Relationship of Engineering and Environment - Essay Example

Engineering and Environment Name Institution Engineering and Environment Abstract Engineering involves the application of various models to assist with the development of solutions to some of the challenges humanities. However, some engineering activities are a great threat to environmental value, which calls for immediate action to remedy the prevailing situation. It is from such background that the report focused on the relationship between engineering and environment and established the role of professional engineers to in ensuring the achievement sustainable development. The report also focused on the ethical issues associated with the practice of engineering at professional level. Additionally, these issues influence environmental quality was addressed. Engineering activities require certain distinct competencies that the report addressed as well. However, there were several challenges experienced during collection of the information, which the report addressed as well. Introduction Ensuring environmental sustainability at the time is crucial for human well-being. Considering the sensitivity of the ecosystem, engineering activities offer important role in human, economic, and socio-cultural development in ensuring the achievement of sustainable goals, especially environmental sustainable development (Yadav, 2013). The major challenge faced by the engineers is ensuring the quality of the environment while at the same time complying with the required professional standards. As a result, most of the practitioners violate the required professional codes and ethics as they focus on economic benefits of projects rather than environmental sustainability. Professions within the built environment have a responsibility of ensuring that every project goes through the environmental impact assessment (EIA) to assist in identification of negative activities associated with the project at early stages. Engineering and Environment Globally, physical population growth is becoming the greatest environmental threat considering the creation of remarkable demands for housing, transportation, energy, water, and land. The demands defined the various aspects of engineering. To ensure sustainability of the environmental resources, engineers have the responsibilities of developing models and plans that uphold the quality of environmental condition. Currently, there are designs and construction works that put stress on the environmental conditions. The engineers need to develop designs that offer professional solutions to both social and environmental issues ((Yadav, 2013). Engineering role in the conservation of aesthetic value of the environment suffered several challenges over the decades; however, it remains a significant element of the scientific-technological method. Engineers have the responsibility of enhancing the quality of both biophysical and socioeconomic environments in a bid to promote the engineering principles of sustainable development. While seeking the opportunities to work, the engineers must ensure safety, health, and social welfare of communities at local levels and internationally through practicing sustainable development. In developing countries, most people depend on environmental resources for survival. Therefore, unsustainable activities might compromise their activities rendering them susceptible to poverty and hunger. Professional engineers need to ensure the protection of both the public and environment. Besides various engineering designs, the machinery used also pose serious environmental problems such as pollution, reorganization of the oil structure, and destruction of ecological organisms (Yadav, 2013). Engineering roles with regard to safety, health, and welfare of the public depend on the judgment made by the engineer, risk assessment method employed, decisions and practices incorporated into the structures, and the types of machinery employed. Consequently, engineers have to control and ensure that whatever activity they undertake complies with the required engineering practices, standards, and applicable codes. Such practices might be considered safe depending on the peer adjudication. In some cases, engineering designs, especially for residential areas, fail to account for the management of sewerage and other types of wastes. Besides, with increasing populations within the urban areas, too much pressure continues to mount of the less available methods of disposing of the wastes. Engineers, through application of various mathematical models, need to ensure that they account for the rising population when designing structures. Through environmental impact Assessment (EIA), engineers can identify some of the potential environmental effects of their construction activities. For examples, the numbers of swampy areas have been on the decline due to engineering activities as they consider such areas waste lands. The Ramsar Convention protects swampy areas. Through EIA, it would be possible for the engineers to identify the benefits of such areas and associated costs to make an effective and sustainable decision. Engineering and ethical standards Currently, most engineers do not consider the ethical codes and practices within the profession. Issues such as economic constraints and local interests are making it much more difficult for many engineers to adhere to the required ethical principles of formulation and sticking to a given set of values which is the major component of both social and technical progress. Every professional engineer needs to consider regularly the ethics of their positions; nonetheless, issues such as professional challenges, dilemmas, dichotomies, disagreements, and professional challenges are usually unavoidable. Ensuring ethical views might assist the engineers to make informed decisions and be at the central point of technological development. Engineering codes require them to uphold safety, health, and public welfare beyond any obligations. Although most engineers tend to value the obligations from the clients, it becomes difficult to guarantee environmental quality. Engineering codes and practices encourage taking the responsibility for the immediate actions resulting from their projects. Therefore, it is significant that they ensure integrity and accountability irrespective of the requirements of their potential clients. In several occasions, engineers have been found violating such codes due to greed for money or association. As a result, they end up losing their license of practices, incur fines, and contributing to avoidable negative environmental impacts. In engineering, taking responsibility means being accountable for one’s work and accepting the responsibility of junior engineers. The latter implies that efficient engineers should be able to review, modify, and direct other workers with an aim of complying with occupational health and safety standards and environmental requirements. However, such concepts require setting up reasonable limits of the activities extent carried out by unqualified personnel. Engineers also have the duty of advising their clients even in professional association to ensure that their decisions comply with the require codes of conduct. These pieces of advice could overturn the stand of their employees, thus safeguarding the lives of the public and workers. If the client fails to heed to the advice of the engineer, then it is crucial to ensure that the client seeks consultancy services from registered engineer. Carrying out any engineering activity without consideration for environmental resources is unethical. However, both qualified and unqualified engineers might practice unethical activities. Due to rapid improvement in technology and increasing the ability of the engineers to perform various activities including development of some undesirable plans, engineering activities continue to influence negatively the environment. From engineering codes, it is the responsibility of the engineers to be mindful that some of the decisions they make have serious consequence on the environment and human wellbeing. Furthermore, with rapid advancement in technology and social impacts of the increasing population, it is the responsibility of the engineers to endeavour in fostering public’s understanding of issues considered technical and engineering roles in ensuring the safety of both the workers and public. However, sustainable development is a current challenge in meeting the human needs for natural resources. Proper observation of environmental resources and effective application of engineering models might assist in eradicating the world’s poverty. Engineering and Sustainability As a profession, engineering is art of applying science to ensure maximum conversion of environmental resources to the uses of humans. Therefore, they solve problems based on both mathematics and logic reasoning to ensuring comfortability and easing of human life. To solve these problems, they have to consider several factors imposed by the state authorities to reduce the impact on both human and ecosystem considering the sensitivity of the profession. There is requirement for consideration of sustainable development while designing their products and services. Integration of sustainable development into engineering as an approach might assist to reconcile the requirements of the humans and the capacity of the earth to cope with environmental consequences from human activities. According to Brundtland report of sustainable development, human can make development sustainably through ensuring that environmental resources satisfy the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability to meet the future demands. Based on the report, there a series of actions in place in ensuring human activities do not affect the quality of environmental conditions. Professionally, engineers are at the focal point of ensuring humanity meet such objectives through their designs and plans. Additionally, the report recognizes certain activities and lifestyles of the modern society, especially industrialization, as the areas that require effective environmental models. With the human population and ever-increasing demand, people are continuously exceeding the capacity of environmental resources to accommodate. Consistent with a social, environmental, and economic aspect of sustainability, the concept of sustainable development is growing into application as engineers and designers are shifting towards green developments. Theoretical reviews of life cycle analysis indicate that through sustainable designs and construction activities, humanity could achieve good economical sense on environmental impact. Through strict engineering practices, it has been anticipated that with continued integration of sustainable development and engineering activities, most countries will be compelling and accelerating their plans to shifting to green technology. The World Federation of Engineering Organizations noted that it is significant that the engineers are properly equipped with appropriate knowledge and skills to assist in addressing some of the challenges within the society. However, much focus has been on the question of the engineering in the world that is continuously becoming radicalised. The ever-increasing population continues shifting focus to urban areas, which in turn have to adapt sustainability. Besides, the demands for other resources have been on the rise. The job market as well is becoming too competitive. To some extent, qualified engineers find themselves in management jobs, which lead to scarcity of proficient and effectively trained engineering personnel. Currently, most engineering degrees still focus on the old economy without consideration on the increasing demand of fostering environmental protection. Furthermore, environmental engineering that should involve ecosystem issues focus on the end-of-pipe solutions rather than focusing methods of preventing pollutions. With resources continuing to decline at the present rate, various engineering programmes are doing less to remedy the situation. However, grasping the concept of sustainability and sustainable development is not difficult though the engineers have to find the right balance between the economic wellbeing of the society, benefits, and concern for environmental resources. Besides, it is crucial to involve the issue of intergenerational equity. Engineers need to stop thinking of economists who argue that all ecosystem components are accounted for in supply and demand, the willingness to pay of the consumers, and the money value or discounting. Challenges in Information Collection There were several challenges experienced while collecting information. The major challenge involves inadequate engineering works on the concept of environmental sustainability and the role of engineers in ensuring the quality of environmental conditions remains, as it should be. Having professional engineers answer some of the questions with reference to the feasibility study on environmental condition was also quite a huge challenge. Research indicate that in as much as most engineers try to integrate the concept of environmental sustainability into their activities, the EIA conducted often show much similarities which rises questions on whether the developers carry out the EIA or make some modifications on the previous ones. Information testing is an important part of validating the information collected especially on the engineering designs and models. Availability of funds often determines the extent to which the testing is carried out as well as the scope of information collection. Inadequate cooperation from both the clients and workers in engineering firms contribute to the collection of limited resources. Besides, inadequate knowledge on the environmental background and sensitivity lead to omission of some important information, especially on the sustainable development. In most engineering works, mathematics covers a greater proportion leaving small room for logic reasoning. Such factors contribute to subs standard engineers graduating from the universities. Lessons and Recommendations Engineering plays an integral part in ensuring the achievement of the sustainability goals. Besides, engineering activities, designs, and recommendations are the major factors contributing to the deteriorating environmental condition. With poor living conditions, the safety and health of the public are at risk. Therefore, it is significant that the engineers ensure compliance with the required codes of conduct, state laws, and integrate environmental issues while designing their projects. Factors such as economic constraints, greediness, and bureaucracy should never drive the engineering activities as such practices make several factors at stake. Additionally, engineering bodies need to carry out inspection on regular basis on the engineering activities to ensure compliance of the working areas and certification of the engineers on site. The major reason contributing to the deteriorating of environmental conditions and violation of engineering codes of practice is inadequate commitment by the regulating bodies. Institutions of higher learning should also incorporate environmental studies into engineering curriculum to offer the engineers an oversight of what is expected of them upon completion of their studies. At all point, the engineers must always uphold integrity and high level of competence as a means of ensuring compliance with the required standards. Competence and Knowledge The role of the professional engineers to offer services, advice their potential clients, and undertake various engineering activities based on their level of competencies through the virtue of the training and experience in the engineering field. The competencies expressed during the collection of information included exercising care and clear communication while accepting or interpreting the responsibilities accorded. Besides, it is significant to have the ability to set the expected outcomes as an engineer. Whatever is expected from the engineers is quite more than the standard of care as it involves executing the responsibilities with honesty and integrity to gain the confidence and trust of the potential client. In some case, the engineers often find themselves in dilemma on whether to execute the programme without consideration of the required ethical standards or fail to execute as much is often at stake. Therefore, as a professional engineer, one has to remain side by side of development and knowledge in their areas of operations through maintenance of high competency levels. With the ever-changing technology, the practitioners have the responsible of attaining and maintaining competence in their areas of involvement including acquisition of knowledge, technical expertise, and updated with changes in the legal framework governing engineering activities. Generally, engineering requires personal commitment to the continuing professional developments, education, and self-testing. Besides maintaining high level of competence, an engineer has the obligation of striving to contribute to the improvement of knowledge within the profession. Within the frameworks of practice, they have to participate in the provision of opportunities to encourage professional development. However, with regard to the codes of practice, competence includes obligation to the public, professionalism, and honestly while expressing engineering opinions. Conclusion Engineering is very important in improving and maintain the quality of environmental condition. Globally, there is much concern to ensure that engineering activities consider various components of the ecosystem to prevent negative impact on the environmental condition. However, failure by the practitioners to heed to such requirements is the major reason behind the rising rates of environmental condition. Every engineering activity affects the environment in one way or another. With the mounting pressure on the available limited resources, engineering tools are in the best place to remedy the situation. As a result, it is the responsibility of every engineer to adhere the required code of practice with regard to sustainable development to uphold the quality of the environment. Reference Yadav, R. K. (2013). Environment engineering. Jaipur: Oxford Book Co. Read More