-air and water quality engineering, science, and modeling.

- bioenergy, carbon capture and sequestration, and shale gas

- Energy-Water-Environment Sustainability (EWES) is a new area providing and supporting sustainable solutions for the exploration, production, delivery and use of energy, and their intersection with water and the natural and built environment.

-green design and construction

- life cycle assessment

- climate change

- Materials science or materials engineering is an interdisciplinary field involving the properties of material (matter) and its applications to various areas of science and engineering.

Dear Fatemah,

water and energy are a topic that must be considered, mainly, non-conventional renewable energies, such as offshore wind energy, where wind turbines desing must evolve considering the carbon footprint reduction.

construction materials can be sustainable (bio-concrete)

Nano cement production.

Nano stabilisation for compressed earth blocks.

Addition of BIPV as building envelope or using smart glazing for glazed façade

Climata-adapetded design for energy saving ( cooling and/or heating). In this context also the value of traditional building construction and how to achieve similar effects with modern means or a suitable combination.

These could be like;

Use of alternative to OPC

Green building

Reducing the embodied energy of building materials

Using natural heating and cooling instead of Air Conditioning

Using building waste for reconstruction

That is excatly what one should look at. In addition:

Building orientation ( sun-protection, solar heating) There are programmes for building simulation, but one shuld make typical sample calulations to give guildlines for normal buildings, where such calculations are not jet standard ( in addition to Koenigsberger's Climatic design book). Also to look at: storge of carbon dioxide in the building ( use of timber, but with protection against e.g. termites), Improved soil technology. And of course not to forget earthquake- and cyclone safety . - I dit an improved Traditional Technology school in Afghanistan..

As far as sustainability is concerned, you can refer several papers based on energy consumption in civil engineering construction processes e.g. manufacturing of materials, transportation of materials, erection and drying of finished products, and storage of materials etc. An extensive study is still required for evaluation of these energies as these processes have several sub-processes, so, things become little complicated. Along with this, these energies used to vary with place to place and time to time, so, a factor that can accommodate these variations need to be develop.

Anything that saves the environment is worth studying. Just investigate the major environmental problems in your country and start your remedy research.

Sustainability Engineering is much broader than LEED or CEEQUAL. It involves maximizing social benefit while minimizing negative ecological impacts. We (engineers) often stop at that second part, because it's easy - but that is the way to get an improvement only in relative sustainability. But we play a significant role in 'social benefit', too.

It comes in 2 flavours - Human Development and Technological Development. TD is the creation of enhancement of systems of infrastructure with an expectation of a reduction of the time required for the population served to use to meet their needs. HD would focus on identifying and removing the obstructions within the self, family and community that prevent people from being able to meet all of their needs, and thereby enhancing the freedoms, choices, and capacities of the population. We don't do HD normally, but we have to understand what we can't do.

It would be really interesting to see how far you can help HD while you are focussing on Sustainable Technological Development. Can your construction approach, methods, and materials all contribute to Human Development? For example, would developing locally-designed and locally-made housing solutions be able to be used to reduce or eliminate poverty on native reservations?

Try using green construction materials.

Please share me the best answer might you get...