Environmental engineering

Environmental Engineering is a broad science devoted to pollution or contamination of resources. Much of it deals with preventing further contamination by application of chemical engineering and mechanical engineering principles to destroy or remove the contaminants before they get into the environment. A good example of this is air pollution control, where special burner designs, and scrubbers are used to remove Sulfur Dioxide and Nitrous Oxides, yes, and even Carbon Dioxide from combustion gases prior to their release into the environment.

Water pollution control relies heavily on chemistry, microbiology, biology and civil engineering. In some cases, as little as 0.0001% or less of a noxious substance can ruin a resource such as water. Example: Sewage contamination of 10 parts per million, (1% = 10,000 ppm)can spoil a water resource such as a lake. The maintenance of drinking water is even more restrictive because the limits of many contaminants are significantly less than one part per billion. (One part per billion is the equivalent of one second in 31.688 years, or 31 years, 8.5 months.)

The working definition of environmental engineering has been broadened over the past few years to encompass drainage and hydrology design work and the development of drainage plans and stream flow and flood zones from developed areas. Part of this expansion also involves the area of property risk assessment evaluation and restoration and remediation of various types of contaminated environments including soils and waterways.