Water Supply and Pollution Control Aspects of Urbanization

Abstract

The practice of the profession of civil engineering has from its inception been intimately associated and concerned with technical problems resulting from and relating to urbanization. The practice of civil engineering is concerned with preliminary surveys of needs, design, construction, operation and maintenance of works involving transportation (including rail, highway, pipe line, airports, waterways and harbor facilities), storm and sanitary drainage, water supply and treatment, sanitation, waste treatment and disposal and such important ancillary functions to the above as soils and foundations, hydraulics, engineering mechanics, measurements and structural design. The civil engineer is frequently involved in municipal planning and management by virtue of his competence in the composite technology relating to urbanization. Although the civil engineer is committed to expressing his technical competence in the area of urban development, civil engineering leadership is growing increasingly concerned about the profession's apparently declining role in the areas of urban planning and building technology.1 Architects, social scientists, economists, political scientists, lawyers, and public administrators are progressively exerting greater leadership in urban development. The ability of technology to provide the essential services in response to patterns of urban development emerging from this leadership is generally assumed. The challenges offered in the analysis, evaluation and development of solutions to the complex functional problems of urban development are great and are growing. The unfortunate consequence of preliminary neglect of technical constraints and alternatives in the community planning function is the lack of complete freedom in exploration of acceptable alternative plans for minimization of cost or for equal cost, maximization of return. The question of what constitutes the most appropriate background for leadership is not as important as is recognition of the importance of bringing to bear on the subject of urban planning all of the essential technical skills at a sufficiently early stage in the planning function to affect significantly the selection of alternative courses of action.