Environmental Engineering

Environmental engineering has never been more relevant than it is today. In the past 20 years, the field has moved from purely focusing on the technical and logistical side of waste disposal to encompass material recovery and circular economy. Innovative materials, integrated material and process flow analysis, as well as the involvement of energy sector issues, have brought environmental technology - once a niche sector perceived to be partly driven by ideology - into mainstream areas of the international economy. Germany is a global market leader in many areas of environmental engineering expertise. This status requires ongoing success at different levels: innovative and integrated technology, favourable legal and economic standards and, not least, high-quality German university education in environmental sciences.

The Environmental Engineering program with a Master of Science degree at the TU Hamburg is aimed at ambitious engineers in the fields of environmental engineering, water management, civil engineering and related disciplines.
The International Master Program in Environmental Engineering at the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) focuses on current developments in environmental technology, while also providing a solid grounding in the subject’s scientific and economic foundations. Students can specialise in one of three areas: "Energy and Resources", "Environment and Climate" as well as "Water Qualiy and Water Engineering".

Interdisciplinary considerations are essential to all subject areas. How can environmental pollution be reduced and valuable resources recovered at the same time? How does one measure the sustainability of a product or service? Which innovative technologies assure minimum energy use in production processes? Which environmental law constraints favour sustainable development? All these questions are relevant in the Environmental Engineering program.

Graduates of the Environmental Engineering program have a detailed understanding of key areas of environmental sciences. We train engineers who are able to transfer the engineering, mathematical and scientific knowledge they have acquired during their studies into practice, to analyze problems scientifically and to solve them, even if they are incompletely defined and have complex specifications. We emphasize the combination of specialized knowledge, technical and communication skills, and interdisciplinary, critical and solution-oriented thinking. In this way, the Environmental Engineering program creates the prerequisites for working on challenging projects, including the necessary economic and management skills.

Our program also opens up the possibility of a doctorate with a correspondingly good degree and creates the prerequisites for successful research work.

STRUCTURE

At the start of the Master’s program, all students take compulsory courses in environmental management, waste and wastewater treatment, fluid dynamics and hydrology, and environmental analytics. In the second semester, students can choose from a number of potential core areas. From the third semester, students develop a specialisation in one of the areas mentioned above ("Energy and Resources", "Environment and Climate", "Water Qualiy and Water Engineering"). In addition to course-specific modules, students also take non-technical classes in subjects such as business economics or foreign languages.