建筑英语Lesson 5 .doc

Lesson 5 Environmental Engineering Environmental engineering is a branch of engineering that is concerned with pollution by the structures, machines, systems, and processes that are involved in human activities. The development of civilization has caused perturbation of much of the Earths ecosystem, resulting in pollution of the air, land, and water. It is the task of the environmental engineer not only to design systems to assuage this pollution but also to educate people in protecting their surroundings from additional pollution. The practice of environmental engineering is divided into various subdisciplines. Water treatment and disposal. In many cases, rivers, lakes, and oceans have become polluted from discharges of liquid wastes from residential, commercial, and industrial sources. Many of these bodies of water have been reclaimed because of a movement in the 1970s to construct new wastewater treatment facilities and to improve old ones. Both physical-chemical and biological processes are used to remove from the liquid wastewater stream. It is this organic matter that causes a depletion of oxygen in rivers and lakes, with consequent anaerobic conditions leading to fish kills and noxious odors. The physical-chemical and biological processes remove an abundance of the organic matter, along with floatable scum and grease from the waste stream. Chemical disinfection inactivates bacteria, viruses, and protozoa in the waste stream. The physical and chemical processes used for removing solids from the waste stream include screening, sand and grit separation, chemical coagulation, and plain sedimentation. Biological processes include activated sludge, contact towers, and biological discs. The application of these treatment processes to residential, commercial, and industrial wastewaters has reduced the pollutional load on many rivers, lakes, and harbors. There do remain, however, cases of large metropolitan areas that have not complete their