Analysis Frameworks for Sustainability: Linking Energy and the Environment Rudolf B. Husar Director, Center for Air Pollution and Trends Analysis (CAPITA) Professor, Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering Friday, November 2, 2007, 11:00am, Lopata 101, Washington University
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Analysis Frameworks for Sustainability:
Linking Energy and the Environment
Rudolf B. HusarDirector, Center for Air Pollution and Trends Analysis (CAPITA)
Professor, Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering
Friday, November 2, 2007, 11:00am,
Lopata 101, Washington University
Sustainable Development (SD)
A process of reconciling society’s developmental needs with the environmental limits over the long term. But, What should be developed, what should be sustained?
SD as an uncertain and adaptive process, “in which society's discovery of where it wants to go is intertwined with how it might try to get there”.
During the SD ‘journey’ toward sustainability, the pathways have to be ‘navigated’ adaptively
.
National Academy, 1999
Life and non-life on Earth form a combined system (Gaia Theory)
Carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium are in constant circulation between the earth’s major environmental compartments
Earth’s compartments remain in balance as long as the rate of flow of matter and energy in and out of the compartments is unchanged.
Changes in the environmental compartments will occur if the circulation (in and out flow) of the substances is perturbed.
Atmospheric CO2 has been increasing because the rate of input is larger than the rate of output from the atmosphere.
Major Biogeochemical Processes Visualized by Aerosols
Dust storms
Volcanoes Anthropogenic pollution
Fires
Analysis Frameworks
Sensory-Motor Feedback Loop (System Science)
Biogeochemical Cycling Loop (Materials Balance)
Causality Loop (Combined Social-Physical)
Analysis Framework I: Sensory-Motor Loop
AssessmentCompare to Goals, Plan Reductions
Track Progress
Controls (Actions)
Monitoring(Sensing)
Set Goals
Assessment turns data into knowledge for decision making & actions through analysis (science & eng.)
Monitoring collects multi-sensory data from surface and satellite platforms and
Human activities exert pressures, e.g burning fossil fuels, that alter the state of environment.
The impaired environmental state, elicits responses, such as regulations in a feedback loop
All living organisms use this type of sensory-motor feedback to maintain their existence.
Monitoring, Assessment, Control are the necessary steps for sustainable development.
Monitoring:New Global Measurements - Satellites
ERBS
Terra
Aqua
Grace
IceSat
QuikScatSage
SeaWinds
TRMM
Toms-EP
UARS Jason
Landsat 7
SORCE
SeaWiFS
ACRIMSAT
TOPEX/Poseidon
EO-1
A-Train Satellite Constellation
Trends of tropospheric NO2
Eskes at al
Source Identification of
NO2
NO2 Weekly Cycle
Setting Goals:
Air Quality Goal:
Attaining Natural Condition by 2064
Controls: Sustainability Transition
Analysis Framework II: Materials & Energy Flow Loop
Biogeochemical Cycles - Carbon
Nitrogen Cycle
Consequences of Ecosystem Changes
How and what to Control?? Analysis Framework III – Causality Loop
Economic Development with Due Care of the Environment
The system approach links human activities and their consequences in closed loop
It is the minimum set of linked components – if any missing, the system is crippled
Each component depends on its causal upstream driver – and external environment
The causal loop can be used as an organizing principle for sustainability analysis
Analysis Framework III – Causality LoopEconomic Development with Due Care of the