I hope you all enjoyed the talk by Michael Knapp, PE, the Statewide Hydraulic engineer with the Alaska Department of Public Transportation. By Monday (1/27) at 8:00 AM, please post:
1. Your thoughts on the topic
2. A link to an article related to the topic (could be anything from bridges to water issues to erosion to climate change, etc.)
3. A brief summary/reflection on the article
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I enjoyed Mr. Knapp's presentation he was very informative. I enjoyed how he incorporated his own projects into his presentation to give us a better understanding of Hydraulic Engineering. After his presentation I could see how it would be a good career choice for an up and coming engineer, especially with climate change, and the major storms that have been happening around the world. He got me very interested in Hydraulic engineering, and could be a speciality I would be interested in pursuing. For my article I wanted to focus on some potential impacts of nature that a Hydraulic Engineer may deal with in the future, so I looked into coastal erosion.
ReplyDeletehttp://coastalmanagement.noaa.gov/hazards.html#erosion
Coastal Erosion is when a body of water erodes away the land around it. The erosion that occurs could damage infrastructure, homes, businesses, and habitat. Apparently costal erosion causes 500 million dollars worth of property loss in the U.S. per year. To help fight the effects of coastal erosion the U.S. uses beach nourishments programs, and other types of erosion control measures in hopes to stop or slow down the process. I could see the people trying to figure out solutions for this problem would be Hydraulic Engineers. This is becoming a larger problem every year, that added to the effects of climate change, there could be a growing need for hydraulic engineers in the immediate future. Though all coastlines are susceptible to coastal erosion, the biggest problem areas are around the Great Lakes, and Southeastern U.S. I found this very interesting especially when you see models of what the globe would look like with just a 10ft rise in sea level. This double with erosion could be catastrophic for the U.S. unless we find a way do deal with or prevent the problem from happening.
Designing systems that will withstand natural hazards, particularly when there are so many unknowns out there, is definitely a challenge that engineers face. I saw an interesting talk about the barrier islands off the coast of the US, where the decision was made to move the visitor center off the island completely because of concerns about sea level rise (I believe it was Assateague Island).
DeleteAfter hearing Mr. Knapp speak about his job, it gave me a better understanding about how an engineer plays a role in a company. It was interesting to see how his job flew him to many interesting places where he was needed to solve a problem such as the bridge that began shaking due to the depth of the support was starting to become weak. Besides his job, I found the part where he was talking about where engineers are needed and how engineers work together in the field.
ReplyDeletehttp://ese.dgtlpub.com/2010/2010-07-31/home.php
In this article “What Lies Ahead for the Water and Waste Water Sector Labour Force?” Walkerton, Ontario has a decreasing amount of workers in this field of work. They noticed this decline in this field when incidents of E. Coli started sending residents to the hospital. What I thought about this article is how important being someone able to treat water so you can help many people. Having this lacking workforce really takes an impact on the residents of the town and hopefully more people will realize how that job is really important.
While Mike mostly talked about water quantity... water quality is also a consideration for engineers. We are fortunate in this country to have the regulations and facilities to provide clean drinking water to most residents, but there are still incidents that have serious health impacts related to water treatment and contamination.
DeleteI too enjoyed listening to Mr. Knapp's presentation. It seemed like he loves being a hydraulic engineer. His presentation was really informative and it was interesting to see the different projects he's worked on.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/blog/climate-science-geoengineering-save-world
The article I decided to read talks about geo-engineering and how it might save the world. This article is relevant because geo-engineering is basically changing and controlling the climate. An example, as the article states, would be placing huge reflectors in space. The article itself was a heated debate on the pros and cons between two professors. I found this article interesting because climate change has been an on going struggle for quite sometime. If one could control the climate, it would definitely change how certain engineers would approach things.
Interesting article. It is always good to look at both sides of an issue - and really explore the arguments for each.
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