ABSTRACT
A simple definition of ecological engineering is “to use ecological processes within natural or constructed imitations of natural systems to achieve engineering goals” (Teal, 1991). Thus, ecosystems are designed, constructed, and operated to solve environmental problems otherwise addressed by conventional technology. The contention is that ecological engineering is a new approach to both ecology and engineering which justifies a new name. However, because these are old, established disciplines, some controversy has arisen from both directions. On one hand, the term ecological engineering is controversial to ecologists who are suspicious of the engineering method, which sometimes generates as many problems as it solves. Examples of this concern can be seen in the titles of books that have critiqued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ water management projects: Muddy Water (Maass, 1951), Dams and Other Disasters (Morgan, 1971), The River Killers (Heuvelmans, 1974), The Flood Control Controversy (Leopold and Maddock, 1954), and The Corps and the Shore (Pilkey and Dixon, 1996). In the past, ecologists and engineers have not always shared a common view of nature and, because of this situation, an adversarial relationship has evolved. Ecologists have sometimes been said to be afflicted with “physics envy” (Cohen, 1971; Egler, 1986), because of their desire to elevate the powers of explanation and prediction about ecosystems to a level comparable to that achieved by physicists for the nonliving, physical world. However, even though engineers, like physicists, have achieved great powers of physical explanation and prediction, no ecologist has ever been said to have exhibited “engineering envy.”
