Engineering for Sustainable Human Development


Book Description

The challenge of improving the daily lives of people in developing communities calls for a new generation of global engineers who can operate in environments vastly different from those in the developed world. Engineers must become creative and innovative as they contend with uncertainty, complexity, and constraints in unfamiliar cultural settings. They must also deal with a multitude of technical and nontechnical issues beyond their accustomed practice. In this book, Bernard Amadei addresses the role of engineering in poverty reduction and human development. He introduces a framework to help engineers conduct small-scale projects in communities vulnerable to the consequences of a wide range of adverse events. His framework combines concepts and tools traditionally used by development agencies with techniques from engineering project management and systems thinking. When blended, these tools and techniques from seemingly unrelated fields offer engineers better methods to manage the difficulties inherent in community development projects.Engineering for Sustainable Human Development is about the delivery of projects that are done right from a performance (technical) point of view and are also the right projects from a social, environmental, and economic (context) point of view. This multidisciplinary approach to sustainable engineering will be valuable to practitioners and students, as well as people associated with development organizations and aid agencies.




Engineering for Sustainable Communities


Book Description

Engineering for Sustainable Communities: Principles and Practices defines and outlines sustainable engineering methods for real-world engineering projects.




Engineering Education for Sustainable Development


Book Description

This book demonstrates how the theoretical concepts of the capabilities approach can be applied in the context of engineering education, and how this could be used to add nuance to our understanding of the contribution higher education can make to human flourishing. In demonstrating the usefulness of the capability approach as a lens through which to evaluate the outputs of engineering education, the author also shows how the capability approach can be informed by, and informs, the concept of ‘sustainable development’ and discusses what pedagogical and curricula implications this may have for education for sustainable development (ESD), particularly in engineering. As such, the book builds on the work of scholars of engineering education, and scholars of university education at the nexus of development and sustainability. Engineering employers, educators and students from diverse contexts discuss both the capabilities and functions that are enlarged by engineering education and the impact these can have on pro-poor engineering or public-good professionalism. The book therefore makes an original conceptual and empirical contribution to our thinking about engineering education research. The book provides inspiration for both engineering educators and students to orient their technical knowledge and transferable skills towards the public good. It will also be of great interest to students and researchers interested in education for sustainable development more generally and to engineers who are interested in doing work that is aligned with the goals of social justice. The book will also appeal to scholars of the capability approach within higher education.




Engineering for Sustainability


Book Description

Preface -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Setting up a design assignment -- 3. Structuring the sustainability context -- 4. Creating design solutions -- 5. Acquiring sustainable design competences.




Engineering and Sustainable Community Development


Book Description

This book, Engineering and Sustainable Community Development, presents an overview of engineering as it relates to humanitarian engineering, service learning engineering, or engineering for community development, often called sustainable community development (SCD). The topics covered include a history of engineers and development, the problems of using industry-based practices when designing for communities, how engineers can prepare to work with communities, and listening in community development. It also includes two case studies -- one of engineers developing a windmill for a community in India, and a second of an engineer "mapping communities" in Honduras to empower people to use water effectively -- and student perspectives and experiences on one curricular model dealing with community development. Table of Contents: Introduction / Engineers and Development: From Empires to Sustainable Development / Why Design for Industry Will Not Work as Design for Community / Engineering with Community / Listening to Community / ESCD Case Study 1: Sika Dhari's Windmill / ESCD Case Study 2: Building Organizations and Mapping Communities in Honduras / Students' Perspectives on ESCD: A Course Model / Beyond Engineers and Community: A Path Forward




Sustainable Engineering


Book Description

A multidisciplinary introduction to sustainable engineering exploring challenges and solutions through practical examples and exercises.




The Global Engineers


Book Description

The Global Engineers: Building a Safe and Equitable World Together, is inspired by the opportunities for engineers to contribute to global prosperity. This book presents a vision for Global Engineering, and identifies that engineers should be concerned with the unequal and unjust distribution of access to basic services, such as water, sanitation, energy, food, transportation, and shelter. As engineers, we should place an emphasis on identifying the drivers, determinants, and solutions to increasing equitable access to reliable services. Global Engineering envisions a world where everyone has safe water, sanitation, energy, food, shelter, and infrastructure, and can live in health, dignity, and prosperity. This book seeks to examine the role and ultimately the impact of engineers in global development. Engineers are solutions-oriented people. We enjoy the opportunity to identify a product or need, and design appropriate technical solutions. However, the structural and historical barriers to global prosperity requires that Engineers focus more broadly on improving the tools and practice of poverty reduction and that we include health, economics, policy, and governance as relevant expertise with which we are conversant. Engineers must become activists and advocates, rejecting ahistorical technocratic approaches that suggest poverty can be solved without justice or equity. Engineers must leverage our professional skills and capacity to generate evidence and positive impact toward rectifying inequalities and improving lives. Half of this book is dedicated to profiles of engineers and other technical professionals who have dedicated their careers to searching for solutions to global development challenges. These stories introduce the reader to the diverse opportunities and challenges in Global Engineering.




Engineering for Sustainable Development


Book Description

The report highlights the crucial role of engineering in achieving each of the 17 SDGs. It shows how equal opportunities for all is key to ensuring an inclusive and gender balanced profession that can better respond to the shortage of engineers for implementing the SDGs. It provides a snapshot of the engineering innovations that are shaping our world, especially emerging technologies such as big data and AI, which are crucial for addressing the pressing challenges facing humankind and the planet. It analyses the transformation of engineering education and capacity-building at the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that will enable engineers to tackle the challenges ahead. It highlights the global effort needed to address the specific regional disparities, while summarizing the trends of engineering across the different regions of the world.




Sustainable Infrastructure


Book Description

As more factors, perspectives, and metrics are incorporated into the planning and building process, the roles of engineers and designers are increasingly being fused together. Sustainable Infrastructure explores this trend with in-depth look at sustainable engineering practices in an urban design as it involves watershed master-planning, green building, optimizing water reuse, reclaiming urban spaces, green streets initiatives, and sustainable master-planning. This complete guide provides guidance on the role creative thinking and collaborative team-building play in meeting solutions needed to affect a sustainable transformation of the built environment.




Sustainable Development in Mechanical Engineering


Book Description

Owing to their specialized training, engineers play a crucial role in the design and development of new products or infrastructure as well as the creation of wealth. Consequently, engineers recognize that in the performance of these functions they have a specific responsibility to take such measures as are appropriate to safeguard the environment, health, safety and well-being of the public. This book proposes a series of fifteen practical cases, integrating knowledge from different fields of the mechanical engineering discipline, along with basic knowledge in environment, occupational health and safety risk management. The cases are descriptions of a real system, it’s functioning and it’s instructions for use. The systems selected represent a broad spectrum of mechanical engineering issues or problems: fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, heat transfer, heating, ventilation and cooling, vibrations, dynamics, statics, failure of materials, automatic and mecatronics, hydraulics, product design, human factors, maintenance, rapid prototyping to name a few. The professional objective of the cases proposed is to design or improve the design of the described system. This book is a must to transfer knowledge to future engineers with respect to hazards resulting from their work.