Civil engineers have shaped the world since before recorded time. Maybe they didn’t have university degrees, but engineers built roads, dams, aqueducts, bridges, pyramids, and more. They still build the big and small things that make your life easier.
Today, civil engineers work with architects, contractors, and compliance agencies to deliver necessary services including office buildings, airports, tunnels, shopping centers, and infrastructure systems you take for granted.
For example, the St. Louis Gateway Arch and the crumbling riverfront area it replaced are civil engineering triumphs. Yet, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports, “Many of our roads are also in poor condition, which costs each motorist $604 per year in vehicle operating costs.” So, even the biggest projects affect citizens like you.
Civil engineers differ from other specialized engineers in their ability to multitask and work across disciplines to deliver product. But what can they do for you?
4 services professional civil engineering for you:
- Comprehensive Planning: If you are entering into what is a major project for you, you need plans. If you are building an office park, strip mall, assisted living facility, or other modest project, or if you are taking the risk on something larger, you need a plan.
Civil engineering firms plan, design, and manage your future. They integrate land assessment, development, and excavation. They initiate the computer-assisted drawing (CAD) a multidimensional digital blueprint customized for each construction function.
- Community Integration: Civil engineers like those at CochranEng.com have a larger vision of a project than the client. They can and must envision the project as part of the community that connects it with water, utilities, sewage, and vehicular traffic.
Part of this involves working together with local design and construction ordinances. They must comply with state, county, and city regulations in detail, completing the permits, codes, and forms required from multiple agencies.
- Analyze Conditions: Construction presents multi-sector layered challenges civil engineers are expected to resolve. It’s the engineering firm’s job to analyze, mitigate, and eliminate environmental issues. They must assess the quality of the soil for water retention and shifting. They must minimize water pollution and maximize energy efficiency.
Civil engineers must take a helicopter view of watershed and ecosystems affected by construction. While they may present positive or negative assessments, you will know where you stand regarding your investment.
- Safe Construction: Civil engineers are involved in environmental concerns, but it also benefits your personal safety. It’s up to them to build projects resistant to earthquakes, fire, wind, and flood. It’s among their duties to anticipate known risks to structural safety and the people who live or work therein.
Some regions are prone to one or more natural risks, so demands on civil engineers’ talents and training vary from place to place. As the Los Angeles Times said of Houston’s lack of preparedness for Hurricane Harvey, “It is a combination of malicious climate and unforgiving geology, along with a deficit of zoning and land-use controls, that scientists and engineers say leaves the nation\’s fourth most populous city vulnerable to devastating floods.” So, you want the civil engineering firm familiar with your regional problems.
