• Question: what is the environment

    Asked by lads to Stephen, Natalie, Mark, Jeni, Ashwanth on 14 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Stephen Richardson

      Stephen Richardson answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      Hmm,
      thats a big question. I guess it’s everything around us. Usually we mean the natural environment – things that arent man made like plants and animals, the ground and sky, rivers and lakes and the sea. But in my work we often talk about the built environment – which means the buildings and infrastructure that we use to live and work. So houses, offices, shops but also roads, sewers, railways, powerstations and so on.
      So environmental engineering usually means thinking about the way that human activity impacts on the environment and the different things that Ashwanth, Jeni, Mark, Natalie and I are doing give you some examples of what that can be.
      Does that answer your question?

    • Photo: Jeni Spragg

      Jeni Spragg answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      Hi,

      I reckon Stephen’s pretty much covered it!

      The environment is everything around us – all the animals, plants, air, water and resources that make up the planet. In engineering, we always have to consider the environment to make sure that we don’t cause too much damage – for example, polluting the air or water, or wiping out endangered animals. Everything we do has an impact, but we try our best to make sure this impact cause as little damage as possible.

    • Photo: Natalie Wride

      Natalie Wride answered on 16 Jun 2016:

      Hi 🙂

      I think Stephens covered it really! I always just say it’s everything around us! Like Jeni said, as Engineers we make sure that anything we’re doing or designing isn’t affecting the the Environment. But as a Civil Engineer, I design the built environment that’s all around you. So I design roads, motorways, bridges, buildings, sewers, railways and then also design things like slopes and earth walls (to reduce the risk of landslides and stabilise the ground).

      Hope this helps 🙂

    • Photo: Mark Gowan

      Mark Gowan answered on 17 Jun 2016:

      I have been pondering this question for a couple of days now trying to thing of a suitable answer, but it keeps coming back to the fact is that the environment is everything around us.

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