Environmental issues and engineering

An environment represents the conditions and influences of a place in which an organism lives. The large number of different types of environments, e.g., an urban environment, a tropical rainforest environment, etc., makes it impossible to formulate a single definition. The relationship between living organisms and their environment forms part of the subject of ecology. All over the world, wildlife is being threatened because habitats and woodlands are being destroyed. Rainforests are being cut down so that people can use the land to grow crops. Many animal and plant species have become extinct, and many more are endangered, so they need legal protection if they are to survive. Global warming will produce rising sea levels and climatic changes, and carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are contributing to the greenhouse effect. Acid rain, which contains acid from factory smoke, causes damage to trees, rivers, and buildings. The world population is growing and puts pressure on the limited resources of the Earth.

As long as people recognized that their health and well-being were related to the quality of their environment, they applied thoughtful principles to improve its quality. The Romans constructed aqueducts to prevent drought and create a clean healthful water supply for the metropolis of Rome. Bavaria in the 15th century created laws restricting the development and degradation of alpine country that contained the region’s water supply. Modern environmental engineering began in London in the middle of the 19th century when it was realized that proper sewerage could reduce the incidence of waterborne diseases such as cholera or typhoid. The introduction of treatment of drinking and sewage in industrialized countries reduced waterborne diseases from leading causes of death to rarities.

These days engineers and scientists assess the impacts of proposed projects on environmental conditions. They evaluate if there are likely to be any adverse impacts on water quality, air quality, habitat quality, flora and fauna, noise impacts, visual impacts, etc. If impacts are expected, they then develop mitigation measures to prevent such impacts. Engineers and scientists also work to secure water supplies for potable and agricultural use. Water is treated to achieve water quality objectives for its end users. Most urban and many rural areas no longer discharge human waste directly to the land through outhouses or septic tanks, but rather deposit such waste into water and convey it from households by means of sewer systems.

TEXT #05

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Global positioning system

Have you ever been lost and wished there was an easy method to find out which way you needed to go? How about finding yourself out hiking and not knowing which direction you should go to get back to your camp or car? Have you ever found a perfect fishing or hunting spot and not been able to remember how to get back to it easily? Whether it be for fun, saving lives, getting there faster, or whatever use you can dream up, GPS navigation is becoming more common every day.

GPS is a network of satellites that continuously transmits coded information, which makes it possible to precisely identify locations on earth by measuring their distance from the satellites. It refers to a group of U.S. Department of Defense satellites constantly circling the earth. The satellites transmit very low power radio signals, allowing anyone with a GPS receiver to determine their location on Earth.

GPS has a variety of applications on land, at sea and in the air. Basically, GPS allows you to record or determine locations from places on the earth and helps you navigate to and from those spots. GPS can be used everywhere except where it is impossible to receive a signal such as inside buildings, caves, parking garages, other subterranean locations, and underwater. The most common airborne applications include navigation by general aviation and commercial aircraft. At sea, GPS is typically used for navigation by recreational boaters and fishermen. GPS is rapidly becoming commonplace in automobiles as well. Some basic systems are already in place, providing emergency roadside assistance at the push of a button (by transmitting your current position to a dispatch centre). More sophisticated systems can show the vehicle’s position on an electronic map display, allowing drivers to keep track of where they are and look up street addresses, restaurants, hotels and other destinations. Some systems can even automatically create a route and give turn-by-turn directions to a designated location.

Land-based applications are diverse. GPS offers incredible cost savings by drastically reducing setup time at a survey site. It also provides amazing accuracy. Basic survey units can offer accuracies down to one meter. More expensive systems can provide accuracies to within a centimeter.

TEXT #06

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