Civil engineering

Civil engineering is a broad field of engineering dealing with the planning, design, construction, maintenance and management of physical infrastructure networks. This includes fixed structures, or public works, as they are related to earth, water, or civilization and their processes. Most civil engineering today deals with power plants, bridges, roads, railways, structures, water supply, irrigation, the natural environment, sewer, flood control, transportation and traffic.

Engineering has developed from observations of the ways natural and constructed systems react and from the development of empirical equations that provide bases for design. Civil engineering is the broadest of the engineering fields, partly because it is the oldest of all engineering fields. In fact, engineering was once divided into only two fields—military and civil. Civil engineering was defined to distinguish it from military engineering. Within the United States, some federal government funding and organization is still part of the United States Army as the Corps of Engineers. Civil engineering is still an umbrella term, comprised of many related specialties.