Natural Resources

The Hoover Dam was built in the 1930s as a major infrastructure project to help create jobs during the Great Depression and to help meet the energy needs of a growing Southwest. The human population has grown considerably in the region since then, putting a strain on a number of different resources. The dam actually helped to facilitate an increase in the human population in Nevada, particularly in Las Vegas, by providing a source of electricity. The dam actually created a means of controlling the water supply along the Colorado River, which in turn allowed for a lot of the growth in the population of the area (ONE, 2014).

This growth has been a challenge to the local ecosystem, however. The Hoover Dam is located in the Mojave Desert, and desert ecosystems are typically quite fragile. A lot of this ecosystem has been overrun for urbanization that the...
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