Environmental Engineering??

Question

Just wondering if anyone can tell me much about it! Cause I'm really interested in studying it at uni, but not too sure about what the job involves/what to study in senior years etc. Please help!

Answer 1

Environmental engineers most often deal with the regulations surrounding pollution.  Most of the environmental engineers that I come in contact with either work for some regulator agency (the EPA, or a branch of the EPA, or the local water district, or some local permitting agency) or their work for a corporation to help them manage (which means avoid or minimize) their environmental permitting.

I know that some people get into Environmental engineering thinking that it is a very cutting edge, green, environmentally activist type of career.  It's actually deals primarily with legislative regulations and measurements, how to create them, how to enforce them, and how to avoid them.

At least, that's what I've seen of it.

Answer 2

What is Environmental Engineering?

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 civil engineers as consultants on projects, but may work with engineers and scientists from all disciplines, as well as government regulators and officials, private and municipal agencies, industries, and public-interest groups