CVEN90043 L2 sustainability PDF

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Lecture 2 - Sustainable Engineering...

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Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering (CVEN90043)

Sustainability, Why should we care?

~500 Ma, horse-shoe crab, “living fossil”

Stephan Matthai, Glen Currie, Nilupa Herath, Elisa Lumentera, Alan Thomas, David Wilson, ++ Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia

Agenda 1. The Easter Island story 2. Biodiversity loss and other features of the Anthropocene we live in 3. Measuring environmental change 4. Outlook

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What engineering activities are sustainable?

• “Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, report of the UN Brundtland Commission formed in 1983.

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What happened on the Easter Islands? Simplistic Summary Resource exploitation beyond capacity driven by population growth and extravagance: •

Deforestation (Rapa Palm)

•

Eating up of porpoises, turtles, fish, shellfish, seals and large lizards.

•

Soil erosion, land degredation

•

Demise of farming

•

No wood, no boats, no fishing

•

In debased ecosystem rats and diseases take over

•

Remaining islanders were enslaved!

Basener & Ross 2004 (SIAM J. Appl. Math) mathematical model predicts this rapid decline when the growth rate of the resources, such as food and trees, is less than the rate at which resources are harvested.

see Perusall for more!

The Rise and Fall of us all? – Works for NZ Global fisheries are next if we do nothing! 19-Feb-21

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The Anthropocene •

The (geologic) age humans have become the dominant force shaping earth’s bio-geophysical composition and processes.

•

The age of unreason (Charles Handy 1989).

Orkney islands, 69’

The US Bison population was wiped out at end of 19’th century, which had been under the stewardship of the American Indians for thousands of years. 19-Feb-21

Namibian seal cull (~90’000 in 2009). https://www.oceansentry.org/namibian-seal-hunt-to-go-on/ Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering (CVEN90043)

Does abundance create wastage?

Playing god!

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Loss of biodiversity

Why?

From Encyclopedia Brittanica. 19-Feb-21

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Quantifying and ranking environmental issues b

a

Data collected from academic journals listed in Scopus. a) freshwater biodiversity b) marine biodiversity c) terrestrial d) food security • crosses are averages • vertical bars mark the median • error bars exclude outliers shown as circles

Climate change Land/sea use Hunting/fishing Chemical emissions Habitat degradation (other) Biological invasions Acidification Habitat loss Eco-toxicants Eutrophication Habitat fragmentation Erosion Photochem. ozone formation Water scarcity Salinization Soil compaction

Land/sea use Chemical emissions Climate change Water scarcity Eutrophication Biological invasions Habitat loss Eco-toxicants Habitat degradation (other) Habitat fragmentation Hunting/fishing Erosion Acidification Salinization Photochem. ozone formation Soil compaction

c

d Land/sea use Habitat loss Climate change Habitat degradation (other) Habitat fragmentation Biological invasions Water scarcity Chemical emissions Erosion Eco-toxicants Soil compaction Hunting/fishing Salinization Acidification Eutrophication Photochem. ozone formation

Climate change Water scarcity Land use Land degradation (other) Chemical emissions Loss of pollinators Erosion Pests and diseases Nutrient depletion Land scarcity Eutrophication Human toxicants Soil compaction Acidification Salinization Photochem. ozone formation 0

20 40 60 80 Importance score

100

Scherer et al. (2020, Science of the Total Environment) 19-Feb-21

Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering (CVEN90043)

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Extrema within 1.5 · IQR

20 40 60 80 Importance score 25-75% (IQR)

average

100

outliers

median

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Importance, perception of issues, and mitigation tractability Tractability

Neglect Scores Acidification (ocean) Pollinator loss Soil compaction Nutrient depletion Salinization Habitat fragmentation Habitat/land degrad. (other) Human toxicants Acidification (soil & freshw.) Habitat loss Erosion Eco-toxicants Eutrophication Photochem. ozone form. Biological invasions Hunting Land scarcity Pests and diseases Fishing Water scarcity Chemical emissions Land use Sea use Climate change

Soil compaction Acidification (soil & freshw.) Photochem. ozone form. Hunting Human toxicants Fishing Eutrophication Erosion Chemical emissions Nutrient depletion Salinization Pollinator loss Sea use Pests and diseases Eco-toxicants Land scarcity Water scarcity Habitat fragmentation Habitat/land degrad. (other) Land use Climate change Habitat loss Biological invasions Acidification (ocean) 0

Extrema within 1.5 · IQR

20

40 60 80 Neglect score

25-75% (IQR) average

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100

outliers

0

Extrema within 1.5 · IQR

median Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering (CVEN90043)

20 40 60 80 Tractability score 25-75% (IQR)

average

100

outliers

median

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For example: climate change

Franz-Josef glacier, New Zealand

Australian summer, mean temperature swissinfo.ch/eng/melting-ice_swiss-glaciers 19-Feb-21

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The world’s most important mass extinctions The 6th mass extinction: man-made (Anthropocene)

theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2015/oct/20/ the-four-horsemen-of-the-sixth-mass-extinction

Saltre et al. (2019, The Conversation) 19-Feb-21

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To finish off on a positive note... Success stories • Burning and painted rivers (“fresh” water)

June 22, 1969: The Cuyahoga River catches fire in Cleveland, drawing national attention and helping the passage of the US Clean Water Act.

• Smog (aerosols, air pollution) • Acid rain, dying forests (eco-toxins) • Ozone hole (curbing CFCs in atmosphere)

1952 Great Smog, London, UK – Battersea Power Station

1980’s Swedish forests wiped out by sulfuric acid from coal-fired power plants

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But the 2020 ozone hole over Antarctica is one of the largest and deepest ever (ESA video).

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Scherer’s (2020) priorities to keep in mind a

b

Acidification (ocean) * Sea use * Land use * Climate change Habitat degrad. (other) Chemical emissions Fishing * Habitat loss Eutrophication Acidif. (soil & freshw.) * Habitat fragmentation Biological invasions Eco-toxicants Hunting * Erosion Water scarcity Salinization Photochem. ozone form. Soil compaction 0

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Loss of pollinators Soil compaction Nutrient depletion Climate change Land degrad. (other) Water scarcity Erosion Land use Chemical emissions Human toxicants Eutrophication Pests and diseases Land scarcity priority importance neglect tractability

Acidif. (soil & freshw.) Photochem. ozone form. Salinization 20

40 60 Score

80

100

0

Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering (CVEN90043)

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40 60 Score

80

100

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To engage with and contribute to... • Explosive growth of renewables • Wider uptake of recycling • Back to Paris agreement • Decarbonisation of energy, steel and cement manufacture via CCUS • Electric / hydrogen vehicles permit to partially decarbonise transport • Moving towards a hydrogen economy • Biodiversity preserving no-go zones • Transparency / global surveillance makes offending harder • More awareness of the exploitation and degradation of marine environments • Sophisticated cross-disciplinary engineering solutions

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The End Any questions are welcome.

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Sustainable©Infrastructure Engineering Copyright The University of Melbourne(CVEN90043) 2019

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