Summary:

The idea of the ecological engineering appeared in the 1960 s. Using this term, Howard T. Odum understands the use of natural processes for both humanity and ecosystems benefits. The Odum brothers discovered that the boundary of ecological engineering systems includes the ecosystems that self organize to fit with technology, whereas environmental engineering designs normally stop at the end of the pipe. The paper presents not only the evolution of ecological engineering definition from the point of view of ecological and technical engineering and in the world, european and polish context, but also the progress of this new discipline and application fields.