2.1 History of ecological
engineering

Ecological engineering was defined by Howard Odum (Fig.2.1.1) as “those cases in which the energy supplied by man is small relative to the nature source, but sufficient to produce large effects in the resulting patterns and process” in 1962 and as “environmental manipulation by man using small amounts of supplementary energy to control systems in which the main energy drives are still coming from natural sources” in 1963. Howard Odum emphasized mainly self-organizing of ecosystems. He explained the breadth of ecological engineering by stating it is the management of nature. As the resources of the world become increasingly limiting to the expansion of the human economy, the management of the planet must turn more and more to a cooperative role with the planetary life support system, this sometimes is called the stewardship of nature. The pattern of humanity and nature that prevails is symbiotic because two coupled systems have higher performance than two separate systems that are not mutually reinforcing. Howard Odum wrote 15 books which included Fundamentals of Ecology in 1953, Systems Ecology: an Introduction in 1983 and Ecological Microcosms in 1993. He is often called the father of ecological engineering.

In the early 1980s, ecotechnology was proposed by some ecologists in Eastern Europe as “the use of technological means for ecosystem management, based on deep ecological understanding, to minimize the cost of measures and their harm to the environment. Ecotechnology is used as a term synonymous with ecological engineering.

William Mitsch (Fig.2.1.2) defined ecological engineering as “the design of human society with its natural environment for the benefit of both.” He described the goals of ecological engineering as: the restoration of ecosystems that have been substantially disturbed by human activities such as environmental pollution or land disturbance and the development of new sustainable ecosystems that have both human and ecological values. He was co-laureate of the 2004 Stockholm Water Prize in August 2004 as a result of a career in wetland ecology and restoration, ecological engineering, and ecological modeling.

Concurrent but separate from the development of ecological engineering concepts in the West was a similar development of the term ecological engineering in China. Under the leadership of Ma Shijun (Fig.2.1.3), known as the father of ecological engineering in China, ecologists in China began using the term ecological engineering in the 1960s, with much of that work written in Chinese language publications. In one of the first publications in western literature in 1985, Ma described the application of ecological principles in the concept of ecological engineering in China. Ma later defined ecological engineering as: “a specially designed system of production process in which the principles of the species symbiosis and the cycling and regeneration of substances in an ecological system are applied with adopting the system engineering technology and introducing new technologies and excellent traditional production measures to make a multi-step use of substance.” The main task of ecological engineering is to meet global environmental problems through ecosystem design.

Major events in development of ecological engineering before 2000 are listed in Table 2.1.1.

Ecological engineering may be based on one or more of the following four classes of ecotechnology:

1) Ecosystem are used to solve a pollution problem that otherwise would be harmful to other ecosystems. A typical example is the use of wetlands for wastewater treatment.

2) Ecosystems are copied to solve pollution problem, leading to a constructed ecosystem. Examples are fishponds and constructed wetlands for treating wastewater or diffuse pollution sources.

3) The recovery of an ecosystem after a substancial disturbance. For example, restoration of lakes and rivers.

4) The use of an ecosystem for the benefit of humanity without destroying the ecological balance. The typical example is the use of integrated agriculture and development of organic agriculture.