Civil Engineering. — Research and graduate studies have moved to the forefront in the subfields of soil mechanics, hydraulics, hydrology, and structures. New and revised courses in water supply, waste disposal, transportation, city planning and construction now embody urban and environmental factors. These form the basis of new graduate degree specializations such as construction, environmental science, sanitary, and water resources engineering. The graduate program in construction engineering (1954) emphasized the business and economic aspects of construction and then its management aspects. Structural engineering now involves structural dynamics, earthquake engineering, and plastic design. Transportation and traffic engineering concerns urban traffic and includes land use, political, and social parameters of urban planning. Hydraulic and hydrological engineering studies, such as the effect of urbanization on run-off, are part of the University's Water Resources Program and the Sea Grant Program. The Solid Waste Program began in 1964, and the Solid-Waste Laboratory was established two years later. Since the early 1960s sanitary engineering studies have developed in the areas of anaerobic digestion of sludge and algae growth factors and of chemical and physical methods of water treatment.
The University of Michigan, an Encyclopedic Survey Supplement, Page 130.
