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Monroe L. Weber-Shirk
School of Civil and
Environmental Engineering
CEE 454: Sustainable Small-Scale Water Supplies
CEE 454: Sustainable Small-Scale Water Supplies
11Monroe L. Weber-Shirk
School of Civil and
Environmental Engineering
Why am I teaching this course?
Experience in refugee camps in Honduras in 1982-83
The spark of interest: What makes slow sand filters work?
Engineers for a Sustainable World The unevenly expanding human
knowledge space The myth that the environmental
engineering challenge of providing safe drinking water has already been solved
Uneven Knowledge SpaceUneven Knowledge Space
Water purification
nanotechnology
pharmaceuticals Learn from adjacent knowledge spaces!
WMD
Causes of Uneven Knowledge Expansion
Causes of Uneven Knowledge Expansion
Funding agency (top down science)Target a few areas for growthSoccer game syndrome
National Pride/Security AgendaDamsWMDNASA
Private EnterpriseThe preference for high tech inefficiency rather than
low tech sustainability
The Challenges of Creating New Knowledge
The Challenges of Creating New Knowledge
In many areas of engineering you only have to investigate a little to find the knowledge boundaryFlocculation designPorous Media Filtration optimizationFlow control for chlorinatorsEfficacy of various coagulants
New knowledge (especially when at odds with tradition) takes years and even decades to be adopted when economies of competitive mass production aren’t at work
You should be taking a course in business or information technologyYou should be taking a course in
business or information technology
Environmental Engineering is a dead profession The science behind environmental engineering is
already well understood Environmental engineers have been applying the
same solutions for the past 80 years Providing everyone on the planet with safe
drinking water only requires the money and political will to apply known technologies
Discussion time! Do you agree?
GroupthinkGroupthink
Groupthink refers to faulty decision-making in a group (coined by Irving Janis, 1972)
Groups experiencing groupthink do not consider all alternatives and they desire unanimity at the expense of quality decisions
•Irving, Janis. (1972). Victims of groupthink. Boston: Houghton Mifflin; Irving, Janis. (1982). Groupthink: Psychological studies of policy decisions and fiascos. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Results of GroupthinkResults of Groupthink
Examining few alternatives Not being critical of each other's ideas Not examining early alternatives Not seeking expert opinion Being highly selective in gathering
information Not having contingency plans
Why would a group adopt these behaviors?
True, true, true!
Some Symptoms of GroupthinkSome Symptoms of Groupthink
Having an illusion of invulnerability Rationalizing poor decisions Believing in the group's morality Sharing stereotypes which guide the decision Exercising direct pressure on others Not expressing your true feelings Maintaining an illusion of unanimity Using mindguards to protect the group from
negative information
Some Solutions to GroupthinkSome Solutions to Groupthink
Using a policy-forming group which reports to the larger group
Having leaders remain impartial Using different policy groups for different tasks Dividing into groups and then discuss differences Discussing within sub-groups and then report back Using outside experts Using a Devil's advocate to question all the
group's ideas Holding a "second-chance meeting" to offer one
last opportunity to choose another course of action
Groupthink? Who me?Groupthink? Who me?
The Emperors new clothes, WMD, Space shuttle Columbia
How might Environmental Engineers fall into the trap of groupthink? I have my favorite technology. I don’t want to discover that it is
obsolete and that the years of effort that I put into improving that technology have been a waste
We all know this technology is responsible for saving us from disease. What do you mean, “Where is the proof?” Compare the incidence of waterborne disease in the US with that of the developing world.
How are you encouraged to “groupthink” by your Cornell Education?
What can we do to reduce “groupthink” in this course?
Unwilling to explore alternatives
Engineers are susceptible to groupthinkEngineers are susceptible to groupthink
The data isn’t always easy to interpretWe are forced to make decisions with
insufficient dataWe deal with complex systems that can’t
easily be modeledWe quote each other’s hypotheses so often
that we begin to accept them as theoryIs anyone going to disagree with me?
Role of Myth in Environmental Engineering
Role of Myth in Environmental Engineering
Myth can be a useful way of understanding a complex reality creation stories
Myth can also be used to describe generally accepted but unproven hypotheses (my usage here)
Myth #1: Science and engineering aren’t influenced by myth because they are based on the scientific method
Historic Examples of MythHistoric Examples of Myth
Malaria (bad air disease hypothesis)Streams purify themselves in 1 mileThe air coming out of the ground under
conditions of low or sinking groundwater causes typhoid
Environmental Engineering/Public Health Myths (or suspects!)
Environmental Engineering/Public Health Myths (or suspects!)
Dead bodies cause disease Slow sand filters ripen because of biological
growth in the filter bed Chlorine disinfects dirty water Chlorine eliminated typhoid fever from the US Cessation of chlorination due to fear of
Disinfection By Products caused the cholera outbreak in Peru in 1993
We already know how to solve the environmental engineering problem of 1 billion people not having access to safe drinking water
Expose the MythExpose the Myth
Let’s expose some more environmental engineering myths
Don’t believe everything I sayYou should always be asking, “How do we
know that?”I am not immune from the impulse to create
simple explanationsBeware of groupthink
The Challenge: Sustainable Small-Scale Water Supplies
The Challenge: Sustainable Small-Scale Water Supplies
We need the brightest and the best to create new and better solutions so we can meet the goal of providing everyone with safe drinking water
This challenge is apparently more difficult than building a space station, designing a fuel cell, or inventing the world wide web
So let’s role up our sleeves and begin…
Ways to Get InvolvedWays to Get Involved
CEE 454 – The theory behind the technology for simple clean water
CEE 455: The AguaClara Project – R&D, Design, Business Plan, Outreach
CEE 501: Design project for M.Eng. students Internship program: spend a summer or a year in
Honduras Peace Corp option January intersession trip to Honduras (January 5-
19)
Course OrganizationCourse Organization
Website: home to everything http://ceeserver.cee.cornell.edu/mw24/cee454/
Homework/Project (teams) Exams (individuals… sorry!) Textbook: can’t find one Software skills
AutoCAD MathCAD (bookstore)
AguaClara Project space B60A 10 computers with MathCAD and AutoCAD
IntroductionsIntroductions
NameSomething you did this summerWhat do you hope to learn in this course?
Mesa Grande: Waiting for waterMesa Grande: Waiting for water
Water in ColomoncaguaWater in Colomoncagua
AguaClara projectsAguaClara projects
Design algorithms for each process (CEE 454) Rolling bottle test Flocculation effectiveness measurements Parametric studies for enhanced flocculation Demonstration plant Baffled flocculator research at CUWTP Flow control module improvements And more…