Ergonomics and sustainability: Towards and embrace of complexity and emergence

Technology offers a promising route to a sustainable future, and ergonomics can serve a vital role. The argument of this article is that the lasting success of sustainability initiatives in ergonomics hinges on an examination of ergonomics' own epistemology and ethics. The epistemology of ergonomics is fundamentally empiricist and positivist. This places practical constraints on its ability to address important issues such as sustainability, emergence and complexity. The implicit ethical position of ergonomics is one of neutrality, and its positivist epistemology generally puts value-laden questions outside the parameters of what it sees as scientific practice. We argue, by contrast, that a discipline that deals with both technology and human beings cannot avoid engaging with questions of complexity and emergence and seeking innovative ways of addressing these issues.No Full Tex

Characterization of agricultural nonpoint pollution: Pesticide migration in a West Tennessee watershed

Pesticide migration from agricultural fields may stress receiving stream ecosystems as well as contaminate ground water. Research was conducted on an 18‐ha single‐field watershed in west Tennessee to characterize the fate of atrazine during a 12‐month period after pesticide application. Rainfall runoff and soil cores were sampled and analyzed for atrazine residues. Total loss of atrazine by runoff accounted for approximately 1.5% of the total atrazine applied. Concentrations as high as 0.25 mg/L were detected in the field discharge. By the fourth storm event after pesticide application, the atrazine concentration was below detection limits (0.1 μg/L). Atrazine loss in the upper 10 cm of soil followed a first‐order decay trend, with only 1.88% of the initial concentration remaining 238 d after pesticide application. The mean half‐life for atrazine in the upper 10 cm was approximately 21.5 d. Atrazine was detected in the 10‐ to 20‐cm soil level after the first rainfall. Atrazine was not detected below 20 cm at any sampling date during the 238 d of the study. Copyright © 1988 SETA

Characterization of agricultural nonpoint pollution: Nutrient loss and erosion in a West Tennessee watershed

Research was conducted on an 18‐ha, bermed, single‐field watershed in west Tennessee to characterize soil and nutrient losses during storm events over a 12‐month period. Total soil loss was approximately 104 metric tons, which is high for the nation but typical for west Tennessee. Minimums of 2% of applied phosphorus and 6% of applied nitrogen were lost from the field through storm water runoff. First‐flush analysis indicated that total suspended solids, orthophosphate, ammonia, and total Kjeldahl nitrogen migrated from the field faster than if proportional to the flow. In general, orthophosphate came off the field early in the runoff event, whereas other forms of phosphorus came off late in the event. Copyright © 1988 SETA