问题概述:

Rapid economic growth in recent decades has resulted in serious environmental problems in China and many other rapidly developing economies. While society has advanced due to technological and engineering achievements, this has come at the cost of increased environmental problems. Therefore, it is now necessary for economic development objectives to move from a “quantity first” mindset to a “quality first” mindset [1]. To achieve this, however, requires “quality first” development to ensure that there is a balance between the economic and ecological goals by determining the economic development and ecosystem conservation trade-offs.

A crucial element when measuring management effectiveness are the “desired results;” that is, without the specification of desired results, there is no need for management. While engineering achievements have improved the quality of life, resource depletion, pollution of the environment, and the extinction of species are not the desired results from effective management. When assessing engineering management effectiveness, another crucial concept is related to the situation under review. The original concept based on Taylor's scientific theory of management has been replaced by a contingency theory that states that “The best form of management depends on the situation.” One of the most pressing situations today are resource and energy shortages, with the shortages of potable water, land, and fossil fuel resources now attracting world-wide attention. Therefore, when designing engineering management projects, engineers need to integrate natural systems and built systems.

Although these two effective management measures are well known, achieving the “desired results” based on the “situation” is technically difficult; therefore, effective engineering management needs to encompass a clear ecological concept. Xu and Li proposed ecological engineering based engineering management (EMEE) [2], which embraced a holistic vision of the biosphere to allow for engineering management and design to comprehensively consider the possible impacts on the environment and society. Prof. Odum first proposed the term ecological engineering in 1963 [3], and then scaled it [4]. However, an accurate definition for the ecological engineering concept has taken several decades to refine, and it still undergoes adjustments.

Fig 1. Ecological engineering in an energy systems diagram in which the units are displayed left to right in order of turnover time, territory, and transformity [4].

Because ecological engineering is based on biological systems, it has a greater probability of minimizing transfers from one media to another [5]. Consequently, more engineering managers are applying ecological engineering concepts when seeking to resolve engineering management problems. Therefore, `ecological engineering based engineering management' (EMEE) has become essential to effective engineering management. Fig. 1 shows that ecological engineering has become the bridge between “society and economics” and “biology”.

Because of the increasing severity of environmental problems, engineers must consider ecological concepts in engineering management research and practice. Xu and Li claimed that ecological engineering is an essential requirement and should serve as the foundation for modern engineering management. Ecological engineering differs from other engineering fields as it embodies; (a) self-design (self-organization) as a cornerstone, (b) biological systems, and (c) sustainable ecosystems. Generally, ecological engineering has been limited in the past to the monitoring and assessment of environmental impacts or the management of natural resources [2]. Further, as the development of ecologically sound engineering necessitates a consideration of the relationship between humans and their environment, the developments in environmental technology, clean technology, and ecological technology are superior in many ways to other kinds of technology. Therefore, the EMEE proposed by Xu and Li could be a promising method for achieving suitable trade-offs between the economic and ecological goals for engineering management.

To achieve EMEE and balance the economic and ecological goals, some critical managerial problems need to be resolved.

(1)Valuing ecosystems

Theoretically, to determine the trade-offs between the economic and ecological goals, it is first necessary to value the ecosystems. Economics has identified two ecosystem value classes; use values, which identify the direct ecosystem function benefits such as pest control, and existence values, which reflect a desire to preserve species even though this provides no direct benefit to the value [6]. The accurate pricing of all inputs and economic incentives should encourage preservation, and the assessment of costly inputs could lead to more efficient engineering management.

However, it is empirically complex to estimate existence values, and it is even questionable as to whether existence values can be reliably estimated [7]. However, ignoring the existence values because of the empirical challenges would automatically assume that they had a zero value [6]. On the other hand, it is also difficult to determine use values as they may not be priced correctly because they often benefit parties beyond those who pay for them. Therefore, the benefits to others need to be reflected in the prices, otherwise the party providing the biodiversity conservation would not be rewarded for providing these benefits. Frank and Schlenker [8] gave an example of a now bankrupt publicly listed for-profit company “Earth Sanctuaries,” which had invested in ecosystem preservation with the expectation of making profits. The most likely reason for the failure was that the governments had not determined the required price signals and/or restrictions that would have made such private conservation profitable.

When implementing EMEE, specific ecological goals are required. If the ecosystem use values and existence values cannot be correctly valued, the so-called trade-offs between economic and ecological goals will be biased.

(2)Effective multi-disciplinary cooperation

As ecological engineering is premised on interdisciplinary paradigms, ecological engineers need to consult scientific knowledge, soft science knowledge, engineering knowledge, and systems knowledge. Even though engineering management has a wide scope, EMEE is more inter-disciplinary and integrative. To address critical environmental issues, ecologists and engineers have expanded beyond traditional knowledge bases to address the needs of the highly complex, heterogeneous urban systems [9]. Therefore, ecological engineering management requires engineering, scientific management, and biological and historical knowledge. The EMEE knowledge system is shown in Fig. 2. Consequently, an accurate EMEE requires integrated technological approaches to resolve the inherent problems; however, it has proven challenging to integrate this concept successfully into traditional engineering management methodologies and knowledge.

To realize effective multi-disciplinary cooperation and achieve a true EMEE, suitable trade-offs between the economic and ecological goals are required, which requires a revolution in both education and practice.

Fig 2. EMEE knowledge system [2]

(3)Coordinating multi-agent real-time information

EMEE has a high information coordination requirement as every decision is based on the concurrent consideration of the environmental, ecological, social, and economic information. It is therefore, very difficult for EMEE to mine and monitor data in real time to assist in day-to-day operations, ensure regulatory compliance, and reduce costs as huge amounts of data are generated and exchanged between departments, devices and regions, with some data being highly uncertain. The solution, therefore, is to build user-friendly cloud environments that store and maintain the various databases, and that allow access from all involved sectors and systems.

As information technology is essential for effective EMEE, big data technologies must be incorporated into all EMEE practices. For example, an urban water management project uses a wide range of sensors such as smart water meters, which usually work in real-time and deliver a huge amount of data. Today, improved sensor technologies, firmware applications such as those that measure pressure, water quality, and flow, big data analytics tools leveraged from other sectors, and embedded machine-to-machine communications are creating new opportunities for the collection of data that have typically been manually collected and rarely evaluated.

Therefore, there is significant potential for these new technologies, approaches, and tools to be applied to future EMEE research and practice. However, only when the information technology functions are fully maximized will it be possible to maximize EMEE effectiveness and determine the trade-offs between the economic and ecological goals.

重要意义：

The significance of addressing the question “what are the trade-offs between economic and ecological goals?” lies in achieve the true long-term sustainability.

“Sustainable development” has become a key concept in modern environmental and ecological economics and environmental policy analyses. Sustainable development was most popularly developed by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) in Our Common Future in 1987 [10]. At this time, the WCED stated that“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”[10]. Therefore, sustainability is a multifaceted concept that encompasses the environment, the economy, and the society [11]. In the environmental dimension, sustainability refers to the protection and strengthening of environmental system renewal capacities. In the economic dimension, sustainability refers to the maximization of the current and future net benefits of economic development while ensuring the quality of the natural resources and associated services. Socially, sustainability refers to improvements in the quality of life and health, and access to the necessary resources to create environments where people's rights to equality and freedom are protected.

Since “sustainable development” was adopted in Agenda 21 as the overarching goal of economic and social development, many countries, governments, and even private enterprises have generated research and practical projects on ways to achieve sustainability, with many of these contributions including an ecological concept in the engineering management. However, the ecological engineering basis is not always obvious, and the superiorities of ecological engineering over environmental technology, cleaner technology, and other normal ecological technologies have not been suitably distinguished, with compromises generally being made between the human and environmental needs. While long-term sustainability has become a stated goal by many governments and international organizations, its realization can only be possible if the economic and ecological goals are concurrently optimized and the trade-offs between these goals clearly identified, both of which are going to drive EMEE research and practice for a long time.

Although EMEE is a beneficial concept for a sustainable future, there are still many managerial questions that need to be answered before it can be fully realized such as; how can ecosystems be valued? how can effective multi-disciplinary cooperation be achieved? and how can multi-agent real-time information be coordinated? To answer these questions, management, development, and education need to be reformed. Only when these questions are answered, can effective EMEE be achieved and the trade-offs between the economic and ecological goals fully realized.

References

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[4] Odum HT. Scales of ecological engineering. Ecological Engineering 1996;6(1–3):7–19.

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