Global Changes and New Challenges For Civil Engineers

The world's civil engineers have designed and built a new habitat for man that has led to improved health and prosperity in virtually every country, while the momentum of continuing global changes presents a new set of challenges for civil engineers. World population is continuing to increase, primarily in the developing countries, with major growth in city populations, World food production per person is increasing, and this is also contributing to increased urbanization. Cities can be considered as productive units, and there is a widening range of opportunities for location for manufacturing. A major problem in world cities is inappropriate transport facilities with growing incompatibility between urban form and urban transport, which has a consequential impact on the economic efficiency of cities. There is a growing world demand for energy and electricity, and increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are causing concern about climatic changes and rising average sea levels. Uranium is seen as a preferred energy source for electricity on environmental grounds. Excessive legalism in some countries, e.g., the United States, imposes additional costs on engineering and the economy.