“The contribution of engineers to resilience has traditionally been limited to their technical expertise. To achieve better outcomes the broader community needs to listen more closely to engineers and the profession also need to communicate in a more approachable language.”…
…”As a profession engineers are taught to think directly about problems, rather than laterally, about problems. Engineers are usually far more comfortable dealing with physical laws – put an equation to them and they can tell you how thick a beam needs to be and how many reinforcing bars it needs.
But once we start wondering about how a community would respond to certain situations, and how might we best build a plan for potential responses … it’s a whole other ball game.
Yes, technical knowledge will play a part in combating resilience challenges, but new skills, new thinking, new approaches are needed.
As a profession, we need to canvass alternative solutions for these scenarios. And to do this we need to be working as part of a system.
Engineers know too well about systems and the way things are connected – the design of one part of the system to resist may lead to a disadvantageous outcome somewhere else because of the system effect. ” (David Singleton- 21 May 2019)
— UN SD Goals: 4 “Quality Education”, 5 “Gender Equality”, 6 “Clean Water and Sanitation”, 7 “Affordable and Clean Energy”, 8 “Decent Work and Economic Growth”, 9 “Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure”, 11 “Sustainable Cities and Communities”, 12 Responsible Consumption and Production”, 13 “Climate Action”, 14″ Life Below Water”, 15 “Life on Land”. 16 “Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions” and 17 “Partnerships for the Goals”; Fundamental Human Need for “Protection”, “Understanding and Meaning”, “Participation”, “Identity” and “Creation”