Environmental engineering education - summary report of the 1st European Seminar

This paper summarizes the discussions of the 1st European Seminar on Environmental Engineering Education (E3), which was held at EAWAG, Zurich, Switzerland in August 1999. Although the emerging discipline of environmental engineering, which was once viewed as being a sub-set of civil or chemical engineering, has established a status in its own right, a definition of environmental engineering is still not agreed among European engineering educators. This report discusses the variation between European countries and the way in which higher education institutions in these countries address the educational needs of environmental engineers. A review of the acceptance of this new discipline by employers and the status of environmental engineering as a profession throughout Europe is presented. The question of how to achieve greater compatibility and comparability of the systems of environmental engineering education in Europe is addressed and some objectives are identified in order to overcome the present difficulties.