The multifaceted environmental challenges of resource degradation and drawdown facing humanity in the twenty first century demand a holistic, "win-win" problem solving approach by adopting down-to-earth solutions for achieving sustainable development that would satisfy the triple bottom line of 3P (people, planet and prosperity) or TBL of 3E (environment, economy and equity). We are now discovering that not all environmental problems are solvable by conventional technological means and within foreseeable nonrenewable energy limits. Employing conventional "end-of-the pipe" pollution clean-up approaches, in many ways, we are offering "temporary bandage" to ecological/environmental wounds or playing a “shell game” with pollution, solving one problem only to create another. The emerging discipline of Ecological Engineering or Ecotechnology is a paradigm shift - a response to the growing need for engineering practice for human welfare while at the same time protecting the natural environment and restoring the "bodily functions" of nature to ensure sustained flow of ecosystem goods and services. By definition, Ecological Engineering is the design of sustainable ecosystems that integrate human society with its natural environment for the benefit of both. It evolves out of an overdue alliance between engineering and ecology. With its root in ecology, this field has now matured to the point where it needs to have a prescriptive—rather than just a descriptive role to play in restoring existing disturbed or degraded ecosystems as well as designing and developing new sustainable ecosystems. Naturally, it offers an opportunity for an acid test of our ecological understanding.
I think that the text at the link below will help with the theoretical approach of your research:
http://www.casi2020.eu/app/web1/files/download/critical-literature-review.pdf
- Badges
- Science method
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Ecology