Basic Concepts of Environmental Engineering

BIOTIC AND ABIOTIC ENVIRONMENT

In general the surroundings of an organism living in its natural habitat is termed as environment. These surroundings include all; physical, mental and spiritual conditions. The human beings are so complex in nature that it is a combined effect of every thing, which exists, far or near them, affects their life (mental, physical and spiritual).

 The gravitational forces of distant planets affect each other and these movement or rotation is based on the balance between them. Tides come because of the gravitational attraction of moon and sun, which move the bodies of water on the earth as well as the water, which is the main constituent of human body (75%).

 It has been well established that the nonliving things and the living beings are totally interrelated and dependent on each other. It is only a matter of time that something is nonliving or somebody is living being. We consume the food, which becomes part of our body cells and gets changed into living being.

 After the death of those cells or the whole body it again becomes non-living. So it is a combination or synthesis of various elements with some unknown factor like soul that demarcates the living beings and non-living things But it is sure that nature is in dynamic equilibrium of both of them.

Classification of Environment
Physical or Abiotic Environment Living or Biotic Environment

Physical or abiotic environment

It consists of physical factors Land (minerals, toxic elements, nutrients), sky (sink of various things, noise) and air (useful and other gases). Anciently, we have realized this combination as Ksiti (Earth), Jal (Water), Pavak (Fire), Gagan (Sky), Sameera (Air): the five basic elements (Panch Tatva) which influence life.

Living or biotic environment

It consists of plants, animals (including human beings) and micro-organisms Life in the form of micro-organisms is very strange and subtle (strong). Fungus is available up to 3 km below the earth. Thus the earth is not made for human beings alone.

 All these constituents of environment are referred to as the environmental factors or an ecological factor, which is defined as an ecological condition, which directly or indirectly affects the life of an organism. These biotic and abiotic components are in a dynamic state i.e. they constantly depend and affect each other and cannot be dealt in isolation with each other. This is the fundamental of Environmental Science or Engineering.

 Wherever we have not considered this interdependence and interrelation, knowingly or unknowingly, we have destroyed the very structure of a factor. This unthoughtful use of a resource, dealt in isolation, pollutes the other environmental factor, which in turn affects the polluting one, as all of them are interrelated and interdependent. This is the fundamental of environmental pollution.

THE ORIGINS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

 The roots of environmental engineering reach back to the beginning of civilization. Providing clean water and managing wastes became necessary whenever people congregated in organized settlements. For ancient cities, the availability of a dependable water source often meant the difference between survival and destruction, and a water supply became a defensive necessity.

 The builders of wells and aqueducts were the same people who were called on to build the city walls and moats, as well as the catapults and other engines of war. These men became the engineers of antiquity. It was not until the mid-1700s that engineers who built facilities for the civilian population began to distinguish themselves from the engineers primarily engaged in matters of warfare, and the term civil engineering was born.

 In the formative years of the United States, engineers were mostly self-educated or were trained at the newly formed United States Military Academy. Civil engineersthe builders of roads, bridges, buildings, and railroadswere called on to design and construct water supplies for the cities, and to provide adequate systems for the management of waterborne wastes and storm water.

 The advent of industrialization brought with it unbelievably unsanitary conditions in the cities because of the lack of water and waste management. There was no public outcry, however, until it became evident that water could carry disease.

 From that time on, civil engineers had to more than just provide an adequate supply of water; they now had to make sure the water would not be a vector for disease transmission. Public health became an integral concern of the civil engineers entrusted with providing water supplies to the population centers, and the elimination of waterborne disease became the major objective in the late 19th century.

 The civil engineers entrusted with the drainage of cities and the provision of clean water supplies became public health engineers (in Britain) and sanitary engineers (in the United States).

ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING TODAY

 Sanitary engineers have achieved remarkable reductions in the transmission of acute disease by contaminated air or water. In the United States, the acute effects of pollution are for all intents and purposes eliminated.

 These acute concerns have been replaced, however, by more complex and chronic problems such as:
climate change; depleting aquifers; indoor air pollution; global transport of persistent, bio accumulating and toxic chemicals; synergistic impacts of complex mixtures of human-made chemicals from household products and pharmaceuticals in wastewater effluents, rivers and streams; endocrine-disrupting chemicals; and a lack of information on the effect on human and environmental health and safety of rapidly emerging new materials, such as nanoparticles.

 Challenges to individual environmental media such as air and water can no longer be considered and managed within individual compartments. They must be managed at the ecosystem level to avoid shifting pollution concerns from one environmental medium to another.

 To address these chronic problems before they become acute, scientists and engineers are:
seeking to understand the environment, cities, and industry as interacting systems (i.e., as interconnected ecosystems, social systems, and industrial systems) think proactively and preemptively so that we can avoid unintended consequences rather than having to manage them reactively.

 In most developed countries today, public opinion has evolved to where the direct and immediate health effects of environmental contamination are no longer the sole concern. The cleanliness of streams, for the benefit of the stream itself, has become a driving force, and legislation has been passed addressing our desire for a clean environment.

 The protection of wildlife habitat, the preservation of species, and the health of ecosystems have become valid objectives for the spending of resources. Such a sense of mission, often referred to as an environmental ethic, is a major driving force behind modern environmental engineering and is demanded by the public as a public value.

 In the 20th century, an environmental ethic was often pitted against the desires of those who wished to exploit natural resources for human gain. Common thinking assumed that a trade-off had to be made: One had to choose between the economy or the environment.