Focusing on public health engineering 

News: According to Startup India, one in five children die before their fifth birthday because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions. 

What are the environmental degradation problems? 

Global  

According to the United Nations, Globally, around 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused which pose a significant environmental and health threat.  

India 

According to the World Bank, about 70% of sewage is discharged untreated into India’s water bodies. This contaminated water led to a staggering 21% of diseases in India,  

What are the issues involved? 

Both as professions and as practice, engineering and public health have been traditionally understood as different fields in India. 

In India, public health engineering is executed by the PWD or by health officials. This differs from international trends. For example, Europe has specialized candidates in wastewater engineering. 

There is the issue of population growth, diminishing resources and risky exploitation of natural resources. 

Currently, the civil engineers don’t have adequate skills to address public health problems. And public health professionals do not have adequate engineering skills. Both fail to understand the nexus between wastewater and solid waste management and public health issues clearly.  

Majority of diseases are water-related like transmitted through consumption of contaminated water, vectors breeding in stagnated water, etc.  

What steps need to be taken?

It is essential to find and implement innovative ways of treating wastewater to achieve sustainable development goals of clean water and sanitation. 

Innovative solutions are also needed to address the growing demands for water consumption and preservation of both surface water bodies and groundwater resources.  

There is a need to expand the scope of public health/environmental engineering science. 

Both engineering and public health field, together can work in different fields like wastewater treatment systems, for understanding complex quality and monitoring processes, designing and managing septic tank systems, supplying good quality water in adequate quantities, etc.

The Government should launch public health engineering as a two-year structured master’s degree programme or through diploma. It should be developed as an interdisciplinary field. Public health professionals can be groomed through in-service training.  

The health and engineering institutes should provide knowledge in areas of environment science in the refresher course.  

On one side, public health professionals can contribute to engineering through well-researched understanding of health issues, etc. Similarly, engineers can contribute to public health through their problem-solving approach. Thus, combination of engineering and public health skills can lead to development of public health engineering. 

The decentralised and onsite wastewater management systems should be designed based on hydro-geological data and observations of climate patterns. 

Public health engineering can help policymakers to understand processes, trends, and the latest technology in water and wastewater quality monitoring, treatment, and management.  

There is a need to hire environmental engineers to address public health problems. 

Institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are considering initiating public health engineering as a separate discipline. 

In wake of India’s Jal Jeevan Mission, India needs a cadre of public health engineers, who can help in identification of sustainable sources of water, monitoring the quantity and quality of supply, among other things. 

Source: The post is based on an article “Focusing on public health engineering” published in the “The Hindu’ on 17th May 2022.