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

    Asked by Ebonnie to Ashwanth, Jeni, Mark, Natalie, Stephen on 14 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Jeni Spragg

      Jeni Spragg answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      Great question Ebonnie 🙂

      I think we might face some really big challenges to help society cope with the effects of climate change. Global warming will do all sorts of things to our climate, so we will need clever ways to cope – things like flood defences and buildings that cope with extreme weather.

    • Photo: Mark Gowan

      Mark Gowan answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      Ebonnie
      My personal opinion is that the supply of drinking water is going to be the biggest challenge for engineers in the future.
      We can live without power, but not without a reliable and safe supply of clean drinking water. Population is increasing and climate change is affecting greater parts of the world with flooding and droughts.

    • Photo: Natalie Wride

      Natalie Wride answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      Hi Ebonnie 🙂

      We’re already had climate change which is a big challenge for all Engineers! As a Civil Engineer in the UK I think we’ll also face a challenge with finding land suitable to build on.

      I think projects will become a lot more complex in places that are quite heavily populated with construction and buildings (like the UK and parts of the USA and Australia). This is because when we start running out of land to build on, we look at land we previously avoided (maybe because there was lots of mining there in the 1800s or because the soil is extremely soft there). This means Engineers are going to have to think a lot more about the ground for these projects as building on it is more risky.

    • Photo: Stephen Richardson

      Stephen Richardson answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      Hi Ebonnie,
      I would agree with the answers the others have already given you.
      I’d probably add that I think running out of certain materials could be a real problem.
      Lots of the metals that we rely on to make electronics and motors come from places which are politically very unstable.
      If the supply of these materials stops or is restricted because of wars or other social problems, then the prices will rise massively. So much of what we make now relies on electronics that this could be a real challenge.

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