Georgia Institute of Technology School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

If you're someone who looks at the carbon footprint of the things you buy, you could be significantly underestimating your impact on the environment.

Professor John Crittenden and President Emeritus G. Wayne Clough have helped chart the course for the future of environmental engineering in a new report from the National Academy of Engineering. Environmental Engineering for the 21^st Century: Address Grand Challenges lays out five grand challenges facing society that environmental engineers are uniquely positioned to address — but answering these challenges will require an evolution in environmental engineering education, research and practice, according to the report.

From the drinking-water contamination in Flint, Mich., to the seemingly endless drought in California, good old H2O pools at the heart of many of today’s most pressing and headline-grabbing problems. Find out how the work and ideas of Tech researchers are helping us understand — and solve — these planet-wide challenges.

In ocean expanses where oxygen has vanished, newly discovered bacteria are diminishing additional life molecules. They help make virtual dead zones even deader. Now, a team led by the Georgia Institute of Technology has discovered members of a highly prolific bacteria group known as SAR11 living in the world’s largest oxygen minimum zone. The team has produced unambiguous evidence that the bacteria play a major role in denitrification.