What is Environmental Engineering?
Environmental engineering involves the study of natural and man-made systems, using the principles of biology, chemistry, and physics. Environmental engineers are trained to:

• Develop solutions to global and local environmental issues
• Protect our natural resources and wildlife
• Provide safe drinking water
• Restore contaminated areas
• Design infrastructure for pollution control and sanitation
• Properly treat and dispose of airborne, liquid, or solid wastes
• Safeguard public health through engineering controls

Environmental Engineering at FAU
Students will learn to monitor the quality of the air, water, and land, and develop better means to protect the environment and human health. At FAU, the goal of the Environmental Engineering group is to build upon traditional environmental knowledge that has focused on remediation response and move the discipline toward supporting advances in development and applications of technologies that will prevent or eliminate contamination. This fundamental change will call upon interdisciplinary activities across civil and environmental engineering, Earth sciences, computer science and engineering, urban planning, chemistry, biology, and microbiology to open up new areas of research, instruction, and development of new commercial technologies.

Futuristic Research
Research activities continue to grow precisely because of the multi-disciplinary collaborative teams built by our faculty to take advantage of broad local interest in environmental and water issues. Students can get involved in some of the most exciting research being conducted by our faculty including:

• New technologies that will purify the water on the manned missions to Mars by harnessing the power of the sun
• Studies to protect our coastal reefs from man-made pollution
• Research to quantify the contribution of on-site treatment and disposal systems in several Florida communities
• Systems are also being developed to monitor sediment toxicity using a portable bioassay test
• Our newest research focuses on water conservation issues and technologies for the home and for the hotel industry
• Projects will soon be underway to engineer new systems for managing membrane concentrate
• Plans are also in the works to develop air quality monitoring technologies and develop alternative fuels.