• Question: What do you think is going to become the biggest challenge for engineers in the future?

    Asked by landrosa to Ed, Keith, Tish, Nicola, Rachel on 11 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Nicola Lazenby

      Nicola Lazenby answered on 11 Mar 2013:

      I’d say the biggest challenge is the fact that resources are running out. Engineers can’t rely on having vast amount of fossil fuels to power and make everything! One of the biggest challenges is going to be how we can adapt our thinking to use other materials to do the same, if not better, job as things do now!

    • Photo: Rachel Harris

      Rachel Harris answered on 11 Mar 2013:

      I agree with Nicola. Another big challenge is climate change as this is changing what we have to design for. Especially as a work with water we have to try and design our schemes so they will work in 25 to 50 years time. With increase rainfall this means we have to increase the size of our ponds making them more costly.

    • Photo: Natasha Watson

      Natasha Watson answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      And I agree with Nicola and Rachel! It’s all about dealing with resources and making sure that there is still a habitable world there for our children and our children’s children. We only have one earth so we need to look after it.

    • Photo: Edward Taylor

      Edward Taylor answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      As the other three have said, climate change and resources are definitely the biggest issues.

      These are made even worse by the fast growing population of the planet. There are expected to be 10 billion people on earth soon enough. As developing nations like Africa, India and China become more and more industrial, a bigger proportion of the world’s population will be wanting to use as much energy as we do in this country too, which means demand for energy and resources will go through the roof. We’d better get thinking!

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