What is Environmental Engineering?
Environmental engineering is involved with environmental quality control, groundwater hydrology/contamination and contaminant transport. The environmental engineer’s concerns include water quality control systems, waste water collection and treatment, solid waste management, air pollution, public health, ground water hydrology and contaminant transport and remediation.
Environmental Engineering is the application of science and engineering principles to prevent environmental damage and to correct existing problems. Environmental engineers identify, design, build, and operate systems to create solutions recognizing environmental matters in a social and economic context. Often, these challenges are related to environmental contamination caused by the activities and waste products of society. Environmental engineers work to improve the quality of our drinking water, to treat and dispose of society’s wastes, to control air and water pollution, and to clean up contaminated areas like Superfund sites and hazardous materials spills. They monitor the quality of the air, water and land, and they develop new ways to protect the environment. WHAT ARE THE EDUCATIONAL REQUIREMENTS? Environmental Engineering students can expect to combine the natural, social, and physical sciences to analyze and improve the interactions of society, technology, and the environment.
Environmental engineering has developed from the historical branch of civil engineering known as sanitary engineering involving drinking water and wastewater treatment. Following rapid growth in the 1970s and 1980s, this truly interdisciplinary field involves the application of scientific and engineering principles to improve and maintain the environment for the protection of human health, for the protection of nature’s beneficial ecosystems and biodiversity, and for environment-related enhancement of the quality of human life. Through education and experience, environmental engineers develop an understanding of the earth’s biological, chemical, physical and geological systems. They use this information to develop engineering plans to design solutions for environmental problems caused by pollution. They are also being increasingly called upon to develop pollution prevention plans to keep environmental problems from occurring in the first place. Environmental engineers often work with c
