On October 26, 2004, E&EM lead professor Jonathan Deason was the featured speaker at the George Washington Institute of Public Policy research seminar held in the new Media Arts building at GW. Deason’s topic was “Assessment of Environmental Sustainability Trends in Federal and State Parks: Implications for Policy Development.”
In his presentation, Deason addressed efforts of the E&EM program to assess trends reflecting environmentally sustainable conditions within federal and state park systems and to translate the results of such assessments into policy options for promoting more environmentally sustainable practices within the park systems of the United States.
In 2003, the National Park Service provided a $35,000 grant to the GW Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering to begin an effort to assess progress towards long-term environmental sustainability in the park systems over defined periods of time using specific performance metrics. In the project, a core set of measurement indicators, such as energy consumption, waste discharges, toxics use, air emissions, and water quality, is being defined.
Such factors will be examined using normalizing factors such as park visitation rates to determine the effectiveness of various park operational policies in facilitating long-term environmental sustainability. As an example, measuring the ratio of energy production by renewable sources (wind, solar, geothermal, etc.) to total energy consumption may allow correlations to be developed between park visitation and increased fossil fuel consumption, thus providing an important input into the development of park policies on seasonal visitation limitations.
Dr. Deason’s presentation slides, as presented at the October George Washington Institute of Public Policy seminar, may be seen by clicking on the following link: E&EM GWIPP Seminar Presentation.