ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
COURSE OUTLINE
I. INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
II. ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING AS A PROFESSION
III. ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS OF THE PHILIPPINES
IV. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT
V. INTRODUCTION TO CURRENT ENVIRONMENTAL
PROBLEMS
Water Pollution
Atmospheric Pollution
Solid Waste Pollution
VI. ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
LECTURE I: INTRODUCTION TO
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
What is Environmental Engineering
• The application of science and engineering
knowledge and concepts to care for and
restore our natural environment and solve
environmental problems.
• Study of the effective human activities on the
environment and the use of engineering
principles to improve and maintain the
environment
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
According to Peavy, it is that branch of
engineering that is concerned with protecting
the environment from the potentially
deleterious effects of human activity, protecting
human populations from the effects of adverse
environmental actors and improving
environmental quality for human health and
well being.
IMPORTANCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL
ENGINEERING
Environmental engineering is essential to the protection of
the environment as well as the health and safety of
humankind. The following represents three ways to serve
humanity and protect the world
1. Water Is Life
Water is essential to our existence, for drinking, for eating,
for watering crops, for sustaining wildlife and for supporting
the ecosystem. Engineers may help ensure that water
supplies are clean from contaminants, protected from
pollution and readily available for people and farms.
IMPORTANCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL
ENGINEERING
• Creating Sanitation
– In order to help keep people safe from disease,
waste must be managed effectively. This requires
engineers to determine how to reduce waste, how
to properly handle waste treatment and gray
water processing facilities and how to keep waste
away from clean water sources.
IMPORTANCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL
ENGINEERING
• Reduce Air Pollution
– Engineers play a key role in managing pollution
and working to reduce the dangerous chemicals
and gases that are produced with industrialization
and manufacturing. Limiting greenhouse gasses
and reducing further damage from climate change
is also an area of focus.
IMPORTANCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL
ENGINEERING
• When you have clean water to drink, clean air to breathe and
properly managed waste treatment facilities, you have
environmental engineering to thank.
• The future is likely to see more technological development,
population growth and a greater need for enough food for our
growing population, housing and facilities to cater to our growing
needs, new farming methods and so on. These are likely to see
more areas needing management to avoid pollution or ecological
damage; we will see new potential contaminants as well as a need
to change conditions in some areas to cope with the changing
climate. There will be an even greater need for engineers who
study and consider environmental engineering to help us deal with
the potential problems that this future will bring.
The roots of environmental engineering
reach into several major disciplines
including the following:
• Civil and Other Engineering Sciences
• Public Health
• Ecology
• Chemistry
• Meteorology
Civil Engineering and Other Engineering
Sciences
• Civil Engineering is all about creating, improving
and protecting the environment in which we live.
It provides the facilities for day-to-day life and
for transport and industry to go about its work.
• Engineers must not only have a good
understanding of the engineering sciences, but
also be able to communicate effectively and to
apply their knowledge and experience to new
problems.
Civil and Other Engineering Sciences
• Engineers make modern life possible. They work on
the planning, design, construction and maintenance
of projects such as skyscrapers, motorways, bridges,
tunnels and dams. You will learn how to use maths
and science to design major construction projects,
design and build the infrastructure for modern
cities, calculate the maximum load a bridge can
withstand, solve transportation problems, and
understand the environmental issues to be aware
of when undertaking construction.
Civil and Other Engineering Sciences
• Engineers must consider to the protection of the
environment before doing things.
Environmental protection is an important issue for
society today as scientific research provides evidence
of increasing global warming, ozone depletion and
higher levels of pollution. Engineers must know how
to design, develop and evaluate structures,
equipment and systems to provide practical solutions
to problems caused by increasing consumption and
waste, and the potential threats to biodiversity.
Civil and Other Engineering Courses
• Projects include learning how to clean up toxic
material that has seeped into the ground and
designing an effective wastewater treatment
plant. Tougher environmental regulations and
efforts to prevent problems before they occur
are just two examples of the increasing
challenges environmental engineers are
exposed to.
Public Health
• Healthy environmental systems not only
improve natural systems, but also human
wellbeing-based public health systems.
Furthermore, applying and developing
environmental engineering techniques and
knowledge to solve environmental issues such
as pollution, and public health issues such as
hazardous risk prevention, is crucial.
Public Health
• This is time of heightened public awareness about the
complex relationship between the environment and
human health. Below are some of the instances that
environment affects the health of the public:
– From air pollution increasing the rates of asthma and cancer
– to the effects of rising global temperatures on the spread of
infectious diseases,
– contaminated water supplies,
– airborne toxins or the spread of disease.
The environment’s impact on our health is becoming increasingly
clear.
Public Health
• That’s why there exists a great deal of potential for
designing, scaling-up and implementing public health
solutions using engineering know-how. Likewise,
collaborative research can lead to the development of
engineering-based solutions to address environmental
health issues
• Environmental engineering studies contribute to solving
public health challenges by producing valuable analytical
insights that engage public health prevention management;
and workable engineering solutions to reduce disease and
prevent hazard exposure for human wellbeing.
Ecology
• Ecology is the It is an interdisciplinary field
that includes biology, geography, and Earth
science. The science of ecology defines
“ecosystems” as interdependent populations
of organisms interacting with their physical
and chemical environment
Ecology
• Ecologists seek to explain:
– Life processes, interactions, and adaptations
– The movement of materials and energy through
living communities
– The successional development of ecosystems
– The abundance and distribution of organisms and
biodiversity in the context of the environment.
Ecology
• Engineers must appreciate the fundamental principles of
ecology and design in consonance with these principles
in order to reduce the adverse impacts on fragile
ecosystems. For example, since the deep oceans are
among the most fragile of all ecosystems this fragility
must be part of any consideration of ocean disposal of
waste. The engineer’s job is made even harder when he
or she must balance ecosystem damage against potential
human health damage. The inclusion of ecological
principles in engineering decisions is a major component
of the environmental engineering profession.
Chemistry
• Environmental chemistry is the scientific study of the
chemical and biochemical phenomena that occur in natural
places. It should not be confused with green chemistry which
seeks to reduce potential pollution at its source. It can be
defined as the study of the sources, reactions, transport,
effects, and fates of chemical species in the air, soil,
and water environments; and the effect of human activity
and biological activity on these. Environmental chemistry is
an interdisciplinary science that
includes atmospheric, aquatic and soil chemistry, as well as
heavily relying on analytical chemistry and being related
to environmental and other areas of science.
Meteorology
• Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric
sciences which includes atmospheric
chemistry and atmospheric physics, with a
major focus on weather forecasting. It has
application in many diverse fields such as the
energy production, transport, agriculture,
and construction.
Meteorology
• Meteorology has a big discipline is
environmental engineering. For more it
concerns about the climate change which is
the major problem in the Philippines, not in
the Philippines only but in the whole world
rather.
Activity
Think for a simple environmental problem that
we encountered everyday, and how do you think
engineer can improve it.
