Welcome to Civil Biz!

Hello everyone!  I've started this blog to illuminate the wonders of civil engineering to the world as well as to eliminate some misconceptions of the field.

Civil engineering is the second oldest engineering disciple, second only after military engineering, and is focused on the technical design, construction and maintenance of civil projects.  What do I mean by "civil projects"?  I mean buildings, infrastructure and water resource projects.  Civil engineering is a large discipline that is broken up into many smaller, sub-disciplines; some of which are

• construction,
• environmental,
• geotechnical,
• municipal,
• structural,
• transportation and
• water resource.

Each sub-discipline focuses on a different branch, but most of them are self-evident from their titles (construction, transportation and structural, for example) whereas others are not so obvious.  Municipal engineering may be a term that you are unfamiliar with, however, thanks to dictionary.com (because I'd hate to get called out for plagiarism!) municipal directly translates into "pertaining to a town or city", so right there one would assume that municipal engineering would refer to something within a city.  You would not be wrong!  Municipal engineering is focused on designing, constructing and maintaining city streets, sidewalks, street lights, water supply and solid waste removal.  These engineers also have a hand in designing and constructing everything from underground railroads, bike paths and the local distribution networks of electrical and telecommunication services.  All in all, municipal engineering is a part of your every day travels to and from work; from the flow of traffic on the streets you drive on, the system that distributes electricity to the street lights that light your way, even the design of the road that allows rain water to collect toward the edge of the road and then into the sewers.  Municipal engineers have a hand in everything!  Everything in your city, that is.

A more evident sub-disciplinary aspect of civil engineering is transportation engineering.  Transportation engineering specializes in designing, building and maintaining everything that gets people and consumer goods from point A to point B.  There are many ways of getting people and products to and from, some of which are roads, highways, rail, water and air.  But wait--didn't I say that roads were a municipal engineer's job?  Yes, I did, however, the many disciplines of engineering may cover a broad variety of subjects, but they also overlap to some degree, with one discipline being more proficient at a subject than another.  For example, municipal engineers cover everything about a city street: the road, the drainage, the lights, the sewers, the electricity distribution and the water mains; whereas transportation engineers cover roads, highways, interchanges, bridges, international rail system, ports, airports and canals.  Both disciplines cover roads, but municipal engineers would specialize on roads within the city, where transportation engineers would specialize more on roads outside of the city.  Now, transportation engineers also cover more than just roads and concrete.  Another aspect of transportation engineering that may be less common in the US is water transportation of people.  In European countries, water transportation is much more important since it is a form of transportation used every day.  An example of a transportation engineer's work in the water transportation field is the Falkirk Wheel in Scotland.

The Falkirk Wheel helps connect passenger barges from the Forth and Clyde Canal to the Union Canal by an unique system of rotating wheels elevating boats directing up to a man made canal that leads to the higher-elevation Union Canal.  This engineering feat made it possible for the first time for boats to travel from the Forth and Clyde Canal to the Union Canal.  To see a full rotation, just follow the link and watch a short 50 second clip!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX6kJKjg4y0)

If you look, you will find that every sub-discipline of civil engineering is as packed full of responsibilities as municipal and transportation engineering disciplines are; not to mention as intertwined with the average day-to-day activities of citizens everywhere.  I hope that through reading this blog, you too will become as fascinated in this field of engineering as I am

Thanks for reading!  Be sure to check in later this week for the next post!

~Civil Biz