PREMISE/Collaborative Research: Integrating Manufacturing and Ecological Process Models For Ecosystem Impact Valuation: A Problem-Based Learning Approach

University Of Vermont & State Agricultural College, Burlington VT

Investigators

Abstract

The goal of this Product Realization and Environmental Manufacturing Innovative Systems (PREMISE) Exploratory Research project is to establish a multi-disciplinary team that brings together several manufacturing engineering disciplines with system ecologists and city planning to understand how ecosystem and social valuations can be integrated into enterprise decision-making. The creation of tools that support this goal will enable systematic approaches to enterprise design to appropriately balance industrial activity and human development with ecosystem health, and the analysis of process modifications at spatial scales that span the local watershed to the global environment. The specific objective is to engage in a "scientific atelier" - a problem-based learning course that has participants, faculty and students, from Georgia Tech and the University of Vermont. The specific case studies will take existing ecosystem models, Patuxent Landscape and the Gwynns Falls Landscape Models, which contain both urban and rural land use and pressures for human system development, and combine them with at least two different types of manufacturing activities. The probable success of integrating models of ecosystems with manufacturing systems is built on the fact that both use "unit models" - convenient decompositions of the systems under study into re-useable components, and solve the resulting transient mass and energy balances. The key challenges are bridging conceptual and terminological gaps between the modeling communities, determining the appropriate scaling and abstractions of the models such that data that is transferred matches the information that is available, and understanding how manufacturing decisions can and should be influenced by ecosystem capital and service valuations. Ensuring environmental quality is emerging as a key societal goal for industrialized nations. This project will enable research on understanding how we can value, and account for, the ecosystem services upon which we build our wealth as we design and operate diverse manufacturing systems.