Introduction to

Public Health Engineering

Sana Rasool
Lyari Expressway, Karachi
History of public health disasters

• Life in cities throughout the middle

ages up until the Industrial
Revolution wasn’t easy.
• Great Rivers such as Thames and
Cam, were open sewers.
• The Black Death
• The Great Stink

• 1850s – Great Sanitary Awakening

Course outline Assessment system
Week Topic Relative grading
1 Introduction to PHE Theoretical 70%
2 Water demand and sources
Assignments 05%
3 Water pollution
4 Measurement of water quality
Quizzes 10%
5 Water supply and distribution network OHT Exams 20%
6 Water treatment systems Projects 05%
7 Wastewater collection
End semester exam 30%
8 Wastewater treatment
Practical 30%
9 Solid waste management
10 Reuse, recycling and resource recovery
11 Hazardous waste
Textbook:
• Water Supply and Sewerage by E. W. Steel, McGraw Hill
12 Meteorology and air pollution
13 Air pollution control
14 Noise pollution
Reference Material:
• Environmental Engineering (4th Edition) by Ruth F. Weiner
15 Environmental impact assessment
and Robin Mattews
16 Project
• Handouts
Defining public health
What?
The application of engineering for protection of human health and
environment
Why?
To mitigate and prevent spread of communicable diseases and to limit
the threat of anthropogenic and natural hazards
How?
By examining characteristics of pollutants and applying appropriate
control strategies
Some water, sanitation and health numbers

• Fecal-oral
• Diarrhoeal disease
• 2 million deaths/year from diarrhoea, mostly under 5
• Jumbo jet crash every hour and a half…
• One billion cases/year
• 1/3 of developing world population carry intestinal worms
• 200 million infected by schistosomiasis (bilharzia)
• 6-9 million blind from trachoma (1/4 reduced by
adequate water supply)
Natural chemical hazards
• Arsenic
• Skin lesions, various cancers
• “20 to 60” million exposed in Bangladesh
• Major problem other parts of S. Asia, also Argentina, Chile, China, Hungary,
Mexico, Peru
• Fluorosis
• Dental damage, crippling bone damage
• “affects millions” (WHO) but often of mild form
Pollution
• Pollution is killing more people every year than wars, disasters and
hunger [US EPA]
• More than smoking, hunger or natural disasters…
• More than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined…
• 92% of these deaths occur in developing countries.
• Nine million premature deaths in 2015.
• Costs $4.6 trillion in annual losses.
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10
Air pollution in Pakistan
• 22,600 adult deaths in 2005 were caused in some way by urban air
pollution.
• Outdoor air pollution alone causes more than 80,000 hospital
admissions per year;
• nearly 8,000 cases of chronic bronchitis, and
• almost 5 million cases of lower respiratory cases in children under the
age of five
• The number of vehicles in Pakistan has increased from around 2
million to 10.6 million over the last 20 years

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Water pollution in Pakistan
• around 62 percent of Pakistan’s urban and 84 percent of its rural
population do not treat their water,
• resulting in 100 million cases of diarrheal diseases registered in
hospitals,
• with 40 percent of deaths attributed to drinking polluted water.
• 250,000 child deaths occur each year in Pakistan due to water-borne
diseases
• 20-40 percent of the hospital beds in Pakistan are occupied by
patients suffering from water-related diseases [UNICEF]

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• 3.5 million children more at risk after 2010 floods
• Financial loss: Rs 112 billion per year as water, sanitation and hygiene-
related diseases cost more than Rs. 300 million per day to treat
• SUGARCANE AND TANNERIES INDUSTRIES ARE THE WORST
POLLUTERS

13
Noise pollution in Pakistan
• Noise levels in Pakistan have reached critical levels with
• average noise values
• 76.5db being recorded in Karachi,
• 72.5 in Islamabad and
• 86 in Peshawar.
• in our major cities, the value is at least 10-20db above WHO criteria.

• Aircrafts are mostly old models, vehicles too.

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The F-diagram
Water supply

Fluids Hygiene
Sanitation

Fingers

Faeces Future Victim

Food

Flies

Fields/Floor
s
How people see their city
River &
Environs
City
Peri- Ward
domestic
Home
(street,
school,
work-
place)
An environmental view
Home

Peri-
domestic (street,school,
workplace)
Ward

City

Central Treatment
Works

Collectors

Street
Sewers
House
Connections
 A public health view
Street Sewer River &
Sewer Mains Environs
City
Peri- Ward
Interceptor/ domestic
Collector Home
House
Connection

Treatment
Plant/Outfall
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
• The process of calculating environmental impacts of a project is called
EIA.
• Every project is bound to have some impact on environmental quality.
• EIA is now legal requirement for most medium and large scale
projects in Pakistan and all over the world.
• Checklists are a tool to evaluate potential project impacts in a
simplistic way. Other tools include matrix, multiattribute analysis etc.
Environmental Assessment Checklist
0 = no impact
1 = minimal impact
2 = small impact
3 = moderate impact
4 = significant impact
5 = severe impact
Potential Impact = Importance x Magnitude
A landfill is to be built on a river floodplain.
Estimate potential impacts of the project.
• Potential Impacts Potential Impact =
• Groundwater contamination Importance x Magnitude
• Surface contamination
• Odor 0 = no impact
• Noise
• Jobs provided
1 = minimal impact
2 = small impact
3 = moderate impact
4 = significant impact
5 = severe impact
Risk Analysis
• One of the tasks of environmental engineers is to reduce risks from
hazardous environmental pollutants.
• Risk assessment process includes four main tasks:
• Identification of toxicant
• Scenarios for exposure to toxicant
• Characterization of health effects; and
• Estimation of risk probability
• Best available control techniques will still entail residual risk.