“The world will no longer be divided

by the ideologies of ‘left’ and

‘right,’ but by those who accept
ecological limits and those who
don’t.”
—Wolfgang Sachs

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 CHAPTER 1:INTRODUCTION
• Environmental engineering is the application of science
and engineering principles to improve the environment
(air, water, and/or land resources), to provide healthful
water, air, and land for human habitation and for other
organisms, and to remediate polluted sites.
• Negative environmental effects can be decreased and
controlled through public education, conservation,
regulations, and the application of good engineering
practices.

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Cont….

• Pollutants" may be chemical, biological, thermal,

radioactive, or even mechanical.
• Environmental engineering emphasizes several areas:
process engineering, environmental chemistry, water
and wastewater treatment (sanitary engineering),
waste reduction/management, and pollution
prevention/cleanup. ering principles to the
environment.

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Cont…
• Environmental engineering is a synthesis of various
disciplines, incorporating elements from the
following:
• Civil engineering
• Chemical engineering
• Public health
• Mechanical engineering
• Chemistry
• Biology
• Geology
• Ecology
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Globalization and the Environment

• Two aspects of globalization that have affected the

environment are
1. The permeability of international borders to
pollution and environmental problems.
2. Growth of free trade and transnational
corporations.

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 Permeability of International Borders

 Environmental problems such as climate change and

destruction of the ozone layer extend far beyond
their source to affect the entire planet.
For example, toxic chemicals (such as
polychlorinated biphenyls [PCBs]) from the
Southern Hemisphere have been found in the
Arctic.
 Another environmental problem involving
permeability of borders is bio-invasion; the
intentional or accidental introduction of organisms in
regions where they are not native.
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Permeability of International Borders

 Bioinvasion:
Red fire ants, known for
their painful sting, are an
example of bioinvasion.
They came from Paraguay
and Brazil on shiploads of
lumber to Mobile,
Alabama, in 1957 and
have spread throughout
the southern states.

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 The Growth of Transnational Corporation and Free Trade Agreements

• The World Trade Organization (WTO) and free trade

agreements allow transnational corporations to pursue profits,
expand markets, use natural resources, and exploit cheap labor
in developing countries while weakening the ability of
governments to protect natural resources or to implement
environmental legislation.
• Transnational corporations have influenced the world’s most
powerful nations to institutionalize an international system of
governance that values commercialism, corporate rights, and
“free” trade over the environment, human rights, worker
rights, and human health.

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 Environmental Problems:
1. Depletion of Natural Resources:
• Freshwater resources are being consumed by
agriculture, by industry, and for domestic use.
• More than 1 billion people lack access to clean
water
• The demand for new land, fuel, and raw
materials resulted in deforestation, the
conversion of forest land to non forest land.
• Desertification is the degradation of semiarid
land, which results in the expansion of desert
land that is unusable for agriculture.

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2. Air Pollution

• Transportation vehicles, fuel combustion, industrial processes

(such as burning coal and processing minerals from mining),
and solid waste disposal have contributed to the growing
levels of air pollutants, including carbon monoxide, sulfur
dioxide, arsenic, nitrogen dioxide, mercury, dioxins, and lead.
• Air pollution, which is linked to heart disease, lung cancer,
emphysema, chronic bronchitis, and asthma, kills about 3
million people a year.
• In the United States, about half of the population lives in
areas where they are exposed to unhealthy levels of air
pollution.

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 Cont…

• Indoor Air Pollution

• Exposure to this indoor smoke increases risk of
pneumonia, chronic respiratory disease, asthma,
cataracts, tuberculosis, and lung cancer, and is
responsible for up to 1.6 million deaths a year
(World Health Organization 2010).
• Exposure is particularly high among women and
children, who spend the most time near the
domestic hearth or stove.

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cont.…

• Indoor air pollution is a

serious problem in
developing countries.
• As this woman cooks
food for her family, she
is exposed to harmful
air contaminants from
the fumes.

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 4. Destruction of the Ozone Layer

• The ozone layer of the earth’s atmosphere protects

life on earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays.
• Yet the ozone layer has been weakened by the use of
certain chemicals, particularly chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs), used in refrigerators, air conditioners, spray
cans, and other applications.
• The depletion of the ozone layer allows hazardous
levels of ultraviolet rays to reach the earth’s surface
and is linked to a variety of problems.

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5. Acid Rain

• Air pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and

nitrogen oxide, mix with precipitation to form
acid rain.
• Polluted rain, snow, and fog contaminate
crops, forests, lakes, and rivers.
• For example: As a result of the effects of acid
rain, all the fish have died in a third of the
lakes in New York’s Adirondack Mountains.

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6. Global Warming and Climate Change

• Global warming refers to the increasing average

global air temperature, caused mainly by the
accumulation of various gases (greenhouse gases)
that collect in the atmosphere.
• Causes of Global Warming: The prevailing scientific
view is that Greenhouse Gases, primarily carbon
dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide,
accumulate in the atmosphere and act like the glass
in a greenhouse, holding heat from the sun close to
the earth.
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Cont…

• Effects of Global Warming and Climate Change

Climate change kills an estimated 30,000 people per
year, mostly in the developing world (Global
Humanitarian Forum 2009).
• The majority of these deaths are attributed to crop
failure leading to malnutrition and water problems
such as flooding and drought.

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 Cont…

• The effects of global warming and climate change

also include the following:

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7. Land Pollution

• About 30 percent of the world’s surface is

land, which provides soil to grow the food we
eat.
• Increasingly, humans are polluting the land
with nuclear waste, solid waste, and
pesticides.
• In 2011, 1,287 hazardous waste sites (also
called Superfund sites) were on the National
Priority List.

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Cont.…

• Nuclear Waste: Nuclear waste, resulting from

both nuclear weapons production and nuclear
reactors or power plants, contains radioactive
plutonium, a substance linked to cancer and
genetic defects.
• Radioactive plutonium has a half-life of 24,000
years, meaning that it takes 24,000 years for
the radioactivity to be reduced by half.

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 8. Water Pollution
• Our water is being polluted by a number of harmful substances,
including pesticides, vehicle exhaust, acid rain, oil spills, sewage,
and industrial, military, and agricultural.
• Water pollution also affects the health and survival of fish and
other marine life. In the Gulf of Mexico, as well as in the
Chesapeake Bay and Lake Erie, there are areas known as “dead
zones” that—due to pollution runoff from agricultural uses of
fertilizer—have oxygen levels so low they cannot support life.
• In recent years, there has been increasing public concern about
the effects of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”—a process used
in natural gas production that involves injecting at high pressure a
mixture of water, sand, and chemicals into deep underground
wells to break apart shale rock and release gas.
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Causes of Environmental Problems:
i) Population Growth
• The world’s population is growing; in 2011 world
population reached the 7 billion mark.
• Population growth places increased demands on
natural resources and results in increased waste.

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ii) Industrialization and Economic Development

• Many of the environmental problems confronting the

world are associated with industrialization and
economic development.
• Industrialized countries, for example, consume more
energy and natural resources and contribute more
pollution to the environment than poor countries.
• The relationship between level of economic
development and environmental pollution is
curvilinear rather than linear.

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iii) Energy Use Worldwide
• Until we experience a prolonged power outage, most of
us take the availability of electricity for granted, and
don’t think about how dependent we are on energy.
• Most of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels,
which include petroleum (or oil), coal, and natural gas.
• The next most common source of energy is
hydroelectric power (6.2 percent), which involves
generating electricity from moving water; while it is
considered clean and renewable, it is criticized for
affecting natural habitats.

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Cont…

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iv) Cultural Values and Attitudes

• Cultural values and attitudes that contribute

to environmental problems includes:
• Individualism
• Consumerism
• Militarism

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Strategies for Action Responding to Environmental Problems:
i) Environmental Activism
• Environmental organizations exert pressure on
government and private industry to initiate or intensify
actions related to environmental protection.
• Religious Environmentalism: From a religious perspective,
environmental degradation can be viewed as sacrilegious,
sinful, and an offense against God.
• Radical Environmentalism: is a grassroots movement of
individuals and groups that employs unconventional and
often illegal means of protecting wildlife or the
environment. Radical environmentalists believe in what is
known as deep ecology: the view that maintaining the
earth’s natural systems should take precedence over
human needs, that nature has a value independent of
human existence, and that humans have no right to
dominate the earth and its living inhabitants.
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ii) Environmental Education

• One goal of environmental organizations and

activists is to educate the public about
environmental issues and the seriousness of
environmental problems.
• Being informed about environmental issues is
important because people who have higher levels of
environmental knowledge tend to engage in higher
levels of pro-environment behavior.

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iii) “Green” Energy

• Increasing the use of green energy; energy that is

renewable and nonpolluting—can help alleviate
environmental problems associated with fossil fuels.
• Also known as clean energy, green energy sources
include solar power, wind power, biofuel, and
hydrogen.

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Cont…

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Cont…

• Solar and Wind Energy: Solar power involves

converting sunlight to electricity through the use
of photovoltaic cells. More than half of solar
photovoltaic cells are installed in Germany; the
United States has only 6 percent.
• Biofuel: Biofuels are fuels derived from
agricultural crops. Two types of biofuels are
ethanol and biodiesel.

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vi) Government Policies, Programs, and Regulations
• Cap and Trade Program
• Policies and Regulations on Energy
• Taxes
• Fuel Efficiency Standards
• Policies on Chemical Safety
• International Cooperation and Assistance
• Sustainable Economic Development
• The Role of Institutions of Higher Learning
• Understanding Environmental Problems

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 Environmental policy and legislation
• The Environmental Protection Act 1994 (EP Act) is a
key element of environmental legal system.
• Its objective is to protect the environment while
allowing for development that improves the total
quality of life, both now and in the future.
• The EP Act and its subordinate legislation provides a
range of tools to ensure this objective is met.
• These tools range from providing for a licensing system
for environmentally relevant activities (ERAs) (called
an environmental authority) through to response tools
such as environmental protection orders.
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Cont…

• Under the EP Act, environmental protection

policies are developed to cover specific
aspects of the environment. Approved policies
include:
• air
• environmental nuisance
• waste
• water.

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 Cont…
• Environmental Protection (Air) Policy 2008—The
purpose of this policy is to achieve the object of the
Act in relation to the air environment by:
• identifying environmental values to be enhanced or
protected
• stating indicators and air quality objectives for
enhancing or protecting the environmental values
• providing a framework for making consistent, equitable
and informed decisions about the air environment.

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 Cont…
• Environmental Protection (Water) Policy 2009—The
purpose of this policy is to achieve the object of the Act
in relation to waters by:
• identifying environmental values and management goals
for waters
• stating water quality guidelines and water quality
objectives to enhance or protect the environmental
values
• providing a framework for making consistent, equitable
and informed decisions about waters
• monitoring and reporting on the condition of waters.
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