. It reports that 1.1 billion people in the world do not have access to water and 2.6 billion don’t have access to sanitation. It also reports that the majority of of the world’s 830 million malnourished people are small farmers, shepherds, and agricultural workers facing increasing water insecurity due to climate change.

Studies show that people depend on around 10 million other species on earth to support the food production process. Many of those species that exist in the food chain to produce, protect or enhance food production, are in danger of extinction due to the human impact behavior has on the ecosystems in which they live. For example, urban development may reduce the ability of wildlife to migrate to seasonal feeding areas. and pesticide spraying for agricultural crops can run off into waterways, the introduction of chemicals into the water kills or harm fish and other animals.

Even when not directly involved in food production, wildlife – insects to large mammals like elephants – plays a role in the health and regeneration of its environment. For example, bees pollinate flowers, and elephants disperse plant seeds through their droppings and create watering holes for other animals and themselves by digging for water.

Removing just one species can have a negative impact on the entire ecosystem. For example, when predators such as wolves are removed from the ecosystem, populations of deer, their usual prey, grow well beyond the numbers that local vegetation can support, in turn causing the deer to starve or attempt to establish themselves to move to other areas because of food scarcity.

Some 6,700 known plant and animal species are considered at risk of extinction within the U.S. Worldwide, and more than 16,000 plants and animals are under threat. The World Wildlife Fund tracks trends in more than 3,600 populations of vertebrate species (animals that have a spine, whether they’re on land or in lakes and oceans) on an ongoing basis. The organization discovered that populations declined by one-third between 1970 and 2003. We need to wake up and react!