Environmental and Water Resources Engineering

env water resources 2

Environmental and water resources engineering is a broad discipline dedicated to addressing environmental issues in air, water, and soil. It includes a variety of sub-disciplines, such as water quality engineering, water resources engineering, outdoor and indoor air quality engineering, ocean engineering, and hazardous waste management. Sustainable engineering concepts are infused into these sub-disciplines and include the long-term environmental, economic, and social consequences of engineering practice.

The following is a glimpse of what environmental engineering students do at the University of Texas at Austin:

  • evaluate removal of pharmaceuticals and personal care products for direct potable reuse
  • design nanomaterials for treatment applications and assess their environmental impact
  • model the impact of extreme events such as floods and droughts
  • quantify human exposure to outdoor and indoor air pollutants
  • design efficient propulsors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from ships
  • study judicious energy use in the distribution and treatment of water (water-energy nexus)
  • design turbines to extract the energy of ocean currents
  • quantify the impact of the flow of water and its contaminants in rivers and coastal systems
  • design stormwater control facilities to improve surface water quality
  • design passive treatment systems to improve the air we breathe indoors
  • holistically evaluate "green" technologies via life-cycle assessment
  • remediate soil and ground waters impacted by unintended pollutant releases

Faculty

Matthew Bartos

Sergio Castellanos

Kasey Faust

Ben Hodges

Blair Johnson

Lynn Katz

Spyros Kinnas

Kerry Kinney

Mary Jo Kirisits

Manish Kumar

Desmond Lawler

Howard Liljestrand

David Maidment

Dev Niyogi

Paola Passalacqua

Caroline  Russell

Navid Saleh

Lina Sela

Gerald Speitel

Charles  Werth