This book, Engineering and Sustainable Community Development, presents an overview of engineering as it relates to humanitarian engineering, service learning engineering, or engineering for community development, often called sustainable community development (SCD). The topics covered include a history of engineers and development, the problems of using industry-based practices when designing for communities, how engineers can prepare to work with communities, and listening in community development. It also includes two case studies -- one of engineers developing a windmill for a community in India, and a second of an engineer "mapping communities" in Honduras to empower people to use water effectively -- and student perspectives and experiences on one curricular model dealing with community development. Table of Contents: Introduction / Engineers and Development: From Empires to Sustainable Development / Why Design for Industry Will Not Work as Design for Community / Engineering with Community / Listening to Community / ESCD Case Study 1: Sika Dhari's Windmill / ESCD Case Study 2: Building Organizations and Mapping Communities in Honduras / Students' Perspectives on ESCD: A Course Model / Beyond Engineers and Community: A Path Forward
This volume covers a diverse array of alternative technologies and their development with particular attention to the utilization of bioresources for the achievement of a sustainable environment. The book presents a selection of alternative technologies being used in developing and developed countries that can be indigenous to the region, cost-effective, and often driven by dominant societal interest and geographical status. Several engineering and technological processes are included to mark their importance in product performance and preservation of the environment. Topics cover: • strategies for the management of rain and ground water for consumption • wastewater treatment using indigenous techniques of phytoremediation • scientific and engineering approaches to the prevention of flood and landslides in the tropics • wind power generation • soil evaluation of contamination due to heavy metals • green and sustainable building approaches • bioethanol production • energy conservation techniques Refreshing and informative, Engineering and Technical Development for a Sustainable Environment revisits conventional approaches of managing natural agents (such as wind, rain and groundwater resources as well as wastewater treatment) in light of current sustainableoriented techniques using modern scientific concepts and strategies. It presents in-depth evaluations and analyses using systematic up-to-date scientific and engineering tools.
The challenge of improving the daily lives of people in developing communities calls for a new generation of global engineers who can operate in environments vastly different from those in the developed world. Engineers must become creative and innovative as they contend with uncertainty, complexity, and constraints in unfamiliar cultural settings. They must also deal with a multitude of technical and nontechnical issues beyond their accustomed practice. In this book, Bernard Amadei addresses the role of engineering in poverty reduction and human development. He introduces a framework to help engineers conduct small-scale projects in communities vulnerable to the consequences of a wide range of adverse events. His framework combines concepts and tools traditionally used by development agencies with techniques from engineering project management and systems thinking. When blended, these tools and techniques from seemingly unrelated fields offer engineers better methods to manage the difficulties inherent in community development projects.Engineering for Sustainable Human Development is about the delivery of projects that are done right from a performance (technical) point of view and are also the right projects from a social, environmental, and economic (context) point of view. This multidisciplinary approach to sustainable engineering will be valuable to practitioners and students, as well as people associated with development organizations and aid agencies.
It is crucial that engineers – from students to those already practising – have a deep understanding of the environmental threats facing the world, if they are to become part of the solution and not the problem. Is there a way to reconcile modern lifestyles with the compelling need for change? Could new improved technologies play a key role? If great leaps in the environmental efficiency of technologies are needed, can they be produced? Engineers are in a privileged and hugely influential position to innovate, design and build a sustainable future. But are they engaged or uninterested? Are they knowledgeable or ignorant? This book has been developed by a number of committed educators in European engineering departments under the leadership of Delft University of Technology and the Technical University of Catalunya to meet the perceived gap between what engineers know and what they should know in relation to sustainable development. The University of Delft decided as long ago as 1998 that all of its engineering graduates, working towards careers as designers, managers or researchers, should be prepared for the challenge of sustainable development and, as such, should leave university able to make sustainable development operational in their designs and daily practices. The huge amount of knowledge gathered on best-practice teaching for engineers is reflected in this book. The aim is to give engineering students a grounding in the challenge that sustainable development poses to the engineering profession, the contribution the engineer can make to attaining some of the societal and environmental goals of sustainability, and the barriers and pitfalls engineers will likely need to confront in their professional lives. Concise but comprehensive, the book examines the key tools, skills and techniques that can be used in engineering design and management to ensure that whole-life costs and impacts of engineering schemes are addressed at every stage of planning, implementation and disposal. The book also aims to demonstrate through real-life examples the tangible benefits that have already been achieved in many engineering projects, and to highlight how real improvements can be, and are being, made. Each chapter ends with a series of questions and exercises for the student to undertake. Sustainable Development for Engineers will be essential reading for all engineers and scientists concerned with sustainable development. In particular, it provides key reading and learning materials for undergraduate and postgraduate students reading environmental, chemical, civil or mechanical engineering, manufacturing and design, environmental science, green chemistry and environmental management.
Engineering for Sustainable Communities: Principles and Practices defines and outlines sustainable engineering methods for real-world engineering projects.
This book details the development and evaluation of technological interventions designed to improve human and economic development within complex, low-resource settings, showing that a solution becomes an innovation when it reaches widespread use. The book shortens the time-gap between development and up-take of the intervention, especially for student solution-developers or innovators who are new to the cultural and geopolitical environment settings of the problem-source country or region. Technological interventions in development are sustainable if they meet a real need, are affordable by the users, fit within the cultural context and are ergonomically appropriate. Many interventions have failed because of inattentiveness to one or more of these factors. Each of the bookâ (TM)s points is backed up with scholarly research work, confidently guiding solution-developers confronted with issues such as acquiring intellectual property protections, among many others.
Water covers more than 70% of the Earths surface, making maritime influences an important consideration in evaluating modern global economic systems. Therefore, the efficient design, operation, and management of maritime systems are important for sustainable marine technology development and green innovation. Marine Technology and Sustainable Development: Green Innovations examines theoretical frameworks and empirical research in the maritime industry, evaluating new technologies, methodologies, and practices against a backdrop of sustainability. This critical reference encourages the discussion and exploration of diverse opinions on the benefits and challenges of new marine technologies essential for marine and maritime professionals, researchers, and scholars hoping to improve their understanding of environmental considerations in preserving the worlds oceanic resources.
The important resource that explores the twelve design principles of sustainable environmental engineering Sustainable Environmental Engineering (SEE) is to research, design, and build Environmental Engineering Infrastructure System (EEIS) in harmony with nature using life cycle cost analysis and benefit analysis and life cycle assessment and to protect human health and environments at minimal cost. The foundations of the SEE are the twelve design principles (TDPs) with three specific rules for each principle. The TDPs attempt to transform how environmental engineering could be taught by prioritizing six design hierarchies through six different dimensions. Six design hierarchies are prevention, recovery, separation, treatment, remediation, and optimization. Six dimensions are integrated system, material economy, reliability on spatial scale, resiliency on temporal scale, and cost effectiveness. In addition, the authors, two experts in the field, introduce major computer packages that are useful to solve real environmental engineering design problems. The text presents how specific environmental engineering issues could be identified and prioritized under climate change through quantification of air, water, and soil quality indexes. For water pollution control, eight innovative technologies which are critical in the paradigm shift from the conventional environmental engineering design to water resource recovery facility (WRRF) are examined in detail. These new processes include UV disinfection, membrane separation technologies, Anammox, membrane biological reactor, struvite precipitation, Fenton process, photocatalytic oxidation of organic pollutants, as well as green infrastructure. Computer tools are provided to facilitate life cycle cost and benefit analysis of WRRF. This important resource: • Includes statistical analysis of engineering design parameters using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) • Presents Monte Carlos simulation using Crystal ball to quantify uncertainty and sensitivity of design parameters • Contains design methods of new energy, materials, processes, products, and system to achieve energy positive WRRF that are illustrated with Matlab • Provides information on life cycle costs in terms of capital and operation for different processes using MatLab Written for senior or graduates in environmental or chemical engineering, Sustainable Environmental Engineering defines and illustrates the TDPs of SEE. Undergraduate, graduate, and engineers should find the computer codes are useful in their EEIS design. The exercise at the end of each chapter encourages students to identify EEI engineering problems in their own city and find creative solutions by applying the TDPs. For more information, please visit www.tang.fiu.edu.
This book discusses essential approaches and methods in connection with engineering education for sustainable development. Prepared as a follow-up to the 2015 Engineering Education in Sustainable Development (EESD) Conference held in British Columbia, Canada, it offers the engineering community key information on the latest trends and developments in this important field. Reflecting the need to address the links between formal and informal education, the scholars and professionals who contribute to this book show by means of case studies and projects how the goal of fostering sustainable development in the context of engineering education can be achieved. In particular, they discuss the need for restructuring teaching at engineering‐focused institutions of higher education and provide practical examples of how to do so. The book places special emphasis on state-of-the art descriptions of approaches, methods, initiatives and projects from around the world, illustrating the contribution of engineering and affiliated sciences to sustainable development in various contexts, and at an international scale.
