Meeting the relational challenge of ecological engineering within ecological sciences

Due to the current environmental problems human societies have to face and the lack of sustainability of most of their activities, the time of Ecological Engineering (EE) has surely come. To assess the development of EE within the academic world we conducted a literature survey based on an exhaustive count of all articles mentioning EE and related terms since the 1980s, and a classification of all articles published in 2008 and 2009 in the journal Ecological Engineering. This survey reveals that EE has quickly developed, and that the journal Ecological Engineering plays a preponderant role in this development. In comparison, articles mentioning the expression “ecological restoration” or “agroecology” were published in many more journals than articles referring to “ecological engineering”. This analysis showed that EE is highly dominated by China and the USA, and by studies aimed at improving the chemical quality of waters (either in natural ecosystems or to treat wastewaters) and aquatic system restoration. Hence, our survey suggests that EE approaches could be widened. These results emphasize the existence of an internal relational challenge for EE, i.e. inside the academic world of ecological sciences. Scientists and engineers from all environmental and ecological sciences must be convinced to take part in the development of this discipline. We explain why meeting this challenge is required for the full development of EE and why this would also highly benefit fundamental ecology. Finally, we give some hints on how to meet this challenge. Reaching this objective should help to bridge the gap between fundamental and applied ecologies and to unify applied ecology.