What Are the Day-to-Day Responsibilities of Environmental Engineers?

[moondawg]

What does being an environmental engineer actually entail? I understand some of the aspects of that proffession but what are the day to day tasks given to environmental engineers?

 

[Dr Lots-o'watts]

I met a person doing a Ph.D. on the subject a while ago, and if I remember correctly, he was studying the impacts of large projects. I suspect environmental engineers are quite involved in the clean up of last summer's Gulf of Mexico Oil spill for example.

They probably also study the impact of hydroelectric dams, road construction, bridges, settlements etc. on the environmental, fauna, flora etc. Perhaps they assist civil engineers in finding solutions to make their projects more environment friendly.

 

[jefswat]

Environmental engineers are a subset of Civil engineering. In a sense, their job is to fill the gap between scientists and other engineers. Typically they have a much better understanding of chemistry and biology than your typical engineer. Most of the environmental engineers that I have talked to work; in some way, shape, or form; with water treatment or waste water. One of the hot topics in many towns (including mine) are combined sewer systems. 40 years ago, someone thought it would be a great idea to use one set of pipes for sewer and storm water. Consequently, every time it rains there is a massive discharge of bad things in rivers. In Omaha its a 550 million dollar project. Other cities have to spend upwards of 7 billion. One person I talked to is actually in charge of Omaha's Waste Water Treatment plant.

I would say day to day tasks range from designing components of plants, to writing reports and acquiring materials. It all depends what field you are working in. A classmate of mine spent a summer writing reports about someone discharging sand into a river. If you want too design all day, I'm sure you could find a job. If you want to be more of a manager, I'm sure you could find a job.

 

[Studiot]

Part of the design stage for any biggish project in Europe, these days, is an Environmental Impact Assessment.

These are now required by legislation and so provide much work for advisor and consultant companies, who employ environmental engineers.

The scope is huge and may include, a new road, shopping centre, supermarket, football stadium, dam, waterworks or anything in the built environment.

Of course there is also much work generated, performing similar assessments after the event for alreading existing installations.

On the practical side, the street cleansing & waste disposal industries are another example of Env E.
A design task here might be creating suitable protection at a landfill site to prevent unwanted waste chemicals etc leaching into local groundwater or just the local ground.

Another similar task might be to control the aerial discharge of factories.

Yet another area of activity is for Env Engineers play a part in the design of manufactured goods, so that eventual disposal is considered at design stage. This might mean influencing the materials or construction/disassembly techniques.

Society is moving in this direction with legislation on more and more products.

So, although the environmental effect of what we are doing has always played some part in engineering, this part will grow in future.

Environmental engineering is new as a distinct discipline so much of the future will depend on what its practioners make of it.

go well

 

[jefswat]

Part of the design stage for any biggish project in Europe, these days, is an Environmental Impact Assessment.

These are now required by legislation and so provide much work for advisor and consultant companies, who employ environmental engineers.

I'm fairly sure any government project in the US requires this but I don't think private projects do yet. Another fun thing environmental engineers get involved in, is urban land usage. The more impermeable land you have in a city (land covered in concrete so water can't be absorbed by the soil) the higher you run off is, and the fast it occurs after it starts raining. I'm sure Env. Engineering is going to change considerably in the next 10 to 15 years.