With the rapid growth in the world’s population and unprecedented socio-economic growth has been changing our planet’s interacting physical, chemical, biological, and human processes, resulting in an extensive range of environmental issues including environmental pollution, water scarcity, food security, loss of biodiversity, etc. To respond to these global-scale problems, there is a need for an innovative solution to protect and enhance the natural environment. The future is likely to see more technological development, population growth, and a greater need for enough food for our growing population, housing, and amenities to cater to our growing needs. These are likely to see more areas needing management to avoid pollution or ecological damage; we will see new potential contaminants as well as a need to change conditions in some areas to cope with the changing climate. There will be an even greater need for environmental engineers to help us deal with the potential problems that this future will bring. Countries around the world including Bhutan, are showing a strong interest in protecting the environment which places new responsibilities on the engineers.
A seminar on environmental engineering was held on 14/11/2020, where second-year civil engineering students were targeted as the main audience. The seminar focused on the global environmental issue and the role of engineers to design different methods to handle large volumes of pollutants with the principles of optimization, socio-economic effects, and rapid treatment to convert any objectionable materials to less objectionable material. Also, familiarization with research/job opportunities, intrinsic skills, and expertise required by engineers who will play a critical role in achieving sustainable development with good coordination with other technocrats/engineers to make rapid advancement in cleaning up the environment with eco-friendly techniques. The need for advanced and continuing education and special training for engineers to cater to the emerging world problem is rather important and timely.
Resourced by: Yeshi Choden, Associate Lecturer, CEAD