Applications of Environmental Engineering
Living Machine - a form of biological wastewater treatment designed to mimic the cleansing functions of wetlands.
Applications
The applications of environmental engineering can be roughly categorized into several divisions:
1. Drinking water and waste water treatment
Environmental engineers also design municipal water supply system and provide safe drinking water or secure water supplies for potable and agricultural use.To achieve these, they examine the watersheds with a hydrological or geological point of view as well as engineering treatment systems for water purification. Various water treatment methods are used, including membrane technology, desalinization, biological water treatment, etc. Water distribution systems are also designed and built. Environmental engineers also develop collection and treatment systems to carry domestic or industrial waste water discharges away and remove some of the pollutants before discharging it into the environment.
2. Solid waste management
Solid waste collection, transport, processing, recycling or disposal, and monitoring systems and methods are designed and built by environmental engineers. Systems are generally designed to remove human-produced waste materials and reduced its impact to the environment, health, or aesthetics. Modern technologies also allow us to recover useful material or energy from our waste.Common waste treatment methods include landfill, incineration, recycling, and biological treatment.
3. Hazardous Substance Treatment and Control
Environmental engineers conduct hazardous waste management studies to evaluate the significance of such hazards, advice on treatment and containment, and develop regulations to prevent mishaps. A hazardous waste is waste that poses threats or potential threats to the public health and the environment and may be carcinogenic, flammable, corrosive, toxic, radioactive, explosive, or highly oxidizing. Disposal methods include recycling, incineration, special landfills, or neutralization.
4. Air Quality Management
Environmental engineers develop methods, procedures, and equipment for maintaining or monitoring air quality. For example, they design the manufacturing and combustion processes to reduce air pollutant emissions. Various processes are developed to remove particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, volatile organic compounds, reactive organic gasses, and other air pollutants from effluent gases prior to their emission to the atmosphere. Devices are also developed to evaluate the concentration of pollutants in vehicle exhausts and industrial flue gas stack emissions. In this division, environmental issues such as the effects of acid rain, ozone depletion, as well as carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions are also addressed.
5. Natural resources management
Natural resource management is a general term that include the management of land, water, soil, plants, and animals. Here, environmental engineers study and design management strategies based on how the affect the environment for the current as well as future generations. This discipline specifically focus on the scientific and technical understanding of resources, related ecology, and how these resources can support human and other life forms. The notion of sustainable development was originally derived from this discipline.
6. Environmental policy and regulation development
Environmental engineers also help developing environmental policy or regulations to manage human activities with a view to prevent, reduce or mitigate harmful effects on human health, nature and natural resources. Environmental engineering law is the professional application of law, science and engineering principles to improve the environment (air, water, and/or land resources), to provide healthy water, air, and land for human habitation and for other organisms, and to remediate polluted sites. Environmental engineering lawyers seek to promote the advancement of technical engineering knowledge in the legal profession and to enhance informed legal analysis of complex environmental matters.
7. Environmental impact assessment and mitigation
Environmental engineers assess the impacts of a proposed or already conducted project on environmental conditions. They apply scientific and engineering principles to evaluate if there are likely to be any adverse impacts to water quality, air quality, habitat quality, agricultural capacity, traffic impacts, social impacts, noise impacts, visual (landscape) impacts, etc. If impacts are expected, they then develop mitigation measures to limit or prevent such impacts. An example of a mitigation measure would be the creation of wetlands in a nearby location to mitigate the filling in of wetlands necessary for a road development if it is not possible to reroute the road. In short, it deals with the characterization, minimization, collection, treatment, recycling, utilization, and disposal of such materials and the laws relating thereto.
8. Contaminated resource management or site remediation
Environmental engineers work to remove radioactive or toxic pollutants from already contaminated soil, groundwater, sediment, or surface water for the benefits of human and ecosystem health as well as for he purpose of redevelopment. Extensive site assessment usually precedes the actual remediation process. Environmental engineers then design specific remediation strategy that may include various ex-situ or in-situ methods. Ex-situ methods involve excavation of affected soils and subsequent treatment at the surface; whereas In-situ methods seek to treat the contamination without removing the soils. Remediation is generally subject to an array of regulatory requirements, and also can be based on assessments of human health and ecological risks where no legislated standards exist or where standards are advisory.
