My Corner

How correspondents see "Ecological Engineering in the context of my country"

Note by the editor:

In January 2003, I asked all our correspondents for a short text (no longer than half a page) about their personal view what Ecological Engineering means in the context of their country. The aim of this compilation is to show the variety of different problems and approaches in EE.

You are free to add your own view. Selected texts will be published in the next issue of this newletter.

Fiona Cox:

Christchurch, New Zealand

As a recent graduate of Natural Resources Engineering I now find myself working for an environmental consultancy firm in New Zealand's third largest city, Christchurch (population around 400,000). For me, as a junior consulting engineer, 'Ecological Engineering' is about offering the client a solution that meets their needs while ensuring the ecosystem in which the engineering project is embedded is not compromised. In many respects I am fortunate, as most of the work I undertake is related to assessing the environmental impacts of an activity and outlining mitigation measures.

Some of issues that we are currently addressing are:

• Use of water resources and the impacts of changing land uses on the aquifer systems. Christchurch and most of the region use the underlying aquifers to source their drinking water. Currently this is of a quality that does not require treatment prior to use. However, land that has previously been used for dry stock grazing of sheep is now rapidly being turned into irrigated dairy farms that not only increases the nitrogen load on the land, but also uses a vast amount of water.
• Safe disposal methods for wastewater and stormwater, both within Christchurch and small holiday house communities that are dotted along the coastline and rivers.
• Disposal of solid waste, particularly from industry and farming practices (New Zealand farmers have recently decided that wrapping their bales of hay in plastic is a great idea. This may aid their feed options for the stock, but it has created a large amount of un-recyclable plastic waste).

Most of these issues are regulated by local government, whose rules on occasion may allow activities to take place that are not in accordance with the principles of "Ecological Engineering". But the rules are forever changing, and over time I would like to think that I might be able to contribute to their changing in such a way that they can incorporate the practical aspects of Ecological Engineering.

In the mean time I am focusing on learning as much as possible from the people around me within my community, at work, and from the members of the Christchurch branch of the Ecological Engineering Society.

Stew Dallas:

Monteverde, Costa Rica

Ecological Engineering has been defined as "the design of ecosystems for the mutual benefit of humans and nature". Costa Rica is blessed with natural ecosystems, designed ones less so. With 5% of the world's biodiversity in only 0.03% of its land mass, 25% of the country preserved in national or private parks, eco-tourism as its primary foreign revenue as well as being situated in the humid tropics, Ecological Engineering (EE) should have a bright future in Costa Rica.

Costa Rica has a history of democracy, openness and a willingness to try new ideas. The abolishion of its army over 50 years ago with a subsequent emphasis on public education and health care, the preservation of its natural resources and a willingness to accept foreigners, and not just for tourism, have seen it achieve a position of envy amongst the other countries of Central America. While Costa Rica may not be in as much need of urgent solutions to pressing problems as say Nicaragua or El Salvador, it does have the right climate, both literally and intellectually to try out new ideas, such as EE, to solve the problems it does face. Costa Rica already is a proving ground, and model for other tropical developing countries in such areas as natural resource management and development of renewable energy (78% of its total energy consumption) and EE would complement them well.

While my focus is on ecological sanitation, only a part of ecological engineering, perhaps one of the main incentives particularly in a developing country, is the potential for lower cost, lower technology alternatives to conventional wastewater treatment. But like ecological sanitation, EE faces the same challenges - mainstream acceptance particularly in the face of "hi-tech is better" philosophies, and implementation at the city-scale. "The fever to sewer the globe seems to be growing" (Goodland and Rockefeller, 1996), and Costa Rica is no exception - it recently received a low interest US$100 million loan from a Japanese bank to extend San José's sewer system and include primary treatment (Times, March 7, 2003, pp5). While not explicitly mentioned in the definition of EE, I would consider sustainability as being paramount. In regards to San José's decision I would quote the following from Matsui et al. (2001): "The sustainability of the conventional system (conventional sewerage and activated sludge process) is questionable even for developed countries" (my italics).

Perhaps the most promising development I am aware of which comes closest to an Ecological Engineering initiative (though lacking ecosystem use) in the field of wastewater treatment and reuse is that developed by the Pan-American Health Organisation (OPS) and the Pan-American Centre for Sanitary Engineering and Environmental Sciences (CEPIS). Through 2000-2002 they have developed a range of projects throughout Latin America focusing on integrated systems for wastewater treatment and reuse. In Liberia, Costa Rica, a five-year pilot project through OPS/CEPIS has just commenced to reuse treated wastewater for the irrigation of sugarcane.

Two areas in which EE may have a particular opportunity in developing countries are:

1. the potential to leap-frog existing conventional, but soon to be superceded, developed-world technologies, particularly in the areas of waste and wastewater management, agroecology, landscape planning and restoration ecology.
2. the other is in rural areas. Here significantly more space is available, high-tech expensive options unviable and where, for much of Costa Rica, a pristine environment is truly valuable, such as in Monteverde.

Grit Bürgow:

Berlin, Germany

When Andreas first "e-called" the Iees correspondents by mid-January to submit articles for the spring newsletter 2003 relating to the topic above I hardly had any idea what to contribute for my part. I guess my lack of creative input had to do with already being too much involved in proposal writing and other office project work. Therefore to write an IEES article was not on my priority list...

From that quite personal working situation at the beginning year 2003 till now, the situation in Germany has changed a lot as well as my motivation to write. Along with facing the danger of war in the gulf region, people's lack of trust in world politics and the global resource economy has grown stronger. Great anger, supplemented by helplessness and the wish to do something worthwhile, became common feelings in the midst of the arising fear. In a time when global economies have reached their limits of growth, the central "Hamlet question" at the historic crossing of this millennium seems to be: "To go (in-)dependent or to go interdependent".

What does the title question of this article have to do with these thoughts you might ask? - I will try to make the connection.

When looking at the German government's sustainable development efforts within the last years, a big gap between the energy and water resource management issue is appearing. Especially due to the commitment of Eurosolar, the non-profit European Association for Renewable Energy, founded in 1988 by Hermann Scheer, member of the German parliament (Bundestag), who was awarded with the Alternative Nobel Prize for his book "The Solar Economy" in 1999, the renewable decentralized energy sector has received a lot of "tailwind" within the last five years. That was not only of great benefit for the wind power plant operators. Due to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) of April 1, 2000, the solar building sector benefited as well. The "100.000 roof-program" accelerated the installation of photovoltaic and thermal collector panels and is another example of a public-subsidized "clean energy system" feeding the grid.

Evaluating the state of Ecological Engineering (especially sustainable water management, its major focus) in this context, currently the winds are blowing in another direction. Without any doubt, progress has been made concerning the implementation of decentralized rainwater systems in urban areas. Depending on federal water laws, like for example in the city of Berlin, a so-called "rainwater fee" has had to be paid since the year 2000. Today property owners in Berlin pay 1.30 Euro per year for each m³ run-off water from sealed outdoor and roof surfaces if sent to the central sewer. Although this fee does not cover the investment costs of onsite rainwater systems, they are feasible in many cases, since water service fees in general have been increasing by 7% on average annually from 1986 until today. Despite this, decentralized waste water management systems still don't make "the big run". Regardless of the fact that they are economically and ecologically feasible at almost every scale in an urban or rural context, from single houses to settlements, sector-minded federal and communal restrictions as well as water and environmental laws often hinder a broad application. From the Ecological Engineer's point of view the strongest restraint is implemented in municipal orders: the legal requirement to become connected to the central sewer. The enormous power of the conventional water lobby leads to a situation that today 93% of German households in the former western part of Germany are connected. Through application of this restraint in the former East Germany, less dense populated part of Germany after 1989, 75-80% of the population are now bound by long-term contracts.

Central solutions and their industries still take advantage of EU and Member state subsidy politics. Due to a big lack of public money, the federal state of Brandenburg, neighbouring region of Berlin, recently cut the subsidies for small decentral waste water systems from 3.5 Billion Euros down to nothing, whereas those of central systems were cut from 50 Billion down to 37 Billion. This tendency is rather typical for the more agricultural East German regions with unemployment rates of almost 30%, high migration rates among young people, empty public treasuries and debts of multiple billion Euros caused by past investments in inappropriate, central sewage treatment systems.

When thinking about the role of Ecological Engineering, I ultimately see the missing link in the current biomass energy debate in Germany. If biomass is envisioned to play a major role in a solar society, ecological engineered production systems need to serve as modules of a sustainable landscape quality management. Evaluating criteria would answer questions like, is the energy harvested from farms produced in a solar, water-wise and healthy manner, is it coming from the local region, and is the kind of land care of any benefit to building up the soil, stabilizing climate etc. Current EU-, federal and communal laws block the reuse of daily-life natural resource streams such as fertile household water, but endorse the old agro-industrial life-style by labelling the biomass harvested from monocultures as "clean energy".

Since I am more fond of interdependent than (in-)dependent, sectoral design approaches, my vision as a sustainable landscape architect is to make "aquatecture" an integral part of the renewable energy and agriculture debate. That includes the realization of a total water and regenerative resource management in the fields of architecture, green open space design, landscape and regional watershed planning. I regard this approach as a necessary and complementary addition to the work of solar architects, energy technicians, and politicians.

Referring to the Eurosolar keynote: "From EURATOM to EURENEW", I am convinced that this envisioned change for EU energy politics needs the link to Ecological Engineering practices within a decentralized energy and water market as soon as possible to be successful. Today, 20.03.2003, we don't face the war anymore, the war for "black gold" is out there. I deeply hope that there is still time left to make a difference and to prevent prospective new conflicts - the war for the "blue gold" - water.

P.S.: The author is currently working with colleagues from the oicos network (www.oicos.de) and Gunther Geller, president of the German Ecological Society (www.ioev.de), on establishing a watershed competence center.

Further information sources:

http://solarserver.de/solarmagazin/eeg-e.html

http://www.eurosolar.org

http://www.world-council-for-renewable-energy.org/

www.aquatectura.de

www.biodome.de

Caroline Schonning:

My (personal) Swedish view on Ecological Engineering

Swedish people are, in general, quite concerned with our environment and issues on how the environment are affected by the activities within the society. Then, there is still a gap between the awareness and concern for our own actions. Many Swedes like the comfort of having their own car and love to travel abroad by airplane, not to mention the convenience of the flush toilet. I still see that there is a divide between groups of people, to think ecologically and environmentally friendly is not yet part of everybody's every day life.

Regarding Ecological Engineering, which I in fact do not have a definition on that I am certain of is correct , nor a translation of into Swedish, I hope it is or will become a natural part of engineering in general. Since it is my field it is wastewater and wastewater systems that first come to my mind - the often appreciated value of green and blue, that is plants and open spaces of water, in treatment systems.

It can certainly improve our surroundings but a concern is that these more ecologically looking systems do not give the same result as a more technical solution. Even though many engineering processes are based on natural processes we need to know more about them and spread information on how these systems actually function.

Then I would like to add on environmental thinking to all engineering activities within various industrial fields. To decrease polluting outlets, recycle materials and decrease energy usage is a matter of course today, and not does it only have positive effects on the environment we all live in, but may also imply economical savings and an improved competing position for the company.

The future, I believe, will lead to a development of both more high-tech solutions and natural, environmental, ecological, or whatever we want to call it, systems. And I hope the combination of these will be the way forward, joining the Swedes, even though a plethora of solutions will be needed to adapt to local conditions, which is one of the main issues in Ecological Engineering - to follow nature and not try to force it to change considerably at any price.