Civil and Geoenvironmental Engineering (Taught)

What skills will I practise and develop?

Knowledge and understanding

Upon completing this programme, you should be able to:

• Understand the multidisciplinary nature of geoenvironmental engineering and the need for the integration of knowledge from civil engineering, earth sciences and biological sciences in the management of geoenvironmental engineering challenges.
• Demonstrate awareness of the significance of geological, geochemical, hydrological and biological data in geoenvironmental management.
• Demonstrate awareness of the scientific, technical, legal and commercial issues affecting geoenvironmental engineering practice;
• Describe the techniques used to characterise flow of groundwater and surface waters.
• Describe and model the principal geochemical processes affecting contaminant mobility in the ground and their role in impacting the quality of groundwater and surface waters.
• Describe surface water biota and biological processes, and the effects of contaminants on the ecology of surface waters.
• Undertake mathematical and numerical modelling of groundwater flow and groundwater contaminant transport.
• Select appropriate methods for the investigation, assessment, management and mitigation of contaminants in the ground, in groundwater and in surface waters.

Intellectual Skills

• Use knowledge and scientific, evidence-based, methods in the assessment and solution of geoenvironmental engineering challenges, often on the basis of limited and possibly contradictory information.
• Deal with complex geoenvironmental engineering issues both systematically and creatively.
• Show originality in tackling both familiar and unfamiliar problems.
• Critically review the background to a geoenvironmental engineering problem and to formulate a programme of work to address the issue.
• Systematically undertake a significant research project in geoenvironmental engineering which includes originality in the application of knowledge and the exercise of critical engineering judgement.
• Collect, evaluate, synthesise and interpret qualitative and quantitative data in a variety of ways, and identify means to gain new data where needed.
• Conceive, plan, execute, and communicate the results of an extended in-depth piece of individual project work.
• Sustain a critical argument, both in writing and through presentations.

Practical Skills

• Use appropriate mathematical and experimental methods for the modelling and analysis of geoenvironmental engineering problems.

Transferable Skills

• Manipulate, present and report data in a variety of ways.
• Manage resources and time.
• Communicate ideas, principles and theories effectively by oral, written, and physical or practical means.