Despite the Romans’ stellar reputation in sanitation, Rome’s citizens threw their share of waste into open ditches even as Roman engineers worked on new innovations in water and waste transport. Roman engineers successfully devised a way to reuse wastewater from public bathhouses to serve as flush water for toilets. The flushed water then proceeded to a sewer system.
The Romans also built an aqueduct system to carry freshwater 20 to 30 miles (32–48 km) from its source to Rome and other large cities. Over a period of 500 years, the empire’s engineers built 11 separate aqueducts. Incoming water went to enormous cisterns situated at the highest points in a city, and pipes—they used lead pipes, now known to be a health hazard— distributed the clean water to public bathhouses, residences, and city fountains. Parts of the ancient Roman aqueducts remain today, and modern water distribution systems follow the general layout used in Rome centuries ago for supplying clean water to city residents.
After the Roman Empire declined about 2,000 years ago, no other society seemed as interested in basic sanitation. In fact, major feats of civil engineering ceased for the next 1,500 years. The great European cities that began expanding in the post–Roman Empire era ignored good hygiene and waste control. People turned away from science and engineering in the centuries following the Roman Empire due to an emergence of new
philosophies. The Romans combined many of their theories with a desire to please the deities, but in the Middle Ages a notably nonscientific philosophy enveloped society in a way the Romans could never have imagined. Medieval astrology challenged any discoveries made in astronomy, and magic sometimes took precedence over medicine. The Christian era in Europe renounced many types of science and took the startling step of removing many scientific books from libraries and closing the libraries themselves!
Europe paid for its lack of attention to the scientific basis behind infection and cleanliness throughout the Middle Ages with a series of devastating plague epidemics that arose in the unsanitary conditions. Not until the 1830s in Paris did civil engineering take an important step forward, when a series of cholera outbreaks spurred officials to call for better sanitation, including effective sewers. Up to that point, Parisians blithely shunted wastes into cesspools that dated from the Middle Ages. In the face of more cholera outbreaks, engineers began laying pipe to better manage water flow and keep drinking water safe and separate from wastes. From the 1840s to the 1890s, Paris constructed an underground sewer system that became an exemplar for waste management throughout Europe.
Civil engineering projects had also been growing in the United States since George Washington’s presidency. Washington has been credited with giving birth to the engineering profession due to his lifetime interests in land surveying and building design. Because the Industrial Revolution had not occurred in Washington’s time, engineer was not yet part of the language. However, Washington applied engineering principles that are still used today. Washington planned and designed his estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia, in addition to barns, houses, and even farming equipment and canals, all to emphasize efficiency.
Environmental engineering developed further during the 1800s in England and the United States. Engineers who had participated in building the U.S. railroads turned their attention to the design of municipal sewer systems and drinking water distribution. President Theodore Roosevelt advocated conservation of the land and its natural resources throughout his administration (1901–09), but, other than water management, engineering had not yet begun to work in concert with environmental concerns. Environmental activism gained a voice in the 1950s and 1960s. When the author Rachel Carson decried the degradation of the environment due to hazardous wastes in her 1962 book Silent Spring, people began noticing an environment that had for centuries received poor care. Civil engineering also focused on environmental issues with increasing vigor.
Environmental engineering today goes beyond basic sciences such as biology or physics. The table on page 6 summarizes the main areas of expertise that contribute to environmental engineering.
The rapidly growing fields of green building and designing for sustainability have called on the skills of environmental engineers. All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories now require engineers that serve the public to be registered with the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). The board requires newly certified engineers to hold a specialty in one or more of the following areas: air pollution, hazardous waste, industrial hygiene, radiation protection, solid waste, or water supply/wastewater engineering. Many engineers in the water or wastewater industries also practice specialties such as storm water management. Overall, the environmental engineering profession involves three types of assurance that an engineer has the expertise needed to design structures that are safe for people and for the environment, as follows:
ABET certification—an engineer possesses education, experience, and licensure in general environmental engineering or a specialty within environmental engineering
registration—an engineer has passed a competence examination and possesses training and education to be listed on a government or nongovernment agency roster of registered engineers
licensure—an engineer has been granted by a government agency the right to perform work in environmental engineering that directly affects the health and welfare of the public
Source of Information : Facts on File - Environmental Engineering
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