Sanitary engineering

Sanitary engineering, also known as public health engineering or wastewater engineering, is the application of engineering methods to improve sanitation of human communities, primarily by providing the removal and disposal of human waste, and in addition to the supply of safe potable water. Traditionally a branch of civil engineering and now a subset of environmental engineering, in the mid-19th century, the discipline concentrated on the reduction of disease, then thought to be caused by miasma. This was accomplished mainly by the collection and segregation of sewerage flow in London specifically, and Great Britain generally. These and later regulatory improvements were reported in the United States as early as 1865. Sanitary engineering, also known as public health engineering or wastewater engineering, is the application of engineering methods to improve sanitation of human communities, primarily by providing the removal and disposal of human waste, and in addition to the supply of safe potable water. Traditionally a branch of civil engineering and now a subset of environmental engineering, in the mid-19th century, the discipline concentrated on the reduction of disease, then thought to be caused by miasma. This was accomplished mainly by the collection and segregation of sewerage flow in London specifically, and Great Britain generally. These and later regulatory improvements were reported in the United States as early as 1865. It is not concerned with environmental factors that do not have an immediate and clearly understood effect on public health. Areas outside the purview of sanitary engineering include traffic management, concerns about noise pollution or light pollution, aesthetic concerns such as landscaping, and environmental conservation as it pertains to plants and animals. Skills within this field are usually employed for the primary goal of disease prevention within human beings by assuring a supply of healthy drinking water, treatment of waste water, and removal of garbage from inhabited areas. Compared to (for example) electrical engineering or mechanical engineering which are concerned primarily with closed systems, sanitary engineering is a very interdisciplinary field which may involve such elements as hydraulics, constructive modelling, information technology, project design, microbiology, pathology and the many divisions within environmental science and environmental technology. In some cases, considerations that fall within the field of social sciences and urban planning must be factored in as well. Although sanitary engineering may be most associated with the design of sewers, sewage treatment and wastewater treatment facilities, recycling centers, public landfills and other things which are constructed, the term applies equally to a plan of action to reverse the effects of water pollution or soil contamination in a specific area. Irrigation systems were invented five to seven thousand years ago as a means of supplying water to agriculture-based societies. Aqueducts and irrigation systems were among the first forms of wastewater engineering. As population centers became more dense, they were used to remove sewage from settlements. The Romans were among the first to demonstrate the effectiveness of the aqueduct. The Dark Ages marked a period where progress in water management came to a halt. As populations grew, the management of human waste became a growing concern and a public health threat. By the 1850s in London, more than 400,000 tons of sewage were flushed into the River Thames each day - around 150 million tons per year. Diseases such as smallpox, diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever, typhus, cholera, and typhoid were spread via the contaminated water supply. During the 19th century, major cities started building sewage systems to remove human waste out of cities and into rivers. During the 1900s, the activated sludge process was invented. The activated sludge process is a form of water purification that uses bacteria to consume human feces. Chlorine is used later in the process to kill off the bacteria. Over the centuries, much has changed in the field of wastewater engineering. Advancements in microbiology, chemistry, and engineering have drastically changed the field. Today, wastewater engineers also work on the collection of clean water for drinking, chemically treating it, and using UV light to kill off micro-organisms. They also treat water pollution in wastewater (blackwater and greywater) so that this water may be made safe for use without endangering the population and environment around it. Wastewater treatment and water reclamation are areas of concern in this field.