Environmental Engineering

Every elective Zooky offers for this major.

Join free to pick yours

Year 2 · Semester 1 · choose 1 of 1

Ready to learn · Level 2 · 6 points
Energy and the Environment
Where the carbon in a country's energy comes from and how to cut it: units, the greenhouse effect, fuel emissions, inventories, the grid, efficiency, pathways and the economics of carbon.
Prerequisites: no set prerequisites
What you'll learn (18 topics)
- Energy flows and units
- The greenhouse effect
- Climate and carbon basics
- Fossil combustion emissions
- Fuels and combustion
- Emissions inventories and carbon accounting
- Electricity supply and grid emissions
- Solar photovoltaics
- Wind power
- Storage and firming
- Energy efficiency and demand
- Energy audit and verification
- Efficiency measures and leaks
- Decarbonisation pathways
- Time value of money
- Renewable energy economics
- Energy economics and carbon pricing
- Net-zero system planning

Year 3 · Semester 1 · choose 1 of 1

Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points
Hydrogeology and Groundwater
How water lives and moves underground: aquifer storage, Darcy flow, pumped wells and what a test reveals, water quality and the salt wedge, models you can solve by hand, and a licence that does not drain the basin.
Prerequisites: no set prerequisites
What you'll learn (15 topics)
- Groundwater basics: the water table, aquifers and pumping
- Aquifers and their properties
- Flow in porous media
- Permeability
- Darcy flow, heads and layered ground
- Steady well hydraulics
- Transient well theory
- Pumping tests and boundaries
- Groundwater quality and saltwater intrusion
- Groundwater modelling
- Investigation, monitoring and management
- Groundwater advection, dispersion and conditional pulse inference
- Pumping envelopes, persistent sources and extraction ledgers
- Remedy monitoring, vapour rebound and completion evidence
- Catchment water balance, yield and reliability

Year 4 · Semester 1 · choose 1 of 1

Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points
Flood, Catchment and Urban Water
Flood estimation and urban water beyond the core: curve-number runoff, synthetic unit hydrographs, catchment models, flood frequency, compound channels, routing, flood damage, street drainage and sewer hydraulics.
Prerequisites: Fluid Mechanics, Hydraulics and Hydrology, Environmental Engineering and Water Quality
What you'll learn (14 topics)
- Curve-number runoff
- Synthetic unit hydrographs
- Conceptual catchment models
- Flood frequency with weighted skew
- Compound channels and floodplains
- Flood routing with Muskingum–Cunge
- Flood damage and benefit–cost
- Street drainage and inlets
- Sewer hydraulics and the hydraulic grade line
- Stormwater quality and pollutant loads
- Treatment trains and water-sensitive design
- Two-dimensional flood modelling
- Joint probability and compound flooding
- River sediment transport

Year 4 · Semester 2 · choose 1 of 1

Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points
Coastal, Ocean and Marine Engineering
Waves, tides and storm surge, the beach and the sand that moves along it, and the structures that must stand in the sea.
Prerequisites: Fluid Mechanics, Engineering Physics, Probability and Statistics for Engineers
What you'll learn (17 topics)
- Linear wave theory
- Wave energy, groups and reflection
- Shoaling, refraction and breaking
- Short-term wave statistics
- Design waves and return period
- Wave generation and hindcasting
- Tides
- Storm surge and design water levels
- Wave setup and nearshore currents
- Sediment and the beach profile
- Longshore transport and shoreline change
- Beach nourishment and coastal protection
- Wave loads on slender piles
- Vertical-wall structures
- Rubble-mound breakwaters
- Estuary tidal prism and flushing
- Wave and tidal power

Year 4 · Semester 2 · choose 1 of 2

Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points
Climate Change Adaptation and Environmental Risk
How to plan for a hotter, wetter, higher-sea future: climate scenarios, flood and heat risk, sea-level rise, the cost of adapting and how to decide when nobody knows what comes next.
Prerequisites: Probability and Statistics for Engineers, Hydraulics and Hydrology
What you'll learn (15 topics)
- The greenhouse effect
- Climate scenarios and projections
- Hazard, exposure and vulnerability
- Risk evaluation and ALARP
- Extreme rainfall and flood risk
- Flood frequency with weighted skew
- Flood damage and benefit–cost
- Sea-level rise and coastal hazard
- Storm surge and design water levels
- Heat risk and urban heat
- Adaptation options and benefit-cost
- Time value of money
- Decision-making under uncertainty
- Resilience and natural hazard management
- Geological hazards: earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis and floods
Ready to learn · Level 4 · 6 points
Renewable Energy Engineering
Solar, wind, hydro, bioenergy and storage as one system: hourly resource against demand, battery dispatch through a calm spell, pumped hydro with a moving head, life-cycle impacts, and a community portfolio costed and tested on a dry day.
Prerequisites: Fluid Mechanics
What you'll learn (15 topics)
- Resource, demand and adequacy
- Solar photovoltaics
- Solar thermal and heat pumps
- Wind power
- Hydropower and penstocks
- Pumped-storage cycle
- Biomass fuels and biofuels
- Geothermal power
- Tidal and wave energy
- Storage and firming
- Storage dispatch and firming
- Storage cost and thermal storage
- Renewable energy economics
- Renewable impacts and life cycle
- Integrated portfolio design

Year 2 · Semester 1 · choose 1 of 1

Energy and the Environment

Year 3 · Semester 1 · choose 1 of 1

Hydrogeology and Groundwater

Year 4 · Semester 1 · choose 1 of 1

Flood, Catchment and Urban Water

Year 4 · Semester 2 · choose 1 of 1

Coastal, Ocean and Marine Engineering

Year 4 · Semester 2 · choose 1 of 2

Climate Change Adaptation and Environmental Risk

Renewable Energy Engineering