Impact On Environment

The advancing process of urbanization, generated by the intensive land development, has posed challenges to maintaining adequate environmental protection and improvement of quality of life. Pollution of the environment is already having harmful effects on the health and life of people and, in near future, it may threaten all life on our planet. 

We, now dominate the earth which earlier man could not do, or burn a forest, wash away a field, foul a river, exhaust a mine, or distinguish local species etc. Today, we can pollute great lakes and even dirty the ocean, the global air and diffuse chemicals throughout the living world. 

A new road, for example, may block natural rain drainage, induce erosion of soil, overturn soil dunes, destroy hill plants and animals, displace residents, bring in new builders, scar the hill sides, pollute air and water and import exotic chemicals into the environment. 

The more developed a site becomes, the more these man made features obstruct circulation of and surface water. Utilities become more important over-riding factors of soil topography and plant cover. 

We live in an ocean of air, constantly subjected to the variations of temperature, humidity and purity and the light and sound transmitted through it. All construction activities affect this ocean of air and hence all of us. Polluted air has a handful affect on respiratory tract, a depressing  affect on the psychics, injurious to plants, animals and to the very buildings and structures we build. Equally serious are our contributions to the pollution of water and the land, we use. 

If we continue like this without adequate chacks and measures, we may inadvertently initiate an irrevocable process of permanent damage to our ecology and hence, ensure our extinction. Engineers must lead to save this planet earth by initiating environmental impact studies (EIS) for each one of their projects. In a simple manner, an engineer should avoid dust pollution, discharge of contaminated water, due to construction activity into habitable areas, and also disposal of building wastes. He should take every possible measure to avoid noise pollution as well during construction.