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…