Salvador, Joshua B.

September 6, 2018
CE1-B4 Engr. John Paul Carreon
AREAS OF CIVIL ENGINEEERING
The civil engineering industry has been encountering problems that threaten the conditions
of built infrastructures, harming the lives of people residing within the area. It is the job of civil
engineers to find solutions in order to resolve these problems and ensure that the welfare of
infrastructures and the environment is being managed well.
Like an individual, circumstances and challenges mold the industry to become better than
it used to be. Like an individual, civil engineering showed its curiosity in discovering new
knowledge. All of these thing led the industry to reach today’s civil engineering but like an
individual, it also experienced failures.
Civil engineering is divided into different areas. Each of these has different duties and task.
In total, there are six areas of civil engineering: Construction Technology, Buildings and
Structures, Transportation, Water, Wastewater, and Environmental Engineering, Water Resources
Engineering, and Disaster and Emergency Management.
The first area is the Construction Technology. It is where the job is to deal with machine,
material, energy, and management techniques. In this area, engineers ensures that they offer
advanced materials and equipment to secure the safety of the people. As the industry innovates,
the Construction Technology discovers new knowledge that will create better buildings. However,
before they’ve reached what they are today, they’ve experience difficulties in the job especially in
moving large amounts of earth but with the invention of steam engine in the 19th century, engineers
became capable doing this task. As well, it created a way to use mammoth gasoline and diesel-
powered construction machineries.
For the Buildings and Structure, engineers’ job is to maintain stability and strength of
infrastructures by developing and improving the materials used in constructing. During the early
years, civil engineers struggled on building high structures due to the absence of strengthening
materials that was suppose to support the structural form of a building. With the birth of still in the
19th century, it paved ways to civil engineers to create what we call skyscrapers. As of today, we
can see the improvements of the industry in terms of building gigantic buildings such as Burj
Khalifa and the highest building which is the Nakheel tower in Dubai.
The transportation system has a huge part in the success of a country. Disturbances such
as traffic can waste billions of profit in the economy. Engineers in Transportation areas ensures a
smooth travel for every person because nowadays, transportation is a must for everyone. In the
beginning, people suffered from muddy roads that affects their daily lives. Though, because of the
arrivals of the European settlers, the development of roads began. As they continued to construct
concreate pavements, they also paved way to the creation of automobile that are very much useful
in todays life.
As for the Water, Waste, and Environmental Engineering, individuals in the past years
encountered several problems especially in the water system and in the sanitation. The world were
lacking of different facilities that offers good health to the people. As a result, pollutions are
everywhere and, different diseases and epidemic was experienced by the world. This is when the
authorities raised their concerns to the public health. Engineers started devising plans and came up
with different ideas on how they will eradicate water borne pollution which was the main problem
in the past by offering a clean water, good drainage system, ang discovering new knowledge in
sanitation by research. As today, our world is strong enough to eradicate environmental problems
because of what the Water, Wastewater, and Environmental Engineer area have done for the world.
Water Resources Engineering mainly deals with the maintenance of infrastructures such as
dams that are concern in navigation, recreation, flood control and energy conservation. During the
early years, flood has been one of the main problem of people when a certain phenomena occurs
such as typhoon, tsunamis, storm surge etc. It caused property losses and as well a lives of the
people. Engineers started building dams that served as a great water storage, ensures good water
flow, controls the flood. Dams are also used to convert mechanical energy into electric energy.
The flow of water in dams provides electricity to the people.
The last area is the Disaster and Energy Management. It was created due to the failures that
have been committed by engineers. Although we can say that they were intelligent enough, they
were still humans that are capable of committing mistakes. Typhoons, earthquake, and other forces
of nature that can lead to disasters are truly inevitable. The Chicago fire in 1871, the hurricane
Galveston, and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster causes thousands of casualties. Many countries
involving the Philippines are vulnerable to different phenomenon such as earthquake and volcanic
eruptions since they are located at the Pacific Ring of Fire. These events led to the idea of solving
the problems by preparing humans and as well as the infrastructures to be less susceptible despite
of being vulnerable to these events. It will lessen the calamities and casualties that these events
might bring to us and to the world. Like the events, it will also open rooms for the possibilities of
discovering new things that will greatly help the humanity in responding to these disasters.
As future engineer, I still find engineering works complicated because it has a lot branches
but maybe because, I am still taking my first steps in chasing my dreams. One thing I realized is
that, civil engineers’ job is not that easy because everyone’s safety lies on the hands. Although it
might be hard, the challenges that awaits are driving me to do my best just to become a civil
engineer someday. That no matter how many time I fail, like civil engineer, I will rise and show
that I am better than I used to be.