engleski

Environmental Engineering - Basic Principles

Progress that was made in the last centuries, concerning human living conditions is more than evident. We live longer and better in a state of slight obsession where we always want more and more of new available products, food, accessorise, etc. that can make our lives more easy and comfortable. Somewhere in that rush of today’s lives we forgot or we rarely stop to think what the cost of such strong urbanisation and industrialization is. What is the cost of taking a new plastic bag in every store that we enter? Or throwing food and plastic in to the garbage without recycling? Or driving a car in the store that is 5 min away from our home? Or taking a 20 minutes shower every day with drinkable water? Besides the fact we stopped appreciating things due to their accessibility, what is the real cost of this and other everyday actions that we all do? Limited natural resources, polluted air and water, extinction of species, global warming, etc. are just some consequences of something that we love call modern life. But, how modern this destruction really is? How modern will be if tomorrows designers will have to focus on creating coolest gas masks because air will not be good for breathing without previous purification? Or creating a new canister that will be easy to transport from point A to point B because luxury of taking a shower in a bath will be just that - luxury? Since there is always but and since there is always hope, some things are changing. Slowly, but they still do and perhaps we can call them awareness awakening? Awareness that if we continue going in this direction one day we will run out of path and there will be nothing on horizon. Awareness that it is the final moment to put environment in to the focus. To change our selfish human perspective from us to nature. There is a saying “You can't teach old dog new tricks” so perhaps the best way to start setting things right are new generations. To transfer the knowledge and information and sow the seeds of the awareness among engineering and science students hoping that one day that little seed will grow in to something strong and powerful. This textbook will, hopefully, be a good base or a good soil for that seed growth. It is organized in to eight different areas important to all present and future environmental engineers together with introduction, modelling of environmental processes and risk assessment. All that is necessary for new human direction when it comes to nature and putting her back in to the centre. The first chapter gives short introduction to basic environmental engineering principles and puts whole idea behind this new science field in to the concept. It presents the main areas of interest that are more deeply explored trough chapters 2-9. The second chapter sets the stage with one of the basic aspects of environment – Ecology. Main focus of this field is to define diversity, distribution and number of particular organisms, as well as cooperation and competition between organisms, both within and among ecosystems. Basically, makes connections between organisms and their environment since it is not possible for one to work without the other. In order to understand ecology, we have to understand the very base: environment and living organisms. Trough Chapters 3-5, entitled – Environmental Chemistry, Environmental Microbiology and Environmental Geology mentioned bases are covered. Chapter 3 presents the chemical nature of environmental problems and processes. Main focus is set on physical-chemical phenomena that occur in water, soil and atmosphere trying to summarize them on the basic environmental chemistry which is strictly related with chemical equilibrium phenomena. Because nothing in nature functions as a single but as a part of bigger picture, overcoming this principles a foundation for future construction of more complex environmental engineering problems is set, i.e. human impact on air, water and soil. Chapter 4 focuses on the dominant form of life on planet Earth – microorganisms. And although for many people they are out of sight and therefore out of mind almost every surface is colonized by them. From the environment point of view, environmental microbiology is concerned with the study of microorganisms in the soil, water and air and their application in bioremediation processes for biotreatment of water, wastewater, solid waste, soil and gas. And finally in Chapter 5 the importance of geological environment is presented since many natural hazards, which have great impact on humans and their environment, are caused by geological settings. On the other hand, human activities have great impact on the physical environment, especially in the last decades due to dramatic human population growth. Natural disasters often hit densely populated areas causing tremendous death toll and material damage. Demand for resources enhanced remarkably, as well as waste production. Exploitation of mineral resources deteriorates huge areas of land, produce enormous mine waste and pollute soil, water and air. Water, soil and air, their quality and protection are stressed down in Chapter 1 as most important issues in environmental engineering. Before exploring them more extensively in Chapters 7- 9, Chapter 6 focuses on the engineering base of mentioned processes - transport phenomena. The main idea is to understand and then describe the specific process using phenomenological equations that rely on three elementary physical processes: momentum, energy and mass transport. In the end, if that is achieved those processes, using mathematical models (described in Chapter 10) can be predicted, designed, optimized, developed ; some catastrophes can be avoided, multiple solutions for a certain problem can be presented, etc… Following the three main environmental issues, Chapter 7 focuses on air pollution. Air pollution is not just an environmental but a social problem which leads to a multitude of adverse effects on human health and standard of human life, state of the ecosystems and global change of climate. The chapter deals with the complexities of the air pollution and presents an overview of different technical processes and equipment for air pollution control, as well as basic principles of their work. As for air, Chapter 8 introduces water and wastewater characterization and gives an overview of the most important instrumental techniques used in water analysis. The presence of new pollutants (mostly of synthetic organic origin), the possibility of their characterization and modern removal techniques are particularly emphasized. The chapter describes the basic principles of biological water treatment, as well as modern processes involving membrane separation processes and advanced oxidation processes. The last issue, soil treatment is described in Chapter 9. As a conditionally renewable natural resource, soil has a decisive influence on sustainable development of global economy, especially on sustainable agriculture and environmental protection. In recent decades, a growing interest prevails for non-production soil functions, primarily those relating to environmental protection. It especially refers to protection of natural resources whose quality depends directly on soil and soil management. Soil contamination is correlated with the degree of industrialization and intensity of agrochemical usage and is one of the most dangerous forms of soil degradation with the consequences that are reflected in virtually the entire biosphere, primarily at heterotrophic organisms and also at mankind as a food consumer. As mentioned previously, by understanding chemical nature and transport phenomena together with microorganism behaviour many mentioned issues can be described, predicted, emerged problems, etc. can be solved by using mathematical models. In the Chapter 10 a short introduction into models (types of the models and their application) with accent on mathematical modelling in environmental engineering is given. Some basic advices on how to approach mathematical modelling, how to use different types of models and how to apply different methods for solving of mathematical models will be discussed on the examples describing the environmental processes. The final chapter, Chapter 11, introduces risk assessment and examines the basic concepts of risk and hazard, their causes, consequences and probabilities. The methodology of environmental risk assessment including effect assessment, exposure assessment and risk estimation/characterisation is overviewed. Some of the commonly used techniques in risk assessments are introduced and illustrated by examples Environmental risk assessment should provide input to the risk management so well-informed decisions can be made, to protect human health and the environment.

Environmental engineering

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