About Environmental Engineering :

Environmental engineering is the application of science and engineering principles to improve the environment (air, water, and/or land resources), to provide healthful water, air, and land for human habitation and for other organisms, and to remediate polluted sites.

Environmental Engineering can be defined as “ The application of Engineering Principles under limits to the protection & enhancement of the quality of the Environment and the protection and enhancement of public health & welfare”.

The goal of environmental engineering is to ensure that societal development and the use of water, land and air resources are sustainable. This goal is achieved by managing these resources so that environmental pollution and degradation is minimized.

Duties of an Environmental Engineer :

Environmental engineers study water, soil and air pollution problems, and develop technical solutions needed to solve, attenuate or control these problems in a manner that is compatible with legislative, economic, social and political concerns. Civil engineers are particularly involved in such activities as water supply and sewerage, management of surface water and groundwater quality, remediation of contaminated sites and solid waste management.

The activities of such engineers include, but are not limited to, the planning, design, construction and operation of water and wastewater treatment facilities in municipalities and industries, modelling and analysis of surface water and groundwater quality, design of soil and remediation systems, planning for the disposal and reuse of wastewaters and sludges, and the collection, transport, processing, recovery and disposal of solid wastes according to accepted engineering practices.

Environmental engineers are called upon to play an important role in environmental protection, because engineering solutions are required to meet the environmental standards set by legislation.

Qualities of a good Environmental engineer :

Environmental engineers should possess the following specific qualities:

Imagination. Environmental engineers sometimes have to design systems that will be part of larger ones. They must be able to foresee how the proposed designs will interact with other components of the larger system, including the workers, machinery, and equipment, as well as the environment.

Interpersonal skills. Environmental engineers must be able to work with others toward a common goal. They usually work with engineers and scientists who design other systems and with the technicians and mechanics who put the designs into practice.

Problem-solving skills. When designing facilities and processes, environmental engineers strive to solve several issues at once, from workers’ safety to environmental protection. They must be able to identify and anticipate problems in order to prevent losses for their employers, safeguard workers’ health, and mitigate environmental damage.

Reading skills. Environmental engineers often work with business people, lawyers, and other professionals outside their field. They frequently are required to read and understand documents with topics outside their scope of training.

Writing skills. Environmental engineers must be able to write clearly so that others without their specific training can understand their plans, proposals, specifications, findings, and other documents.

Popular Bachelor’s degree options for Bachelors in Environmental Engineering

Environmental Engineering	Bioeconomic Engineering
Environmental Design & Planning	Forest & Natural Environment Engineering
Sustainable Resources Engineering	Climate & Supply Engineering
Geological Engineering	Agro Environmental Engineering

Popular Master’s degree options after Bachelors in Environmental Engineering :

Energy Environment Science Earthquake	Engineering & Infrastructure resilience
Environmental Protection Process Engineering	Water waste & Environmental Engineering
Environmental Resource Policy	Offshore Wind Energy & Environmental Engineering
Urban & Environmental Policy Engineering	Sustainable Land Engineering
Natural Risk Management Engineering	Advanced Geotechnical Engineering

Popular Doctorate degree options after Masters in Environmental Engineering :

PhD in Environmental Engineering PhD in Environmental process Engineering

Duration of Environmental Engineering degree :

Country	Bachelors in Environmental Engineering	Masters in Environmental Engineering	PhD in Environmental Engineering
USA / CANADA	4 YEARS	2 YEARS	3 – 6 YEARS
GERMANY / UK / AUSTRALIA	3 – 3.5 YEARS	1 – 2 YEARS	3 – 6 YEARS
OTHER COUNTRIES	3 – 4 YEARS	1 – 2 YEARS	3 – 6 YEARS

Career options after Masters Degree in Environmental Engineering :

Environmental engineer	Environmental consultant
Air quality inspector	Wastewater engineer
Environmental health and safety director	Green building engineer
Commercial horticulturist	Recycling officer
Nature conservation officer	Water quality scientist
Environmental education officer	Sustainability consultant

Average Salaries for Environmental Engineering graduates :

USA – 66,373 USD
Canada – 62,962 CAD (51,427 USD)
UK – 28,570 GBP (39,768 USD)
Germany – 41,167 EUR (49,590 USD)
Australia – 72,674 AUD (56,342 USD)

Top Environmental Engineering Universities

Rank QS	Rank THE	Rank Shanghai	University Name	Country	Bachelor courses	Master courses
1	4	9	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	USA	Click here	Click here
2	3	2	Stanford University	USA	Click here	Click here
3	6		University of Cambridge	UK	Click here	Click here
4	9	3	ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology	SWITZERLAND	Click here	Click here
4	15		Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU)	SINGAPORE	Click here	Click here
6	2		University of Oxford	UK	Click here	Click here
7	5	13	University of California, Berkeley (UCB)	USA	Click here	Click here
8	14	46	Imperial College London	UK	Click here	Click here
9	12		National University of Singapore (NUS)	SINGAPORE	Click here	Click here
10	16	7	Tsinghua University	CHINA	Click here	Click here
11	1	1	Harvard University	USA	Click here	Click here
12			EPFL	SWITZERLAND	Click here	Click here
13	12		Georgia Institute of Technology	USA	Click here	Click here
14	7	19	California Institute of Technology (Caltech)	USA	Click here	Click here
15	21	20	Delft University of Technology	NETHERLAND	Click here	Click here
16	27		KAIST – Korea Advanced Institute of Science &	SOUTH KOREA	Click here	Click here
17	18	49	Carnegie Mellon University	USA	Click here	Click here
18	28	31	University of Toronto	CANADA	Click here	Click here
19	11		University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)	USA	Click here	Click here
20			Politecnico di Milano	ITALY	Click here	Click here
20	26		The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	HONGKONG	Click here	Click here
20	32		The University of Tokyo	JAPAN	Click here	Click here
23	35		Shanghai Jiao Tong University	CHINA	Click here	Click here
24	9	15	Peking University	CHINA	Click here	Click here
25	22		University of Texas at Austin	USA	Click here	Click here
26	23		University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	USA	Click here	Click here
27	39		Seoul National University	SOUTH KOREA	Click here	Click here
27	34	27	Zhejiang University	CHINA	Click here	Click here
29	24	17	Technical University of Munich	GERMANY	Click here	Click here
30	8	11	Princeton University	USA	Click here	Click here
31			KTH oyal Institute of TechnologyR	SWEDEN	Click here	Click here
32	45	40	University of British Columbia	CANADA	Click here	Click here
33	19	29	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	USA	Click here	Click here
34	33		Purdue University	USA	Click here	Click here
34			Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech)	JAPAN	Click here	Click here
36	25		Cornell University	USA	Click here	Click here
36	48	42	The University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney)	AUSTRALIA	Click here	Click here
38			University of Waterloo	CANADA	Click here	Click here
39			Politecnico di Torino	ITALY	Click here	Click here
40			McGill University	CANADA	Click here	Click here
40			National Taiwan University (NTU)	TAIWAN	Click here	Click here
40	42	48	The University of Hong Kong	HONGKONG	Click here	Click here
43		47	Fudan University	CHINA	Click here	Click here
43	30		RWTH Aachen University	GERMANY	Click here	Click here
43			The University of Manchester	UK	Click here	Click here
43	17	32	Yale University	USA	Click here	Click here
47	29	45	Columbia University	USA	Click here	Click here
48			UCL	UK	Click here	Click here
49			Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB)	INDIA	Click here	Click here
50			Eindhoven University of Technology	NETHERLAND	Click here	Click here
50			The University of Melbourne	AUSTRALIA	Click here	Click here
	20		École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	SWITZERLAND	Click here	Click here
	31		University of Science and Technology of China	CHINA	Click here	Click here
	35		University of California, Santa Barbara	USA	Click here	Click here
	37		Northwestern University	USA	Click here	Click here
	38		University of Pennsylvania	USA	Click here	Click here
	40		University of California, San Diego	USA	Click here	Click here
	41	34	Johns Hopkins University	USA	Click here	Click here
	44	4	University of Wisconsin-Madison	USA	Click here	Click here
	46		Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)	SOUTH KOREA	Click here	Click here
	49	35	Duke University	USA	Click here	Click here
	50	30	University of Washington	USA	Click here	Click here
		5	University of California, Davis	USA	Click here	Click here
		6	Michigan State University	USA	Click here	Click here
		8	Technical University of Denmark	DENMARK	Click here	Click here
		10	Arizona State University	USA	Click here	Click here
		12	University of Alberta	CANADA	Click here	Click here
		14	Nanjing University	CHINA	Click here	Click here
		16	University of Copenhagen	DENMARK	Click here	Click here
		17	University of Maryland, College Park	USA	Click here	Click here
		21	The University of Western Australia	AUSTRALIA	Click here	Click here
		22	Wageningen University & Research	NETHERLANDS	Click here	Click here
		23	The University of Queensland	AUSTRALIA	Click here	Click here
		24	The Ohio State University – Columbus	USA	Click here	Click here
		25	University of Colorado at Boulder	USA	Click here	Click here
		26	Stockholm University	SWEDEN	Click here	Click here
		27	Georgia Institute of Technology	USA	Click here	Click here
		33	Utrecht University	NETHERLANDS	Click here	Click here
		36	King’s College London	UK	Click here	Click here
		37	Tongji University	CHINA	Click here	Click here
		38	Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne	SWITZERLAND	Click here	Click here
		39	Beijing Normal University	CHINA	Click here	Click here
		41	University of Minnesota, Twin Cities	USA	Click here	Click here
		43	Aarhus University	DENMARK	Click here	Click here
		43	Colorado State University	USA	Click here	Click here
		49	Harbin Institute of Technology	CHINA	Click here	Click here

Top universities for Environmental engineering in continent (Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America, Australia) :

In Africa there are more than 15 Universities offering Environmental Engineering out of which none of them are in TOP 10 World rankings.

In Asia there are more than 200 Universities offering Environmental Engineering out of which National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore are in TOP 10 World rankings.

In Europe there are more than 150 Universities offering Environmental Engineering out of which University of Cambridge in UK, ETH Zurich in Switzerland, University of Oxford in UK, Imperial College London in UK are in TOP 10 World rankings.

In North America there are more than 150 Universities offering Environmental Engineering out of which Massachusetts Institute of Technology in USA, Stanford University in USA, University of California Berkeley in USA, California Institute of Technology in USA are in TOP 10 World rankings.

Top universities for Environmental Engineering in United States of America

Rank QS	Rank THE	University Name	Bachelor courses	Master courses
1	3	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	Click here	Click here
2	2	Stanford University	Click here	Click here
3	4	University of California, Berkeley (UCB)	Click here	Click here
4	1	Harvard University	Click here	Click here
5		Georgia Institute of Technology	Click here	Click here
	5	California Institute of Technology	Click here

Top universities for Environmental Engineering Canada

Rank QS	Rank THE	University Name	Bachelor courses	Master courses
1	1	University of Toronto	Click here	Click here
2	2	University of British Columbia	Click here	Click here
3	4	University of Waterloo	Click here	Click here
4	3	McGill University	Click here	Click here
5		Université de Montréal
	5	University of Alberta

Top universities for Environmental Engineering United Kingdom

Rank QS	Rank THE	University Name	Bachelor courses	Master courses
1	2	University of Cambridge	Click here	Click here
2	1	University of Oxford	Click here	Click here
3	3	Imperial College London	Click here
4		The University of Manchester	Click here	Click here
5		UCL
	5	University of Sheffield	Click here	Click here
	4	University of Edinburgh	Click here	Click here

Top universities for Environmental Engineering Germany

Rank QS	Rank THE	University Name	Bachelor courses	Master courses
1	1	Technical University of Munich
2	2	RWTH Aachen University		Click here
3	3	Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin)
4	4	Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)	Click here	Click here
5		Technische Universität Dresden
	5	University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

Top universities for Environmental Engineering Australia

Rank QS	Rank THE	University Name	Bachelor courses	Master courses
1	1	The University of New South Wales	Click here	Click here
2	4	The University of Melbourne
3	3	Monash University	Click here	Click here
4	2	The University of Sydney	Click here	Click here
5		The Australian National University
	5	The University of Queensland	Click here	Click here

FAQS :

Admission Requirements for Environmental Engineering Universities :

Bachelors

Students must have studied Biology + Chemistry + Physics & Mathematics,
Students with more than 90% in high school can aim at TOP ranked Universities,
SAT Score of 1400 & above may be required for admissions to Universities in USA & CANADA,
Students should aim at securing 6.5/7 bands in IELTS or 110 in TOEFL to prove their English Proficiency

Masters

Students must have studied Biology & Chemistry related majors in Bachelor degree,
Students with 80% & above or 4 out of 5 GPA can aim at TOP ranked Universities,
A High GRE score of 325 and above may be required ,
Students should aim at securing 6.5/7 bands in IELTS or 110 in TOEFL to prove their English Proficiency

Application Deadlines for Environmental Engineering Universities :

For TOP ranked universities, the application process is competitive and hence it is advisable to start the process at least 9 months in advance.
For all other universities, the application process must be completed at least 3-6 months in advance.

Other related majors and subjects:

Sustainable Environment Engineering,
Process Engineering,
Waste Water Management,
Geotechnical Engineering,
Biochemical Engineering,
Biomaterials Engineering, etc.

Bachelor

Master

Top Environmental Engineering Universities in 2023-24