Ecosystem engineering

The purpose of this collection is to present some of the diversity of ideas and studies about species that can be classifi ed as “ecosystem engineers.” As with any developing concept, we fi nd disagreement about the meaning and usefulness of this term in the literature and among ourselves. The idea for the book arose in a National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) working group designed to develop models of ecosystem engineering species.

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Tham khảo sách 'ecological engineering principles and practice', khoa học tự nhiên, công nghệ sinh học phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả

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Environmental engineering is the application of science and engineering principles to protect and utilise natural resources, control environmental pollution, improve environmental quality to enable healthy ecosystems and comfortable habitation of humans. It is based on multiple disciplines including geology, hydrology, biology, chemistry, physics, medicine, engineering, management, economics, law, etc.

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Bioremediation, the use of microorganisms, by virtue of their bioconcentrating and metabolic properties, to degrade, sequester, or remove environmental contaminants, has about a 45-year history. Such uses of microorganisms for this purpose now involve freshwater, marine, and terrestrial environments. Bioremediation is a multidisciplinary area of knowledge and expertise that involves basic and applied science. Microbiologists, chemists, toxicologists, environmental engineers, molecular biologists, and ecologists have made major contributions to this subject....

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Sven Erik Jørgensen is professor of environmental chemistry at the Danish University of Pharmaceutical Sciences. He has doctorates in engineering from Karlsruhe University and sciences from Copenhagen University. He has been editor in chief of Ecological Modelling since the journal started in 1975. He is chairman of the International Lake Environment Committee. He has edited or authored 58 books in Danish and English and written 300 papers of which twothirds have been published in peer-reviewed international journals.

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Many have endeavored to make our outdoor environment cleaner and safer. The learning process that occurred showed us the limitations of our planet and also the sustainability of our ecosystem if given a chance. As a community, we learned about the water, the soil, and the air. We learned about the underground river that flowed to the surface lake. We learned about air currents that transported airstreams around our globe. We discovered the reality of plate tectonics and the ever-changing hydrogeological system.

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Urban Ecology is the study of ecosystems that include humans living in cities and urbanizing landscapes. It is an emerging, interdisciplinary field that aims to understand how human and ecological processes can coexist in human-dominated systems and help societies with their efforts to become more sustainable. It has deep roots in many disciplines including sociology, geography, urban planning, landscape architecture, engineering, economics, anthropology, climatology, public health, and ecology.

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Wastes are materials generated as a result of numerous anthropic activities and should be disposed to prevent environmental pollution which aff ects human health and contributes ecosystem degradation. Most of the environmental problems, which we are dealing with, are a result of improper management of wastes. In particular, fresh water resources are under serious stress throughout the globe. Water supply and water quality degradation are global concerns.

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Global change, including climate change, ecosystem shifts and biodiversity loss as a result of explosive human population growth and consumption, is emerging as one of the most important issues of our time (Vitousek, 1994). Climate change in particular appears to be altering the function, structure and stability of the Earth’s ecosystems (Lovelock, 2009). It has been marked by an 80% increase in atmospheric CO2 level and a 0.

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The long-term approach to achieving protection is “ecological separation.” A true ecological separation is defined as no inter-basin transfer of aquatic organisms via the Chicago Waterway System at any time – 100% effectiveness. Ecological separation prohibits the movement or interbasin transfer of aquatic organisms between the Mississippi and Great Lakes basins via the CWS. Once established, the impacts of invasive species on ecosystem health are permanent and irreversible.

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Coastal lagoons are the most valuable components of coastal areas in terms of both ecosystem and natural capital. In most NATO coastal countries, the majority of the population lives within a 50-kilometer coastal band. Increasing human use and development pressures in the coastal areas make these dynamic and productive ecosystems very sensitive and vulnerable to deteriorations.

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This text is intended as a graduate level introduction to the new field of ecological engineering. It is really a book about ecosystems and how they can be engineered to solve various environmental problems. The Earth’s biosphere contains a tremendous variety of existing ecosystems, and ecosystems that never existed before are being created by mixing species

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1 Introduction Ecological engineering combines the disciplines of ecology and engineering in order to solve environmental problems. The approach is to interface ecosystems with technology to create new, hybrid systems. Designs are evolving in this field for wastewater treatment, erosion control.

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5 Restoration Ecology Restoration ecology is a subdiscipline of ecological engineering that has been growing out of the need and desire to add ecological value to ecosystems that have been degraded by human impacts.

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9 Conclusions These ecosystems, as we may call them, are of the most various kinds and sizes. A central theme of this book has been the development of the concept that new ecosystems can be designed, constructed, and operated for the benefit of humanity through ecological engineering.

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4 Microcosmology Microecosystems or microcosms are relatively small, closed or semi-closed ecosystems used primarily for experimental purposes. As such, they are living tools used by scientists to understand nature.

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Sustainability of ecosystem needs water which is a finite and vulnerable resource. Fortunately, water is a renewable resource. But management of water resources is always a challenge for sustainability development. Rapid urbanization and industrialization has put more stress on water resources from increased water needs for agriculture, municipal water supply, navigation, recreation, industrial processes and ecosystem maintenance. Agriculture consumes about 70 % of world’s freshwater.

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2 Treatment Wetlands The use of wetlands for treating wastewater is probably the best example of ecological engineering because the mix of ecology and engineering is nearly even. The idea is to use an ecosystem type (wetlands) to address a specific human need that ordinarily requires a great deal of engineering.

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7 Exotic Species and Their Control The invasion of ecosystems by exotic species is a major environmental problem that has become widely recognized (Culotta, 1991; Mack et al., 2000; Malakoff, 1999). This phenomenon is occurring globally and causing changes to ecosystems, along with associated economic impacts.

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Nowadays, environmental issues including air and water pollution, climate change, overexploitation of marine ecosystems, exhaustion of fossil resources, conservation of biodiversity are receiving major attention from the public, stakeholders and scholars from the local to the planetary scales. It is now clearly recognized that human activities yield major ecological and environ- mental stresses with irreversible loss of species, destruction of habitat or cli- mate catastrophes as the most dramatic examples of their effects.

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