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David Gattie |
New programs afoot in Georgia to bring hard science expertise to
engineering through ecology and engineering science will serve as
the basis for an upcoming conference on the subject. The conference,
“Ecological Network Analysis,” will run March 1–3
at the Georgia Center.
Scientists and engineers worldwide have been working to build the
engineering science behind an emerging new discipline—systems
and engineering ecology. The need to analyze and quantify overlapping
processes and properties of nature as a complex arrangement of systems
has led researchers toward more network-oriented theories and ways
to inculcate them into the most common mechanisms for delivering
knowledge—engineering.
The conferees will continue the work of establishing the engineering
science to underpin ecological engineering, thereby moving it from
a field of study to a full-fledged discipline. The goal is to integrate
general systems science, network theory and systems ecology to build
a quantitative foundation for ecological engineering.
“We’re trying to progress from a posture whereby we
protect the environment to one in which we integrate what we do
with systems that have taken geological millennia to come about,”
says engineering professor David Gattie, one of the architects of
the new program. “We are always trying to protect natural
systems from the impact of the human footprint, instead of designing
the human footprint to be a compatible component within that natural
system.”
While ecology should continue to be applied in decision-making processes
and environmental problem-solving, Gattie says, an ecology-based
engineering will be limited unless rigorous development of its engineering
science fundamentals takes place.
“Without this understanding, we cannot understand the systems
to the point that engineered technology integrates with natural
systems,” he says.
How is a new engineering discipline developed? According to Gattie,
it can only be the result of a concerted effort. Scientists develop
theories and apply them. Engineers develop methods to replicate
their results with a controlled system. Knowledge is extracted from
nature to build systems, which become our technology.
“We’re trying to look at natural systems and analyze
their complex properties,” Gattie says, “not understand
them from a reductionist standpoint, but how they work as a whole.”
Bernard C. Patten, a systems ecologist in the Institute of Ecology,
whose work forms one basis for the theories on which this science
will move, agrees.
“Engineering and applied ecology are not going to be able
to solve problems of environmental complexity by using old methods,”
Patten says, explaining that the hard science underpinnings, especially
mathematical systems theory, are keys to the new discipline.
“It’s time to transition from a protective stance to,
eventually, realizing how systems interact and exchange materials
and energy,” Gattie says. “We can’t have any closed
systems in the world we live in.”
The conference will focus on building the basic engineering science
for ecological engineering.
“This is how it will become a discipline,” Gattie says.
“Without this, it would have great difficulty achieving accreditation.
That’s what all sciences are there for, to come into our lives—and
the only way that’s done is through engineering.”
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