Engineers are designers who use scientific principles to optimize their design. They are innovators who use systematic, objective engineering analysis and design techniques to impact global sustainability through the product and processes designed. So, their decision can influence the fate of the world for the better or worse.
Engineering is concerned with the built environment around us, at the present time and in the future; where it will continue to evolve, with new technologies and innovation being discovered. So, we, the next generation of engineers, should be ready to tackle the developing trends in the world such as:
- Loss of ecosystem services – Environmental
– Different energy scenario – Energy
– Water availability problems – Water resources
– Globalisation – Different Economics
Impacts of Engineering decisions on the environment
The relationship between the Engineering decisions and their environmental impacts are always the direct one. Opting for luxury car designs instead of energy efficient ones, for example, results in more energy consumption and more emission subsquently.
Engineering decisions can also affect population growth, food production, water and energy supplies, global warming, ozone layer depletion and others for the better or worse. So, I must say that Engineers need to decide wisely to ensure better quality of life in a sustainable manner.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
ICT development in Africa
Meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) makes an enormous difference for the vast majority of Africans. However, ICT and economic growth poverty alleviation, promotion of social equality and adequately addressing MDG’s can only happen within certain policy regimes and institutional arrangements. In order to harness ICT for sound economic and social policies, continental and national ICT strategies must be integrated into broader policy agendas and coordinated with different policy sectors, most notably Poverty Reduction Strategy Programes.
Nevertheless, affordability offers one of the most generic perspectives to analyze how ICT is meeting the challenges of development. Falling prices on products and services is key for delivering ICT products and services for low-income people. Affordability is also a center piece of policy strategies advancing mass penetration of ICT’s throughout African society, especially in rural local communities or among the urban poor. Pushing the prices of products and services in new generation telephony, computing and internet below the affordability thresholds for the majority of Africans presents great potential to contribute to poverty alleviation and welfare.
ICT is also increasingly important for meeting climate change challenges globally. ICT accounts for 2.5 percent of total greenhouse emissions, but has the potential to reduce overall emissions greatly in Africa. ICT has the potential to reduce the need for travel, which accounts worldwide for about 14% of greenhouse emissions. Introduction of intelligent ICT into energy management and monitoring systems provides another highly potential contribution to energy efficiency and environmentally sustainable development.
Nevertheless, affordability offers one of the most generic perspectives to analyze how ICT is meeting the challenges of development. Falling prices on products and services is key for delivering ICT products and services for low-income people. Affordability is also a center piece of policy strategies advancing mass penetration of ICT’s throughout African society, especially in rural local communities or among the urban poor. Pushing the prices of products and services in new generation telephony, computing and internet below the affordability thresholds for the majority of Africans presents great potential to contribute to poverty alleviation and welfare.
ICT is also increasingly important for meeting climate change challenges globally. ICT accounts for 2.5 percent of total greenhouse emissions, but has the potential to reduce overall emissions greatly in Africa. ICT has the potential to reduce the need for travel, which accounts worldwide for about 14% of greenhouse emissions. Introduction of intelligent ICT into energy management and monitoring systems provides another highly potential contribution to energy efficiency and environmentally sustainable development.
Workshop: Transportation
As a team of two guys who are transportation system planners, we tried to develop a mobility on demand(MOD) transportation system. We based our workshop on the e-lecture about challenges of transportation planning by Dr Khan Rahaman’s and from Antti Ruotoistenmäki's brief lecture on Eco Mobility.
The system basically works as the normal taxi system. In this system the client can make mobile phone calls at any time anywhere to get the service. The mobiles phones used should incorporate location based services. Some may argue that since such phones are not affordable to all in the society, such system discriminate between the haves and have nots thus hardly sustainable. But we argued that even if the service is niche that mainly focuses on a certain segment of the society, it significantly helps to reduce car occupancy rate and its subsequent problems such as congestion, emission and inefficient energy use.
The system basically works as the normal taxi system. In this system the client can make mobile phone calls at any time anywhere to get the service. The mobiles phones used should incorporate location based services. Some may argue that since such phones are not affordable to all in the society, such system discriminate between the haves and have nots thus hardly sustainable. But we argued that even if the service is niche that mainly focuses on a certain segment of the society, it significantly helps to reduce car occupancy rate and its subsequent problems such as congestion, emission and inefficient energy use.
Challenges of Transportation planning in Asia, Europe and North america
Following the ever increasing trend of urbanization in the global scale and increase in population in the developing world, transportation planners are facing different challenges on their effort to insure a sustainable transportation system for the society. Some of the challenges include:
-lack of transport options
-congestion, pollution and climate change
-Increasing trends in car occupancy
-A decreased tendency in bicycling
-Increase in energy consumption
-road safety and security
These challenges need to be addressed by transportation planning which is sustainable. But what does sustainable transportation planning means? The concept mainly focuses on access and mobility. Access refers to ensuring access of transportation for all regardless of living standard or any other discriminatory measures.
Sustainable transportation planning includes the economical, social, financial and governance aspects into consideration to effectively implement a properly functioning transportation system.
Asian perspective
As urban population is increasing in an alarming rate with decrease in rural population in many Asian countries, car occupancy rate and public transportation are also on the rise. The motorization in some rapidly growing Asian countries like Indonesia and Thailand can be quoted as an illustrative example here. some of the subsequent challenges of these recent developments include:
Increase in emission
Inefficient energy use
lack of city development strategy
ineffective transport planning
governance problem etc.
And it is usually the vulnerable poor who are affected the most by the problems as they struggle to cope with the burden of paying the increasing transportation fares.
Any solution?
Planners need to put a lot of effort to ensure a sustainable transportation system, that takes the political, economic,social and environmental aspects into consideration. It is also a good practice to integrate all the transportation systems into a single platform.
European and North American perspective
Trends
Urbanization increasing.
Motorization rate is already high.
strategies
clean energy Eg. using bicycles
less energy Eg. Using energy efficient cars.
policies and programs
Different policies and programs are being introduced to curb the problem.
-lack of transport options
-congestion, pollution and climate change
-Increasing trends in car occupancy
-A decreased tendency in bicycling
-Increase in energy consumption
-road safety and security
These challenges need to be addressed by transportation planning which is sustainable. But what does sustainable transportation planning means? The concept mainly focuses on access and mobility. Access refers to ensuring access of transportation for all regardless of living standard or any other discriminatory measures.
Sustainable transportation planning includes the economical, social, financial and governance aspects into consideration to effectively implement a properly functioning transportation system.
Asian perspective
As urban population is increasing in an alarming rate with decrease in rural population in many Asian countries, car occupancy rate and public transportation are also on the rise. The motorization in some rapidly growing Asian countries like Indonesia and Thailand can be quoted as an illustrative example here. some of the subsequent challenges of these recent developments include:
Increase in emission
Inefficient energy use
lack of city development strategy
ineffective transport planning
governance problem etc.
And it is usually the vulnerable poor who are affected the most by the problems as they struggle to cope with the burden of paying the increasing transportation fares.
Any solution?
Planners need to put a lot of effort to ensure a sustainable transportation system, that takes the political, economic,social and environmental aspects into consideration. It is also a good practice to integrate all the transportation systems into a single platform.
European and North American perspective
Trends
Urbanization increasing.
Motorization rate is already high.
strategies
clean energy Eg. using bicycles
less energy Eg. Using energy efficient cars.
policies and programs
Different policies and programs are being introduced to curb the problem.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Workshop: Waste Management
Following the individual work on solid waste management in the previous session, this session was a workshop that focuses on case study of kibera - the largest slum in Kenyan. In our team, based on the case study provided by the speaker, we identified the major sources of waste in the slum. After studying the problems, we propose short and long term solutions taking into consideration the social, economic and environmental sustainability of the solutions.
Major Wastes
a. Bio wastes
b. plastic wastes
c. flying toilets
d. wastes from manufacturing industries
e. wastes from medical facilities
The first big step towards the solution for these problems is to identify and separate the wastes so as to make them easily manageable. Other solutions were proposed as shown below
1. Short term solutions
Under this category we included:
Land filling
Cleanliness campaigning
replacing plastic bags with degradable ones
2. Long term solutions
Waste minimization
Building waste processing and recycling facilities
Building public toilets
Raising community awareness
Improving the city plan
We hope that with step by step implementation of the proposed solutions, it would be possible to see a better kibera in the foreseeable future.
Major Wastes
a. Bio wastes
b. plastic wastes
c. flying toilets
d. wastes from manufacturing industries
e. wastes from medical facilities
The first big step towards the solution for these problems is to identify and separate the wastes so as to make them easily manageable. Other solutions were proposed as shown below
1. Short term solutions
Under this category we included:
Land filling
Cleanliness campaigning
replacing plastic bags with degradable ones
2. Long term solutions
Waste minimization
Building waste processing and recycling facilities
Building public toilets
Raising community awareness
Improving the city plan
We hope that with step by step implementation of the proposed solutions, it would be possible to see a better kibera in the foreseeable future.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Workshop: Energy
In many developing countries where 75% of the population live in the rural areas, the question of access to the main electric grid source is the very tricky one. Usually governments in these regions refuse to invest on electrification projects due to high initial cost of investment, minimal return, difficult terrain and inconvenience in maintenance and billing to mention some.
In this workshop different case studies in developing countries related to lack of access to electricity were presented...
I was a member of a team who explored socially, economically and environmentally sustainable alternatives to power up a school in the middle of a notorious new slum in Addis ababa. In our case study, the problem stems from the fact that a NGO is willing to build a school for the slum community but only if it would be electrified. As the government refused to electrify the school, we jumped to the rescue with our decentralized energy solution.
As Addis ababa is located in the tropical area, our main choice as an alternative source of energy was the Sun. So, after we collected money from community savings and funds from different environmental groups we bought the following materials:
1. Five solar Panels
2. Bio gas Generator
3. Batteries
4. Materials for Bio gas plant
On any ordinary day in Addis ababa we can get enough energy from the sun to power up the whole school. But keeping some foggy days in mind, we built a bio gas plant that drives our small backup generator. we collect our input for the bio gas plant from the school toilet and the slum community. In cases when we produce more energy from the solar panels than we need, we charge our batteries. the batteries later can be used to charge the Mobile phones of the community for small charges.
Since looting is the main problem in the slum, the whole power and bio gas plant will be kept in the school yard and watched by the guard.
In this workshop different case studies in developing countries related to lack of access to electricity were presented...
I was a member of a team who explored socially, economically and environmentally sustainable alternatives to power up a school in the middle of a notorious new slum in Addis ababa. In our case study, the problem stems from the fact that a NGO is willing to build a school for the slum community but only if it would be electrified. As the government refused to electrify the school, we jumped to the rescue with our decentralized energy solution.
As Addis ababa is located in the tropical area, our main choice as an alternative source of energy was the Sun. So, after we collected money from community savings and funds from different environmental groups we bought the following materials:
1. Five solar Panels
2. Bio gas Generator
3. Batteries
4. Materials for Bio gas plant
On any ordinary day in Addis ababa we can get enough energy from the sun to power up the whole school. But keeping some foggy days in mind, we built a bio gas plant that drives our small backup generator. we collect our input for the bio gas plant from the school toilet and the slum community. In cases when we produce more energy from the solar panels than we need, we charge our batteries. the batteries later can be used to charge the Mobile phones of the community for small charges.
Since looting is the main problem in the slum, the whole power and bio gas plant will be kept in the school yard and watched by the guard.
Individual work: Solid Waste Management In Developing Countries
The growth of mega cities in developing countries is affected by issues such as high population, an ever increasing need to expand in order to accommodate this population bulge and unequal access to basic public services among the different social classes. Urbanization of this trend has an adverse effect on the environment due to lack of sanitation, excessive waste, various forms of pollution (air, water and soil) and lack of proper waste treatment methods.
In my individual work I studied the provided material that focuses at discussing types of waste, waste-related problems in cities and waste treatment techniques. After I grasped the main content of the material, I reflected my gross ideas as below:
Waste is produced almost everywhere. Homes, industries and farming produce wastes of different type and varying proportion. What makes it difficult for cities to manage waste is due to a number of reasons such as rapid population growth, poor city planning which stems from bad governance, improper waste dumping process (such as mixing of toxic and domestic wastes), lack of knowledge among the local community concerning waste management and reluctance on the side of the government to promote the virtues of proper waste management.
There are a number of waste treatment methods that can be applied depending on the type of waste. Some of the techniques, however, are rather controversial. One example is taking the waste to landfills, as it results in the release of methane in to the atmosphere and also it consumes a lot of land space.
For waste management to function correctly - it is important to educate the society to increase awareness, laws not only need to be passed but also need to be implemented and there must be a social welfare.
In my individual work I studied the provided material that focuses at discussing types of waste, waste-related problems in cities and waste treatment techniques. After I grasped the main content of the material, I reflected my gross ideas as below:
Waste is produced almost everywhere. Homes, industries and farming produce wastes of different type and varying proportion. What makes it difficult for cities to manage waste is due to a number of reasons such as rapid population growth, poor city planning which stems from bad governance, improper waste dumping process (such as mixing of toxic and domestic wastes), lack of knowledge among the local community concerning waste management and reluctance on the side of the government to promote the virtues of proper waste management.
There are a number of waste treatment methods that can be applied depending on the type of waste. Some of the techniques, however, are rather controversial. One example is taking the waste to landfills, as it results in the release of methane in to the atmosphere and also it consumes a lot of land space.
For waste management to function correctly - it is important to educate the society to increase awareness, laws not only need to be passed but also need to be implemented and there must be a social welfare.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Lecture diary 3: Water Management
Water is one of the many precious resources that this plant is blessed with. Even if most of the surface of the earth is covered with this resource, only a small percentage of it is usable. That is why water management gaining more and more ground in the modern era. Even if I am not in agreement with the quote from the lecture that stated 21 century wars could be fought for water instead of oil, I firmly believe that, with unwise water management practices, regional conflicts would be inevitable. The recent tension between the Nile basin countries in east Africa can be cited as good example.
Concerning scarcity.....
In the lecture it was also discussed that mostly the middle eastern countries and northern Africa would face a critical scarcity in water at the beginning of the next decade.I think the participants made the forecast based on the geographical and climatic conditions of the countries. But in my opinion, the term scarcity in water context should consider the legislative aspect too. In some areas, even if there is abundant water resources, due to lack of fair legislation on how to use it, people could not harass the resource as they want. A good example for this - once again - are the Nile basin countries. Because of the old aged legislation that highly favor only few of the basin countries, most of the upper stream countries are susceptible to drought and hunger even if a large amount of the resource either originates from or crosses their land.
On global Changes.....
It is quite obvious that global changes like climate change, population growth, urbanization and the like have strong interaction with water. Issues raised related to climate change are mainly those of rises in sea level that eventually reduces fresh water. Moreover urbanization and energy production as they are water thirst processes,efficient water management system is a must to cope up with these global trends. But most importantly, as over population is the root of all the problems, I suggest that a wise water management strategy should also focus on how to directly or indirectly tackle this problem.
Concerning scarcity.....
In the lecture it was also discussed that mostly the middle eastern countries and northern Africa would face a critical scarcity in water at the beginning of the next decade.I think the participants made the forecast based on the geographical and climatic conditions of the countries. But in my opinion, the term scarcity in water context should consider the legislative aspect too. In some areas, even if there is abundant water resources, due to lack of fair legislation on how to use it, people could not harass the resource as they want. A good example for this - once again - are the Nile basin countries. Because of the old aged legislation that highly favor only few of the basin countries, most of the upper stream countries are susceptible to drought and hunger even if a large amount of the resource either originates from or crosses their land.
On global Changes.....
It is quite obvious that global changes like climate change, population growth, urbanization and the like have strong interaction with water. Issues raised related to climate change are mainly those of rises in sea level that eventually reduces fresh water. Moreover urbanization and energy production as they are water thirst processes,efficient water management system is a must to cope up with these global trends. But most importantly, as over population is the root of all the problems, I suggest that a wise water management strategy should also focus on how to directly or indirectly tackle this problem.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Lecture diary 2: Workshop on Mega cities
One of the most pressing problems in megacities is that of housing provision for the urban poor. In majority of the cases, these people do not have access to clean water, sanitation facilities, health care and waste disposal.
Based on the issues of the fictitious illegal housing settlement called Ibare in Lagos, Nigeria, the theme of the workshop was to develop strategies for megacities in their bid to have an urban development scheme that is acceptable to the various stakeholders involved.
The stakeholder teams in this workshop were:
1. Federal government officials
2. City planners
3. NGO/Community leaders
4. Social scientists/academics
5. UN habitat team
I was member of the social scientists / academics team and we were strongly pushing for the following points to be taken into account in the process of devising an urban development program:
1.The importance of involving the community (participatory approach). This can be
launched by arranging forums with the aid of NGOs who shall act like a bridge
between the community and the government officials.
2.The utilization of good quality building materials that is environmentally
friendly.
3.Housing schemes shall be compliant with the proper building standards.
4.Available land for residential purpose shall be properly administered by the .
government
Finally, a question for the government guys......
how far does it work to try to relocate a certain group of people to make way for developing the land? :)
Based on the issues of the fictitious illegal housing settlement called Ibare in Lagos, Nigeria, the theme of the workshop was to develop strategies for megacities in their bid to have an urban development scheme that is acceptable to the various stakeholders involved.
The stakeholder teams in this workshop were:
1. Federal government officials
2. City planners
3. NGO/Community leaders
4. Social scientists/academics
5. UN habitat team
I was member of the social scientists / academics team and we were strongly pushing for the following points to be taken into account in the process of devising an urban development program:
1.The importance of involving the community (participatory approach). This can be
launched by arranging forums with the aid of NGOs who shall act like a bridge
between the community and the government officials.
2.The utilization of good quality building materials that is environmentally
friendly.
3.Housing schemes shall be compliant with the proper building standards.
4.Available land for residential purpose shall be properly administered by the .
government
Finally, a question for the government guys......
how far does it work to try to relocate a certain group of people to make way for developing the land? :)
Lecture diary 1: Urban Risks
On the lecture....
Urban risks can take various forms such as accidental deaths, natural and technological hazards, diseases, etc. For instance, majority of airplane accidents occur during take-off and landing, which puts all the settlements around airports in an increased risk. Thus, proper city planning needs to take into account such factors.
The state of population by itself poses a risk. In developing countries the problem is due to rapid population growth whereas in some developed countries, in contrast, it is due to a decrease in population. Although there is significant improvement in city life and increased involvement of governments in assessing and managing risks, there is still the demand for better security due to:
high concentration of infrastructure
high concentration of industries, trade and commerce
high population density
The long term impact of rising sea levels was also discussed. Coastal cities are in imminent danger and the economic impact of such a disaster is also bound to be massive. But what causes rising sea levels? Is it due to climate change? In my opinion it is and the biggest problem today is human action contributing to global warming.
On the weighting discussion....
In our weighting discussion, we tried to filter out, from the list of various urban risks, the most important ones in the European context. Even if we did not base our discussion on statistical data, we generally decided that hazards like floods, extreme temperatures and storms/cyclones, in that order, are very important to be taken into consideration when one plans urban environments in Europe. In another hand,Tsunami, earth quakes and volcanic eruption pose low risk. Incidentally, the weighting from the other group was more or less similar to our analysis.
Projecting this discussion to my own town, Addis ababa, would result in a different output. As Addis ababa is located in one of the poorest countries in Africa,Ethiopia, the main urban risks would mainly be related to overpopulation which is the root of all the problems.
Urban risks can take various forms such as accidental deaths, natural and technological hazards, diseases, etc. For instance, majority of airplane accidents occur during take-off and landing, which puts all the settlements around airports in an increased risk. Thus, proper city planning needs to take into account such factors.
The state of population by itself poses a risk. In developing countries the problem is due to rapid population growth whereas in some developed countries, in contrast, it is due to a decrease in population. Although there is significant improvement in city life and increased involvement of governments in assessing and managing risks, there is still the demand for better security due to:
high concentration of infrastructure
high concentration of industries, trade and commerce
high population density
The long term impact of rising sea levels was also discussed. Coastal cities are in imminent danger and the economic impact of such a disaster is also bound to be massive. But what causes rising sea levels? Is it due to climate change? In my opinion it is and the biggest problem today is human action contributing to global warming.
On the weighting discussion....
In our weighting discussion, we tried to filter out, from the list of various urban risks, the most important ones in the European context. Even if we did not base our discussion on statistical data, we generally decided that hazards like floods, extreme temperatures and storms/cyclones, in that order, are very important to be taken into consideration when one plans urban environments in Europe. In another hand,Tsunami, earth quakes and volcanic eruption pose low risk. Incidentally, the weighting from the other group was more or less similar to our analysis.
Projecting this discussion to my own town, Addis ababa, would result in a different output. As Addis ababa is located in one of the poorest countries in Africa,Ethiopia, the main urban risks would mainly be related to overpopulation which is the root of all the problems.
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