Risk Assessment
the process of evaluating how likely a hazard is to cause harm and how serious that harm could be for people or the environment.
Risk Assessment
The state of a system where accumulation equals zero; the mass entering the system perfectly matches the mass exiting or degrading within it.
Steady-State System
To become a professional environmental engineer, you must pass the ________ exam, train under a professional engineer for 5 years, and pass the _______ exam
FE, PE
Sets the fundamental duty to protect and advance the health, safety, and welfare of the public while creating safe, resilient, and sustainable infrastructure
The ASC Code of Ethics
Name one of the seven canons of ASCE Code of Ethics
Hold paramount public safety, health, and welfare
Perform services only in areas of your competence
Issue public statements in an objective and truthful manner
Act as faithful agents; avoid conflicts of interest
Build reputation on merit; do not compete unfairly
the likelihood that a particular harmful event will occur, preferably expressed as....
Probability
The state of a system where accumulation does not equal zero; the system is in a state of flux, meaning concentration, flow rate, or temperature is actively shifting.
Transient system
water that has been used and contaminated by human activities, meaning it includes liquid sewage but excludes general municipal solid waste like trash or garbage, it is broken down into specific categories.
Wastewater
Under the ASCE definition of professionalism, this core principle describes decisions are grounded in general theories and principles — independent of the particular case.
Principled Decision Making
List something from the job descriptions we found
The four types of hazards that Env. Engs try to identify
Chemical, physical, biological, and environmental hazards
This equation describes the balance of all the forces entering and leaving a system.
Accumulation = Input - output + generation - consumption
Name four of the 8 types of Environmental Engineering fields
Air Quality Engineering: Control atmospheric pollution.
Solid Waste Management: Refuse collection disposal.
Hazardous Waste Remediation: Clean toxic sites.
Wastewater Treatment Engineering: Purify sewage safely.
Environmental Sustainability Design: Renewable eco-friendly systems.
Ecological Engineering Systems: Restore natural habitats.
Environmental Health Safety: Protect human workers.
Coastal Engineering Management: Protect shorelines erosion.
Client relationships are objective and free from personal bias or sentiment.
Objectivity
PFAS is particularly persistent in the environment due to its _______, which are among the strongest single bonds in organic chemistry. Because these bonds require immense energy to break, PFAS take thousands of years to degrade in nature.
carbon fluorine bonds
Tools you can use to identify hazards
Material SDS sheets, EPA guidance, Toxicology databases, sampling data, scientific literature, and historical records
A water treatment tank receives 500 L/day of water and discharges 350 L/day. There is no other water entering or leaving the tank. How much water accumulates in the tank each day?
500 L/day − 350 L/day = 150 L/day accumulation
Name three of the six areas within Water Resources Engineering
Hydrology: Movement, distribution, water.
Hydraulics: Water flow mechanics.
Stormwater Management: Control urban runoff.
Flood Risk Management: Mitigate flood hazards.
Water Supply: Provide usable water.
Groundwater: Subsurface water storage.
Reputation and reward are earned through accomplishment — not inherent characteristics or affiliation.
Merit based status
PFAS removal is expensive because the common removal methods _____, ______, and ______ require you to dispose of collected PFAS, which can cost between $2.7 M and $18 M per pound.
Granular Activated Carbon (GAC); Ion Exchange (IX) Resins; Reverse Osmosis (RO)
is the dose required to kill 50% (half) of a tested population of animals (usually rats or mice) in a given time
LD50
A small lake receives 200 kg/day of phosphorus from a river and 50 kg/day from stormwater runoff. It loses 100 kg/day through its outlet and 30 kg/day through sedimentation. What is the net accumulation of phosphorus in the lake each day?
Total Input − Total Output = Accumulation
(200 + 50) − (100 + 30)
250 − 130 = 120 kg/day accumulation
120 kg of phosphorus accumulates in the lake each day.
A ___certification stands for _____, an advanced professional credential issued by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (AAEES) issued to Professional Engineers (PEs) who have at least 8 years of combined environmental engineering or teaching experience, with at least 4 of those years in "responsible charge" (in a leadership or decision-making role).
BCEE, Board Certified Environmental Engineer
Professional decisions are made on behalf of the client and independent of self-interest.
Client first service
A developer boasts that their eco-certified building has a 1:1,000 odds of structural failure during a 100-year flood event, while a competitor offers a 1% annual failure rate. To accurately evaluate these competing claims, an engineer must convert these odds into this standardized, regulatory time-based metric.
What is the annual recurrence interval (or return period)?