1 pg. essay
hsn7077
readings.pptEarth Systems Engineering and Management
CEE 400
Week 3:
Earth Systems Engineering and Management
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Earth Systems Engineering and Management
- Earth Systems Engineering and Management is the capability to design, engineer, and manage, through dialog and continual feedback, integrated built/human/natural systems that achieve the multivariate and sometimes mutually exclusive goals and desires of humanity, including at the least personal, social, economic, technological, and environmental dimensions, within the constraints imposed by the states and dynamics of existing complex adaptive systems.
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Earth Systems Engineering and Management
Dialog, not Problem Solution
Earth Systems
Engineering
and Management
Fundamental systems in temporal or spatial scale, displaying complex, unpredictable and discontinuous behavior and characterized by emergent characteristics.
Two (coupled) categories:
Primarily non-human
Primarily human
Planning
Designing
Construction
Management
What is current state?
Can it be rationally and morally improved, and, if so, how?
Conscious activity
Moral responsibility for outcome
Of all or part of relevant system; itself an activity subject to moral and rational critique
Managing complex systems a poorly understood and nascent art (“The Learning Organization”)
A process and dialog, not a control exercise
“Adaptive Management” of complex resource systems (the Baltic, the Everglades) an example
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Hydrologic/agriculture ESEM system model schematic
Large-Scale Data Systems and Models (National Weather Service forecasts, global analysis data, general circulation models)
Mesoscale Atmospheric Simulation Models (Regional atmospheric and land-surface information)
Land Analysis System (Hydrological characteristics of each watershed using digital elevation data)
Watershed Hydrology Models (Surface and subsurface hydrology at individual watersheds)
Local Atmospheric and Hydrological Models (Riverflow, local weather, land-surface information)
Source: Based on Science and Technology Review Industrial Ecology Collection, 1996, p.34, Allenby, in press, C.
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Runoff
Soil water
River flow
Temperature
Humidity
Rain
Pressure
Rain and Snow
Radiation
Temperature
Humidity
Wind
Pressure
Subsystems
Response Evaluations
Agriculture and crop system models
Infrastructure models
Economic models
Population models
Land use models
Water infrastructure modifications
Intra-and interspecific crop modifications
Food storage/delivery infrastructure upgrades
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.
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Six Major Phases of Systems Analysis
- Determine goals of system (requires dialog with client, stakeholders, and system)
- Establish criteria for ranking alternatives
- Develop alternative solutions (including technological, functional, social and long-term structural alternatives)
Based on J. E. Gibson, How To Do a Systems Analysis, University of Virginia, 2000.
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Six Major Phases of Systems Analysis
- Rank alternative solutions. Here, you must include nonperformance considerations such as:
- What are effects on non-users or minor stakeholders?
- What are the effects of piecemeal or incremental implementation?
- Impact on/coupling to existing systems
- Sensitivity to parameter variations (look for robust solutions)
- Ratification procedures (systems solutions almost always require political acceptability in real world)
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Six Major Phases of Systems Analysis
- Iterate on both implementation and system response (learning process)
- Action (should be tied back to goals, and may be continuing process rather than end of analysis)
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ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT
Derived from the experience of natural resource economists, managers, and ecologists, adaptive management attempts to develop “ways for active adaptation and learning in dealing with uncertainty in the management of complex regional ecosystems.” The approach must be “seen as a strategic one of adaptive policy management, of science in the appropriate scales, and of understanding human behavior, not a procedural one of institutional controls.” Specifically, it requires:
- Integrated policies, not piecemeal ones.
- Flexible, adaptive policies, not rigid, locked-in ones.
Adapted from L.H. Guncerson, C.S. Holling, and S.S. Light, eds. 1995. Barriers and bridges to the renewal of ecosystems and institutions. New York: Columbia University Press.
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ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT
3. Management and planning for learning, not simply for economic or social product.
4. Monitoring designed as a part of active interventions to achieve understanding and to identify remedial response, not monitoring for monitoring’s sake.
5. Investment in eclectic science, not just in controlled science.
6. Citizen involvement and partnership to build “civic science”, not public information programs to inform passively.
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Earth Systems Engineering and Management Principles: Theory
- Only intervene when required and to the extent required (humility in the face of complexity).
- At the level of earth systems engineering and management (ESEM), projects and programs are not just technical and scientific in nature, but unavoidably have powerful cultural, ethical, and religious dimensions.
- Unnecessary conflict surrounding ESEM projects and programs can be reduced by separating social engineering from technical engineering dimensions.
- ESEM requires a focus on systems as systems, rather than as just constituent artifacts; a dynamic, rather than static, mental model of underlying phenomenon.
- Boundaries around ESEM projects and programs should reflect real world couplings and linkages through time, rather than disciplinary or ideological simplicity.
- Major shifts in technologies and technological systems should be evaluated before, rather than after, implementation.
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Earth Systems Engineering and Management Principles:
Design and Engineering
- ESEM initiatives should be characterized by explicit and transparent objectives or desired performance criteria, with quantitative metrics which permit continuous evaluation of system evolution (and signal when problematic system states may be increasingly likely).
- Design, engineering, and implementation of ESEM initiatives must not be based on implicit or explicit models of centralized control in the traditional rigid sense. Rather than attempting to completely define or dominate a system, the ESEM professional will have to see themselves as an integral component of the system, coupled with its evolution and subject to many of its dynamics. This will require a completely different psychology of engineering.
- ESEM projects should be incremental and reversible to the extent possible.
- ESEM should aim for resiliency, not just redundancy, in systems design. A resilient system resists degradation and, when it must, degrades gracefully even under unanticipated assaults; a redundant system may have a backup mechanism for a particular subsystem, but still may be subject to unpredicted catastrophic failures.
- ESEM should aim for inherently safe design, so that the system fails, when it must, in a noncatastrophic way.
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Earth Systems Engineering and Management Principles: Governance
- ESEM projects and programs by definition raise important scientific, technical, economic, political, ethical, theological and cultural issues, so you need a governance model which is democratic, transparent, and accountable.
- ESEM governance mechanisms should foster inclusive, multicultural dialog.
- ESEM governance models, which deal with complex, unpredictable systems, must accept high levels of unpredictability and uncertainty. Thus, ESEM policy development and implementation is a dialog with the relevant systems, rather than finding a “solution” to a “problem”.
- ESEM governance systems should accordingly place a premium on flexibility and the ability to evolve in response to changes in system state.
- The earth systems engineers and the policymakers need to understand themselves, and be seen by the public, as part of an evolving ESEM system, rather than as agents outside the system guiding it.
- The ESEM environment and the complexity of the systems at issue require explicit mechanisms for assuring continual learning, including ways in which assimilation of the learning by stakeholders can be facilitated.
- There must be adequate resources available to support both the immediate ESEM project and the science and technology research and development necessary to ensure that the responses of the relevant systems are understood.
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Model: Carbon Cycle Management
- Step 1: Reduce emissions
- Step 2: Capture emissions (carbon sequestration)
- Step 3: Design atmosphere (ambient carbon dioxide management)
- Step 4: Integrated earth systems engineering and management – carbon cycle management as human condition, not “problem” to be “solved”
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Kyoto Process and Earth System Engineering
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Kyoto Process
Earth System Engineering
End-of-Pipe mentality
Management of co-evolving human and natural systems
Reduce human impact
(control CO2 emissions)
Manage carbon cycle – in light of other systems
Morality play
(“no pain, no gain”)
Social, economic and environmental objectives important
Nation state process
Integrated firm, NGO, nation state, and community process
Ad hoc
(e.g., biomass as silver bullet)
Systematic
(e.g., what does biomass do to N cycle?)
Social engineering/ethical issues disguised as S&T discourse
Integrated set of ethical, cultural and S&T issues
Ideological and static
(“privilege the present”)
On-going non-teleological evolutionary process
Carbon Cycle Governance System
Biomass
Fossil Fuel
Municipal Waste
CO2 Emitted
CO2 Sequestered
Fossil Fuel Power Plant
Fossil Fuel Power Plant
Fossil Fuel Power Plant
Control Functions
Input: B +
Fossil Fuel
Output: CO2 Emitted
CO2 Sequestered
Target CO2 Concentration Metric: in Atmosphere
Electricity
H2
Fixed Uses
Buildings
Mobile Uses (e.g., transportation)
Fossil Fuel Energy Production System
MW
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Earth Systems Engineering and Management: Climate Change- Carbon Cycle Schematic
Carbon cycle
Geoengineering options
Energy system
Ocean fertilization
Biomass agriculture
Fossil fuel industry, etc.
Fish farming, etc
Organic chemical industry, etc.
Implementation at firm, facility, technology and process level
Engineering/ Management of Earth system relationships
Engineering/ Management of carbon cycle
Scope of traditional engineering disciplines
Earth System Engineering
Genetic engineering and biotechnology
Information technology and services (e.g., telework)
Other Technology systems
Other options
Hydrologic cycle
Nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur cycles
Other cycles
Atmosphere and Oceanic Systems
Biosphere
Human systems: economic, cultural, religious, etc
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Life cycle carbon and nitrogen fluxes for bio-based products
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Current status of bioproducts
● Currently in production ▲ Active research area ■ Potential exists for further development
| Corn | Soybean | Sugarcane, Sugarbeets | Cellulosic Material trees, grasses, crop residue | Starchy crops | Seeds sunflower, rape, safflower | New Crops Kenaf, cuphea, milkweed, sorghum | Algae | Food wastes | Animal byproducts manure, tallow, cheese whey | |
| Energy | ||||||||||
| Ethanol | ● | ● | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ||||
| Biodiesel | ● | ▲ | ▲ | |||||||
| Other (gaseous, H2, direct combustion) | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ | ▲ ● | ▲ | ■ | ■ | ■ | ▲ ● | |
| Materials | ||||||||||
| Aggregates for construction | ▲ | ■ | ■ | |||||||
| solvents/inks/paints | ● | ■ | ||||||||
| plastics/polymers | ● | ▲ | ▲ | |||||||
| lubricants | ● | ● | ▲ | ▲ | ||||||
| specialty chemicals | ▲ | ■ | ▲ | ▲ | ■ | ▲ |
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Generalized LCA Results
- Bio-based products have…
- Reduced fossil energy consumption
- Reduced CO2 emissions
- Significant NO3- emissions (not found in fossil fuel counterparts)
- Greater disruptions of N cycle
- Highly variable, difficult to measure, highly complex models
- Generally not included
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Disruptions in C and N Cycles
- CO2 concentrations increased 31 ± 4% 1750 to 2010
- N2O concentrations increased ~15% over same period
- Flux of atmospheric N2 to reactive nitrogen compounds has increased over 1100%
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~370ppm CO2, ~300ppb
Nitrogen-related Impacts
- Excess reactive nitrogen responsible for many environmental problems
NH3
N2O
NOx
NO3-
Acidification
Smog Formation
Human Health
Eutrophication/Hypoxia
Global Warming
Ozone Depletion
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Disruptions in C and N Cycles
- Fossil fuel combustion responsible for majority of carbon cycle disruption
- Agricultural activities are responsible for ~75% of nitrogen cycle disruption
- Haber-Bosch process
- Increased cultivation of rice, soybeans (biological nitrogen fixation)
- C & N cycles in agriculture are highly linked
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Kyoto Process
Earth System Engineering
End-of-Pipe mentality
Management of co-evolving human and
natural systems
Reduce human impact
(control CO
2
emissions)
Manage carbon cycle – in light of other
systems
Morality play
(“no pain, no gain”)
Social, economic and environmental
objectives important
Nation state process
Integrated firm, NGO, nation state, and
community process
Ad hoc
(e.g.,
biomass as silver bullet)
Systematic
(
e.g., what does
biomass do to N cycle?)
Social engineering/ethical issues
disguised as S&T discourse
Integrated set of ethical, cultural and
S&T issues
Ideological and static
(“privilege the present”)
On-going non-teleological evolutionary
process
