What is engineers role in sutainable economic develpment?

Question

What is engineers role in sutainable economic develpment?

Answer 1

Role of Engineers in Sustainable Economic Development :

If humans are to achieve sustainable develop-ment, we will have to adopt patterns that reflect these natural processes. The roles of engineers in sustainable development can be illustrated by a closed-loop human ecosystem that mimics nat-ural systems. This model of a closed-loop eco-system was first proposed in 1990.

Engineers contribute to all the steps in this sys-tems model:

• By developing, processing and transporting natural resources in closed-loop systems, we can reduce waste and increase the efficient use of resources.

• Harvesting renewable resources such as wa-ter, fish and trees within the limits allowed by nature will ensure a continuing supply of re-sources for humans and natural ecosystems. Minimizing our use of non-renewable re-sources, such as petroleum and scarce min-erals, and replacing them with environmen-tally friendly substitutes will also help extend the supply of natural resources.

• Processing natural resources efficiently and with little or no waste helps to preserve the earth’s finite natural resources. We can further preserve resources by designing products and packaging for reuse and recycling, and we can protect resources through industrial processes and facilities that have minimal adverse environmental impacts throughout their full life-cycles.

• Transporting goods contributes heavily to pollution; to minimize these effects, we can transport resources and manufactured goods efficiently to consumers by pipelines, rivers, railways, roads, ships and airplanes using technologies that have minimal impacts on the surrounding land use and serve the needs of consumers with little waste.

• How we develop, process and transport re-sources can improve living standards in many ways. These include providing clean water, energy, housing and commercial buildings and streets and other forms of in-frastructure; efficiently storing and distributing food; and meeting acceptable health standards, including high-quality waste management and treatment.

• To allow natural and built environments to be clean and unpolluted, we can reduce waste throughout this ecosystem cycle by conti-nually recycling and recovering residual by-products of resource development, industrial processing and meeting consumer needs. Some waste in the system is inevitable but should be in forms that have minimal long-term impacts on the natural environment. The impacts from residual waste can be offset by continuing programs to clean up and reuse old waste sites, along with other forms of environmental restoration.

• The effects of developing energy sources on the atmosphere, earth and water can be re-duced by more efficient use of power and by production from non-fossil sources.  

The Roles of Engineers

Approximately 15 million engineers populate the world today. As in many other professions, there are different kinds of engineers, including civil, environmental, mechanical, electrical, chemical, industrial, agricultural, mining, petroleum and computer engineers.

Engineers are involved with two kinds of projects:

1. They design and build projects that meet ba-sic human needs (potable water, food, hous-ing, sanitation, energy, transportation, com-munication, resource development and in-dustrial processing).

2. They solve environmental problems (create waste treatment facilities, recycle resources, clean up and restore polluted sites and pro-tect or restore natural ecosystems).

Engineers are problem solvers. They use skills or information that include the following:

• The results of scientific discoveries

• Empirical experience gained from centuries of construction

• Innovative approaches gained from recent projects

• Analyses of costs versus benefits over the life of projects

• Evaluation of environmental impacts versus benefits

• Consideration of political, cultural and social environments at project locations

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http://www.iies.es/FMOI-WFEO/desarrollos...