Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design and manage complex systems over their life cycles. At its core, systems engineering utilizes systems thinking principles to organize this body of knowledge. The individual outcome of such efforts, an engineered system, can be defined as a combination of components that work in synergy to collectively perform a useful function.
Sustainable agriculture is farming in sustainable ways based on an understanding of ecosystem services, the study of relationships between organisms and their environment.
Process engineering is the understanding and application of the fundamental principles and laws of nature that allow us to transform raw material and energy into products that are useful to society, an industrial level. By taking advantage of the driving forces of nature such as pressure, temperature and concentration gradients, as well as the law of conservation of mass, process engineers can develop methods to synthesize and purify large quantities of desired chemical products. Process engineering focuses on the design, operation, control, optimization and intensification of chemical, physical, and biological processes. Process engineering encompasses a vast range of industries, such as agriculture, automotive, biotechnical, chemical, food, material development, mining, nuclear, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and software development. The application of systematic computer-based methods to process engineering is "process systems engineering".
In organizational studies, resource management is the efficient and effective development of an organization's resources when they are needed. Such resources may include financial resources, inventory, human skills, production resources, or information technology (IT) and natural resources.
The Monocacy River is a free-flowing left tributary to the Potomac River, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean via the Chesapeake Bay. The river is 58.5 miles (94.1 km) long, with a drainage area of about 744 square miles (1,930 km2). It is the largest Maryland tributary to the Potomac.
A water supply system or water supply network is a system of engineered hydrologic and hydraulic components which provide water supply. A water supply system typically includes:
- A drainage basin.
- A raw water collection point where the water accumulates, such as a lake, a river, or groundwater from an underground aquifer. Raw water may be transferred using uncovered ground-level aqueducts, covered tunnels or underground water pipes to water purification facilities.
- Water purification facilities. Treated water is transferred using water pipes.
- Water storage facilities such as reservoirs, water tanks, or water towers. Smaller water systems may store the water in cisterns or pressure vessels. Tall buildings may also need to store water locally in pressure vessels in order for the water to reach the upper floors.
- Additional water pressurizing components such as pumping stations may need to be situated at the outlet of underground or above ground reservoirs or cisterns.
- A pipe network for distribution of water to the consumers and other usage points.
- Connections to the sewers are generally found downstream of the water consumers, but the sewer system is considered to be a separate system, rather than part of the water supply system.
Waste hierarchy is a tool used in the evaluation of processes that protect the environment alongside resource and energy consumption to most favourable to least favourable actions. The hierarchy establishes preferred program priorities based on sustainability. To be sustainable, waste management cannot be solved only with technical end-of-pipe solutions and an integrated approach is necessary.
Ecological engineering uses ecology and engineering to predict, design, construct or restore, and manage ecosystems that integrate "human society with its natural environment for the benefit of both".
Sustainable cities, urban sustainability, or eco-city (also "ecocity") is a city designed with consideration for social, economic, environmental impact [1][1], and resilient habitat for existing populations, without compromising the ability of future generations to experience the same. These cities are inhabited by people whom are dedicated towards minimization of required inputs of energy, water, food, waste, output of heat, air pollution - CO2, methane, and water pollution. Richard Register first coined the term "ecocity" in his 1987 book, Eco city Berkeley: Building Cities for a Healthy Future. Other leading figures who envisioned the sustainable city are architect Paul F Downton, who later founded the company Ecopolis Pty Ltd, as well as authors Timothy Beatley and Steffen Lehmann, who have written extensively on the subject. The field of industrial ecology is sometimes used in planning these cities.
Principles of intelligent urbanism (PIU) is a theory of urban planning composed of a set of ten axioms intended to guide the formulation of city plans and urban designs. They are intended to reconcile and integrate diverse urban planning and management concerns. These axioms include environmental sustainability, heritage conservation, appropriate technology, infrastructure-efficiency, placemaking, social access, transit-oriented development, regional integration, human scale, and institutional integrity. The term was coined by Prof. Christopher Charles Benninger.
Green Infrastructure or blue-green infrastructure is a network providing the “ingredients” for solving urban and climatic challenges by building with nature. The main components of this approach include stormwater management, climate adaptation, less heat stress, more biodiversity, food production, better air quality, sustainable energy production, clean water and healthy soils, as well as the more anthropocentric functions such as increased quality of life through recreation and providing shade and shelter in and around towns and cities. Green infrastructure also serves to provide an ecological framework for social, economic and environmental health of the surroundings. Green Infrastructure is considered a subset of Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure, which is defined in standards such as SuRe - the Standard for Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure. However, green infrastructure can also mean "low-carbon infrastructure" such as renewable energy infrastructure and public transportation systems. Blue-Green infrastructure can also be a component of 'sustainable drainage systems' or 'sustainable urban drainage systems' designed to manage water quantity and quality, while providing improvements to biodiversity and amenity.
Total human ecosystem (THE) is an eco-centric concept.
The CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI) is a research institute created and funded by Government of India. It was established in Nagpur in 1958 with focus on water supply, sewage disposal, communicable diseases and to some extent on industrial pollution and occupational diseases found common in post-independent India. NEERI is a pioneer laboratory in the field of environmental science and engineering and part of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). NEERI has five zonal laboratories at Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai. NEERI falls under the Ministry of Science and Technology (India) of central government. The NEERI is an important partner organisation in India’s POPs national implementation plan (NIP).
Systematic hierarchical approach for resilient process screening (SHARPS) is a cost-screening technique to assist designers achieve a desired investment payback period during preliminary design of water-using systems. Heuristics involving equipment susbtitution and intensification are used to guide process changes. SHARPS method has been used to yield cost-effective minimum water network for water-intensive facilities.
Water pinch analysis (WPA) originates from the concept of heat pinch analysis. WPA is a systematic technique for reducing water consumption and wastewater generation through integration of water-using activities or processes. WPA was first introduced by Wang and Smith. Since then, it has been widely used as a tool for water conservation in industrial process plants. Water Pinch Analysis has recently been applied for urban/domestic buildings. It was extended in 1998 by Nick Hallale at the University of Cape Town, who developed it as a special case of mass exchange networks for capital cost targeting.
This page is an index of sustainability articles.
Integrated urban water management in Medellín, Colombia is considered to be an overall success and a good example of how a large metropolitan area with moderate income disparity can adequately operate and maintain quality water supply to its many citizens. This is quite remarkable given the large urbanized population in the metropolitan area of the Aburrá Valley of 3.3 million, many of whom live on the slopes of the Aburrá Valley where Medellín is situated and highly prone to landslides and stormwater erosion. Sound urban water management within the metropolitan area of the Aburrá Valley is carried out by a set of technically strong institutions with financial independence—and lack of political interference such as Empresas Publicas de Medellin (EPM).
Holistic management in agriculture is a systems thinking approach to managing resources that was originally developed by Allan Savory for reversing desertification. In 2010 the Africa Centre for Holistic Management in Zimbabwe, Operation Hope was named the winner of the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge for "recognizing initiatives which take a comprehensive, anticipatory, design approach to radically advance human well being and the health of our planet's ecosystems".
