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  • Impact Assessment as a Mean...
    Sotoudeh, Mahshid; Peissl, Walter

    Gaia (Heidelberg, Germany), 01/2010, Volume: 19, Issue: 1
    Journal Article

    Today's engineers are not only expected to develop new products and technical solutions to everyday problems. Against the background of sustainable development (SD) they should also be involved in developing comprehensive long-term solutions for global interrelated socio-economic and environmental problems. These comprise poverty, climate change, energy supply, drinking water scarcity, and other features. Besides, even useful technologies that were developed for the improvement of the standard of living can have short- or long-term irreversible negative impacts on human life or the environment (e. g., cooling systems with non-explosive CFC gases were developed to improve safety at home and ended up being banned for their ozone-depletion potential). Therefore, engineers need to consider social and environ mental side effects as well as potential unintended impacts that could be caused by technological developments. Consequently, methods for inter- and transdisciplinary impact assessment (IA) should play a key role in engineering education (EE) right from the start. This paper points out some key questions for further research related to IA-relevant courses in EE. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT