Environmental Engineering is a field of Engineering that applies engineering principles to environmental science and management. It is a professional engineering discipline that takes from broad scientific areas such as chemistry, biology, ecology, geology, hydraulics, hydrology, microbiology, and mathematic in other to protect human health and improve the quality of the environment. 

Environmental Engineering is an interesting discipline that emerged when the importance of coupling engineering principles with scientific knowledge to improve the environment was discovered.

Environmental engineers are engineers with the mandate of applying scientific knowledge and engineering principles to improve and sustain the environment. They are quite different from environmental scientists because environmental scientists only have adequate knowledge about the environment and other relevant information but do not know the principles behind designing and building systems, facilities and machines to improve and prevent environmental pollution.

Environmental engineers undergo sound trainings like other professionals in engineering such as mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, civil engineers, agricultural engineers etc. and are equipped with practical knowledge in other to solve environmental issues in the society. 

As a mechanical engineer would see walking a long distance as a problem and would produce a automobile to solving it, an environmental engineer sees environmental pollution and  poor environmental management as a problem and work towards fixing it.

As we have various natural resources that make up of the environment (such as water, air, soil, climate), so are the various areas of specialization in environmental engineering which are;

Water and Wastewater Treatment and Supply: Environmental engineers in this area are committed to evaluate the water balance within a region and determine the available water supply, the water needed for various needs in that region, the annual water cycle movement through the region. They also design and develop systems to treat, supply and distribute water in a community or city. Water is treated to achieve water quality objectives for the end uses. Water distribution systems are designed and built to provide adequate flow rates to meet various end-user needs such as domestic use, fire suppression, and irrigation. For wastewater treatment, they design effective and applicaple wastewater treatment plants to make the wastewater reusable.

Air Pollution Management: Environmental engineers in this area develop methods and design devices to reduce the impact of fumes and unclean gases from vehicles and production factories on the overall air quality. Also, they evaluate the type of air pollution in a particular region. This aspect is also related to climate conservation and prevention of green house emissions.

Land and Water Systems: This area of environmental engineering basically deals the preservation of soil microbes for agricultural and biological use. It also involves the evaluation of soil and groundwater contamination from natural minerals, mining activities, crude oil production etc. Environmental engineers specialised in this area are committed to protecting the soil and preventing or reducing soil or groundwater contamination. This aspect also deals with solid waste management.

I WANT TO BE AN ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER!