Belfast200603 Pwjowitt. Final

SISTech@Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh

Sustainability
and
Civil Engineering Education?

Professor Paul W Jowitt

Heriot Watt University
and
The Scottish Institute of Sustainable Technology

New Civil Engineer Jan 2003
“Sustainable
Development is
now absolutely
central to Civil
Engineering and we
must organise
ourselves
accordingly”
ICE Council 17 December 2002

Embedding Sustainable
Development Issues into Civil
Engineering Education

SOCIETY
CLIENTS

School Leavers
Students
Graduates
Members of Professional
Institutions
Clients
The Members of Society
Institutions

Industry

Universities

Engineering Education,
Sustainable Development and the
Teaching and Learning Process?

• Content? not shoving more material into it… ??

• Process? but pulling relevant material into it!!

Related Issues for HE/Professional Review Process
• Assessment?
• Staff Development/Guidance?


• Content:

• Awareness/Attitudes
• Skills
• Knowledge

Awareness/Attitudes
• An overarching approach to engineering problems in the
context of environmental, economic and social issues.
Skills
• Ability to work with complex/-ill defined problems
• Team work and communication skills
• Ability to evaluate the merits and demerits of options
Knowledge
• Broad and Deep
• Technical
• Environmental
• Social processes
• Legal
• Disciplined Body of General Knowledge


Process: Pulling relevant material
into the curriculum,
not shoving more
• Use of Case Studies material into it…
• Studio Based
• Issue Driven
• Process Based
• Team Based
• Design/Delivery Focussed

It was never like this
at University……

Let me take you back to the future…..

1st Year Lecture Course:
Water Engineering

Lecture No 1

• “West is West and East is East and ne’er
the twain shall meet…” - Rudyard Kipling

• PROJECT BRIEFING

China's Three Gorges
Dam
The Yangzi River is
home to some of China's
most spectacular natural
scenery, a series of
canyons known as the
Three Gorges
China's biggest
construction project
since the Great Wall
generates controversy at
home and abroad

By Bruce Kennedy
CNN Interactive

Sun Yatsen first proposed building a The idea resurfaced in 1963 as part of
dam on the Yangtze River in 1919 for the new policies to build a quot;third
frontquot; of industry in SW China. But
power generation
the Cultural Revolution erupted in
1966, and in 1969 the fear that the
dam would be sabotaged by the
Soviet Union, now an enemy,
resulted in a construction delay.

Ecologist Hou Xueyu was among
the few who refused to sign the
environmental report because it
falsely hyped the environmental
benefits provided by the dam, and
failed to convey the real extent of
environmental impact

After the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989, the government forbade
public debate of the dam, accused foreign critics of ignorance or intent to
undermine the regime, and imprisoned Dai Qing and other famous critics. Former
Premier Li Peng crusaded for the dam and pushed it through the National
People’s Congress in April 1992 ….

Here are some of the Issues - Real or Spin?

26 hydropower
turbines: 18.2 GW,
11% of China's
output.

Water Engineering

Questions and Issues to be resolved by next week
• How would you design the dam? (Structurally and in terms
of Reservoir Yield/Power?)
• How would you assess the pre-existing Flood Risk?
• How would you estimate the impact of Water
Quality/Effluent Discharges?
• Can you assess the effects of Sedimentation?
• How would you take into account the Social Consequences
of Relocation?
• What are the Environmental Consequences and how would
you balance these against Economic Benefits?

Water Engineering
QUESTIONS?

And finally….
• How would you have done it differently?

• The crit sessions will be held next Friday and final
reports to be filed electronically by the end of term…..

• Some Project data and references are available on the
HW-Intranet
• Assessment? Group mark based on final reports
….plus open book exam in Autumn diet…

But Why Sustainability?
We could spend hours debating this…..
But do we really need to?

Sustainable Development – will it last?

Why Sustainability?

Bob Dylan:
“The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind”
NCE 1st May 2003

Responsibility

Irresponsibility

Thomas Tredgold’s 19th c
definition of Civil Engineering

Civil Engineering is the art of directing
the great sources of Power in Nature for the
use and convenience of man;

a 21st c
definition of Civil Engineering

Civil Engineering is the art of working with
the great sources of Power in Nature for the
use and benefit of society

To what extent has Civil Engineering
contributed to …..
• Public Health – clean water, safe wastewater disposal?
• Housing and Shelter?
• Improved transportation?
• GDP?
• Sustainable Development?
but also …
• CO2 emissions/Asthma?
• Depleted Water Courses?
• Inefficient Buildings?
• High Rise Buildings and Social Unrest?
• Unsustainable Development?

Origins of our Present Condition:
Waves of Economic Growth/Innovation
(Austrian Economist Schumpeter)

Social/Intellectual View
(David Elms)

SYSTEMS/
HOLISTIC
Sophistication

RATIONAL

URBAN
The world is no
longer a
IMMEDIATE
homeostat

Time

Phases of Development:
• Immediate
Simple connection between needs and their attainment
– Supply chains short and immediate
– Technology simple and available to all

• Urban
– Related to early urbanisation
– Need to centralise administrative power (extensive irrigation,
political groupings and trade)
– Immediate supply chains broken
– Specialists and trade mechanisms develop
– Rules of thumb rather that rational analysis

Phases of Development
• Rational
– Industrial revolution & increase in energy use
– Scientific rationalism and application to engineering analytic tools
– Mass production and (inter-) national standards
– New (fossil) fuels plus increased role and capabilities of technology
– People highly dependent - longer supply chains
– Individual structural elements at increasing level of sophistication
– But….Techniques for anticipating long-term effects on society and
natural environment primitive and not well understood
• Systems/Holistic
– Need to deal with more complex, less well-defined problems
– Environmental limits encountered
– Complexity recognised (even if not fully understood/defined)
– Interactions realised
– Emergence of Sustainable Development

New Civil Engineer Jan 2003

ICE Education and
Training Task Group

Established by ICE Council
in late 2002 to examine the
implementation of
sustainability principles into
education, training and
professional development…

ICE Education and Training
Task Group
Established by ICE Council to examine implementation of
sustainability principles into education, training and
professional development…..

including:
• Input into current revision of JBM Environmental
Guidelines.
• Input into scheduled revision of Core Objectives.
• Liaison with key stakeholders to promote importance of
sustainability principles.
• Assistance with implementation (both within HE & CPD)

Mainstreaming Sustainable Development
into Engineering Education?
The Starting Points:
1. Civil Engineering is changing and needs to change more
– and Sustainable Development is at the heart of it.

2. Civil Engineering is increasingly about managing
complexity (rich in structure) as opposed to things which
are just complicated (rich in detail)

…..….urban regeneration and development is complex;
finite element analysis is complicated!


3. Civil Engineering - as practised - is increasingly
ISSUES/PROCESS driven, not TECHNIQUE
driven.
…Issues such as Quality of Life; EU Legislation
Transport/Travel; Climate Change etc

4. Civil Engineering – as taught - has been largely
driven by Techniques and not by Processes or
Issues.


5. If Sustainable Development is to be embedded
into Engineering Education and CPD then it
needs:
– To be generic
– To encourage a questioning of perceived wisdom
– To be open ended and encourage out of the box
thinking
– Team focussed and not individual focused
– Embrace new approaches to learning and teaching


6. Barriers to embedding Sustainable Development
in Engineering Education/Professional
Formation (UG/PG/CPD) include the traditional
approach of the profession at large – most of
whom are products of technique driven
education and training

….. and the barriers are higher in HE – different
commercial/economic drivers – Research
Deliverables vs Teaching Requirements

Teaching and Learning Process
Core technical skills should be placed in the context of a broad range of
inter-related social, economic and environmental issues that will inform and
influence the students’ actions as professional engineers..…..

“The JBM believes that sustainable development needs to be embedded into
engineering education at the outset and that this will be best achieved by a
teaching and learning process that:
• Provides an interdisciplinary perspective on the problems that engineers
will tackle in practice;
• Develops an understanding of the interaction between Engineering and
the Environment and Society;
• Develops an ability to use technical engineering knowledge to help
solve complex problems.”

“The JBM will look for evidence in terms of outcomes that these
guidelines are being implemented…”


• Content?

• Process?

Related Issues for HE/Professional Review Process
• Assessment?
• Staff Development/Guidance?

Awareness/Attitudes
• An overarching approach to engineering problems in the
context of environmental, economic and social issues.
Skills
• Ability to work with complex/-ill defined problems
• Team work and communication skills
• Ability to evaluate the merits and demerits of options
Knowledge
Broad and Deep
• Technical
• Environmental
• Social processes
• Legal
• Disciplined Body of General Knowledge


Process:

• Use of Case Studies
• Studio Based
• Issue Driven
• Process Based
• Team Based
• Design/Delivery Focussed

Conclusions and Drivers
• A knowledge of Sustainability and its
implementation is essential for our members
• We should include it in our education and training
• Guidance for all will be needed
• As engineers, we are already delivering
sustainability... we just do not always call it that…
• Key role for JBM to take the time to drive these
changes through to ensure that graduates have the
necessary tools to respond to future legislation and
societal change which will affect the profession.

Time’s Winged Chariots

• Water demand doubling every 21 years.
70% used for irrigation

• Limits on irrigation leads to limits on
food production

• Limits on food production in poor
countries leads to imports, higher prices
and political instability

• Water tables are falling (caused by
excessive pumping and leading to
permanent damage to aquifers)

• Some rivers no longer reach the sea

David Thom

I wonder
how
different my
daughter
would find
civil
engineering
at
University
…

2nd Year Lecture Course:
Water Resources Engineering

• Welcome to Lecture No 1

• “Water is for fighting over” – Mark Twain

• PROJECT BRIEFING: The Middle East

Case Study: The Middle East

Sharon has vacant settler
outposts dismantled

A Performance-Based
Roadmap to a Permanent
Two-State Solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The Sea of Galilee
Water Is the Root of Israeli-
Palestinian Evil
JERUSALEM, April 2, 2002
Until 1967, Lake Kinneret
(ENS)
and a small strip on the
eastern shore of the lake
Each side sees itself as the
served as the border between
victim. The convoluted conflict
Israel and Syria. which has its origin in Biblical
times is created in part by the
arid nature of the disputed lands.
After the Six-Day War which
resulted in Israel's occupation Dwindling water resources
of the Golan Heights (east of increasingly affected by pollution,
Lake Kinneret), Lake agricultural and industrial use
and population growth, have
Kinneret was no longer the
elevated the strategic importance
border between Israel and
of water in the region. The water
Syria, and it is presently an issue is at the root of the struggle
inland lake of Israel. over territory.

Technical Issues:
Kinneret is the only
“sweet” water lake in
the region – excessive
use of the lake and
associated aquifers
leads to irreversible
salinisation …
Operating Policies??

My lecture notes from a
bygone age..
- well circa 1980 –
.. for an MSc lecture course on
Water Resources Management,
Imperial College….

Strong on “hard” systems
analysis and optimisation

But what is missing?

The Non Technical Context
– the “soft” systems stuff!

Optimal Allocation of Water
Resources in Lake Kinneret –
….the Sea of Galilee…..

7. WATER MANAGEMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

quot;Many countries have traditionally perceived food self-
sufficiency as an important strategic concern and have used
valuable water resources in pursuing this objective.quot;

It suggests that, for some countries, importing quot;virtual
waterquot;, in the form of water-intensive food crops, may be a
more practical and cost-effective approach to national food
security than growing them. However, all policies need to
take into account any possible negative effect on the poor,
particularly subsistence farmers.

Brief 1: July 2002
The crisis drivers: facts and figures
Currently about 30 countries, including Israel, Jordan and South Africa,
are considered water-stressed and 20 face absolute water scarcity.
Already some countries such as Israel and Jordan fall well below the
absolute scarcity threshold but are able to adjust, for example by
importing food rather than growing it: a strategy described as providing
‘virtual water’ (see Allan, 2001).

increase inter-annual extremes,

7 Work Groups,
7 Reports/Presentations by next Monday…..
Engineering Issues?
Multilateral Working Group
Ethical Issues? on
Political Issues? Water Resources
Middle East Peace Process
Environmental Issues?
Economic Issues?
Water Management Issues?
Social Issues?

Plus Mechanisms for
Second World Water Forum
Conflict Resolution? 17-22 March 2000
The Hague

So who will engineer
a sustainable future?

Engineers!

• The blind application of technology might have led to the
unsustainable predicament of the present world.

• But one thing is for certain…..

• Engineers will play a key role – in partnership with others
– in developing a sustainable future…..

The
implications
for the
Institution
and
Universities
……

Thinking outside of the box

• We test more than ever before
• We teach how to pass exams
and how to think inside the box
• Industry with quickening
product life cycles needs
thinking outside of the box

The “Three Generations Dilemma”

Tomorrow’s generation needs the education…
Today’s generation is responsible for delivering it…
Yesterday’s generation determines what is taught.

The challenge is to understand where we are in
the loop, then close it.

2 issues
• What do we need to teach?
• What is the most effective way of teaching it?

Can we agree on the core
skills?
• Rigour
• Numeracy
• Awareness/Attitude
• Design
• Aesthetics
• Management
• Communication

We assume university is the most
effective teaching method
• Good for theory
• Good for assessment
• Good for group learning … (is it?!)

BUT

• How relevant (what makes it relevant?)
• How cost effective
• How up-to-date

Engineering a Sustainable Future

The Brent Spar
~ Why solutions can fail
• Economics
• Regulation - highly informed by
science
• The third element…….

Sustainable development must involve sustainable
mechanisms for decision-making and conflict
resolution between industry and others
Example:

Shell: “Dialogue, the
solution for Brent Spar”

“In the face of such public
opinion against its plan, Shell
UK halted the disposal and the
Spar was towed to a mooring in
a Norwegian fjord while its final
fate was decided”

Final Year Lecture Course:

Decision Making/Conflict Resolution?

Elements of a Decision?
• Choice (ie in the design or decision options)
and the exercise of
• Preferences over those choices, and
• Uncertainty/Risk over the actual outcomes
• Plus many Stakeholders…

• Decisions are complicated by the presence of Uncertainty
- the exercise of a particular choice does not guarantee the
actual decision Outcome.

• Sources of Uncertainty can be Random, Competitive,
Semantic, and lead to an element of Risk.

• Thus all decisions have Three elements:

• the Choice of action, the influence of Uncertainty on the
eventual outcome and a Preference over those outcomes.

• Further complicated by involvement of multiple
stakeholders/decision makers

What makes real life decisions more difficult?

• Discriminating between the complexity of the choices
available and defining the decision-maker’s preferences
over them.

• Further exacerbated where there is no single decision-
maker (or where a the decision maker(s) are acting in some
form of proxy for others).

Multi-Stakeholder (Multi-Decision Maker) Decision
Problems.

PWJ: Origins of my research interests

• Roskill Commission; Sir Colin Buchanan; Maplin Sands

• 3rd Yr Option in “Systems and Mechanics”;
Optimisation Methods; LP & DP
Bayes Theorem and Subjective Probability;
von Neumann & Morgenstern’s “Theory of Games and
Economic Behaviour”; Decision Theory

• PhD Thesis:
“Decision-Making in Civil Engineering Systems”

London’s 4th London
Airport
Roskill Commission
(late 1960’s)
Sir Colin Buchanan
Maplin Sands
Brent
Geese
over
Maplin &
Foulness

Maplin
• Decision Making – Conflict Resolution

• Brent Geese?

• Brent Spar?

• A connection here somewhere….!

The Skye Bridge - the only bridge to divide two
communities…???

Role of PFI?
Design Quality?
Impacts:
Social
Environmental
Economic
Ford et al Proc ICE 1997

Tasks:
Come up with a better
solution….
- Structural
- Economic
- Financial
- Social
- Environmental
- Aesthetic
- Process

quot;EDUCATING THE REFLECTIVE PRACTITIONERquot;
by Donald A. Schon
Preparing Professionals for the Demands of Practice
– The Crisis of Confidence in Professional Knowledge

• “In the varied topography of professional practice, there is a high,
hard ground overlooking a swamp.
• On the high ground, manageable problems lend themselves to
solution through the application of research-based theory and
technique.
• In the swampy lowland, messy, confusing problems defy
technical solution.”

by Donald A. Schon
• “The irony of this situation is that the problems of the high ground
tend to be relatively unimportant to individuals or society at large,
however great their technical interest may be, while in the
swamp lie the problems of greatest human concern.

• The practitioner must choose.

• Shall s/he remain on the high ground where s/he can solve
relatively unimportant problems according to prevailing standards
or rigor, or shall s/he descend to the swamp of important
problems and non-rigorous inquiry?”

by Donald A. Schon
• “This dilemma has two sources:

• first, the prevailing idea of rigorous professional knowledge,
based (purely) on technical rationality, and

• second, (lack of) awareness of indeterminate, swampy zones of
practice that lie beyond its canons” (and that involve
judgement).

Technical and non-Technical paradigms need to be applied
with no loss of rigour.

the end of the era of technological of
rationalism
• Despite the fact that the term “sustainable development” has a
tendency to be used internationally as a stock phrase and piece
of verbal padding in almost every policy of every government
and organisation, it has become firmly embedded in the thinking
and philosophy of most thoughtful people concerned with
achieving the right balance between the fruits of environmental,
economic and social capital.

• We are at the end of the era of technological rationalism - an
era in which economic and technical progress was embedded
solely in a narrow scientific paradigm, and in which solutions to
technical problems such as water supply, hydropower, irrigation
and agricultural production, structures, road construction etc and
took place without proper account for their effect and
interactions on the wider physical and non-physical landscape,
and without recourse to judgement.

The
implications
for the
Institutions
……

So what are the implications of
Sustainable Development for
YOU?

FOUR QUESTIONS FOR ME
1. What does it mean for me as an
educator and civil engineer?
2. What does it mean for my
profession(s)?
3. What does it mean for the
organisation(s) for which I work?
4. What practical actions can I take?

“As for the Future, your task is not to foresee, but to enable it.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, aviator/novelist

A student's mind is not a vessel to be filled ….
…. but a fire to be kindled

Belfast200603 Pwjowitt. Final

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