Inside
Insight
KENNETH L. MERCER
SEPTEMBER 2016 • Vol. 108, No. 9
EDITORIAL
System and Surroundings
E
Kenneth L. Mercer, PhD
Senior Managing Editor
Kimberly J. Retzlaff
Senior Technical Editor
Maureen Peck
Contributing Editors
Maripat Murphy
Somlynn Rorie
Carina Stanton
Holly E. Tripp
arly on, engineering students are typically taught some version of the following approach to tackling problems. The professor draws a small circle
on the chalkboard and writes a single word inside: SYSTEM. The professor
then writes a single word outside the circle: SURROUNDINGS, explaining
that in problem-solving one must focus entirely on the system and ignore the rest of
the universe except at the boundaries where system and surroundings interface. This
oversimplification creates a framework by which one can better understand the
system under consideration without confusing every possible external potential of the
surroundings that could influence the system’s behavior. From a treatment process to
a watershed to a person, anything can be simplified into a system just by mentally
drawing a circle around it and ignoring everything on the outside.
This example of Western logic, with its focus on understanding and ultimately
controlling a central object, is good for fundamental investigations, but when one
begins to practice professionally in the water industry (or, really, any field for that
matter), the surroundings can no longer be excluded, and a more dialectical
approach is needed. Forces from the surroundings that were previously ignored may
now dictate many of the variables and conditions under which the system must
operate. Instead of chemical, physical, and biological processes driving the system
toward an internal equilibrium, now financial, managerial, historical, political, and
environmental forces may dominate the system from the outside, potentially pushing
it into an undesirable pseudo-steady state or out of balance all together.
The system/surroundings schema is an interesting lens for viewing the broader
topic of our water sources and supply, which is the theme of this month’s Journal
AWWA. For example, even if an entire watershed is taken as the system, water professionals can generally understand and even control, to some degree, the system’s
natural processes. However, it is the external forces of the surroundings—such as
pollution, over-allocation, and environmental mismanagement—that must also be
addressed to ensure our water resources are truly protected.
Whether our surroundings are more complex than they were for previous
generations of water professionals or the current generation just has a better
appreciation of the true complexity that has always been present, there seems to be
greater uncertainty now than in the past. As the surroundings create more complex
boundary conditions, the state of the system invariably becomes less certain. Water
professionals at the interface, on the edge of the circle separating the system from
its surroundings, must ultimately serve as a conduit between system and
surroundings and as a caretaker to both sides.
Water professionals and community decision-makers need to collectively revisit
critical past assumptions that guided water resource management because they may
no longer be as relevant to the goal of protecting our water supplies. Communities
and the experts on whom they rely must ensure their systems are capable of sustainably providing safe and reliable service for all community members and uses.
In addition to highlighting some of the challenges of and approaches to our sources
and supplies, this month’s Journal includes seven feature articles as well as original
research in five peer-reviewed papers. Of personal note, this edition features my interview with the 2016 A.P. Black Research Award winner, Michèle Prévost from École
Polytechnic de Montréal. Congratulations to Dr. Prévost, and a sincere thanks to all
of this month’s contributors.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5942/jawwa.2016.108.0165
2
Editor-in-Chief
S EP TEM B E R 2 0 1 6 | J OURN A L AWWA • 1 0 8 :9 | I N S I D E I N S I G H T
2016 © American Water Works Association
Jenifer F. Walker
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Cindy Uba
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