Department of Environmental Civil Engineering

The Department of Environmental Civil Engineering is located at Hajdrihova 28. The building also houses the Institute for Hydraulic Research, with which we have a prolifi cooperation. Teaching is our primary mission – we offer 1st and 2nd cycle programmes Water Science and Environmental Engineering. We educate engineers for the challenges of the future; we give them a wealth of technical knowledge, built on the understanding of natural and social processes. In our time only interdisciplinary approaches can lead to solutions of increasingly complex engineering problems: flood and drought management, safe drinking water supply, wastewater treatment with latest technologies, low carbon energy production, efficient management of secondary materials and establishment of environmental technologies that enable planning and building the settlements of the future.

In order to teach, you first have to know. We are therefore actively involved in research work, where we cooperate with other departments of the Faculty, other faculties of the University of Ljubljana and numerous institutes and universities in Slovenia and abroad. Our research work involves important new achievements in the basic areas of fluid mechanics, hydrology and hydraulics and in highly specialised areas of hydraulic engineering, state-of-the-art wastewater treatment, green energy, pollutant and heat transport in the environment and the studies of global and local climate change.

Collaboration with industry is another important part of our activities. We believe only constant contact with practice can elucidate what society needs and what knowledge is required to successfully take on the global and local challenges now and in the future. The Department of Environmental Civil Engineering is more than the sum of its parts. The employees and students are aware of their responsibilities and opportunities offered by the challenges of today and strive for excellence in their work.

At the Department of Environmental Civil Engineering we offer 1st and 2nd cycle programmes Water Science and Environmental Engineering. The study at the Department is contemporary and interdisciplinary. We successfully fill the gap between numerous programmes of the University of Ljubljana that focus either on natural sciences or on engineering. The study programme offers a wide expanse of knowledge and problem comprehension even at the first cycle level. The second cycle provides a more in-depth understanding and specialisation in different areas of water management. We give our students expert knowledge for solving current and future problems such as floods droughts, food supply, water pollution, disposal and recycling of waste, etc. In this way the Faculty provides an integrated and modern study programme of the engineering aspects of environment protection and gives an important contribution to the store on knowledge for the third millennium. The beginnings date in the year 1998, when the study was founded under the name Water Management and Municipal Engineering. In the academic year 1998/99 we enrolled the first generation of students, who by today have successfully embarked their careers and have paved the way for further generations of graduates. We follow our graduates also after their graduation and the latest analyses of gathered data show that even in these difficult times unemployment levels are very low among our graduates. Job opportunities for our students can be found in a wide array of public, water management, design engineer and construction companies, institutions and institutes across Slovenia and in some cases abroad, where our students are highly successful and valued.

Altogether in each academic year we have between 100 and 150 students enrolled in our two study programmes. This relatively low number of students is one of the main advantages of this programme, since it enables work in smaller groups and a much more personalised relationship between teachers and students, which is one of the things the Department is well known for among the students of our Faculty. Teaching takes place in a modern way and with advanced technology. The students have access to the departmental library, state-of-the-art laboratory and measurement equipment, as well as computerised virtual classroom and administration systems. With group, project, laboratory and fieldwork and solving concrete problems and case studies, we provide students with practical knowledge and skills. This is also evident in the fact that in the last two years, under the mentorship of our professors and in cooperation with different companies, our students were involved in six different projects under the joint name “Creative Path to Practical Knowledge” and were all very successful. One of the project groups prepared a conceptual project of a standing wave for surfing on the river Sava. They are currently negotiating the implementation of their idea. Among other skills obtained by students in our institution is also public speaking in front of expert and lay public and business transaction skills with clients in administrative procedures, public tenders and building and measure planning. The aim of the programmes is also to familiarise the students with the basic engineering expertise to an extent that the graduates can successfully continue their second and third cycle studies on other programmes. It is therefore not surprising that our graduates receive numerous awards and prizes, e.g. the Prešeren award, Pomurska research award, Goljevšček award, Saubermacher award, etc. So far, more than 15 theses have received prizes. Our programme is interdisciplinary and therefore includes many teaching staff from other faculties of the University of Ljubljana (Biotechnical, Philosophical, Economic Faculty and Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology) and our teachers also participate in the study programmes of other faculties. International cooperation includes inter-university student and teaching staff exchange, but it is not limited only to that. We are actively involved in the international study programme of floodrisk management with foreign universities (Dresden, Barcelona and Delft). Modernisation and internationalisation of study programmes also requires parallel course execution in English, a feature the Department is currently preparing for.

“Water is the main driver for the development of our societies. At the same time, water is one of the most threatened resources by climate change and our unsustainable economic development. The mission of our department is to educate engineers that will be capable of preserving our water resources and facilitate a sustainable development of societies. Water is a common point of many disciplines, thus our graduates are capable of interdisciplinary thinking and wider understanding of environmental processes, providing at the same time engineering solutions for water related problems. The increasing awareness of the consequences of climate change, i.e. extreme rain events, floods and droughts, is making this knowledge indispensable for sustainable future.”

izr. prof. dr. Nataša Atanasova

Head of Department of Environmental Civil Engineering, UL FGG

Chairs within the Department of Environmental Civil Engineering:

Od študijskega leta 2009/10 delujejo na Oddelku za okoljsko gradbeništvo tri pedagoško-raziskovalne enote, ki so prej delovale znotraj Oddelka za gradbeništvo. Vse tri uporabljajo pri izobraževalnem in raziskovalnem ter strokovnem delu za eksperimentalne laboratorijske preiskave skupni Hidrotehniški laboratorij (HTL). Inštitut za zdravstveno hidrotehniko in Katedra za mehaniko tekočin z laboratorijem se povezujeta v raziskovalni Vodnogospodarski Inštitut (VGI).

Študij Vodarstva in komunalnega inženirstva

Priprave na študij Vodarstva in komunalnega inženirstva so se začele v zgodnjih devetdesetih letih. Program je bil sestavljen iz usmeritvenih predmetov takratne hidrotehnične, komunalne in prometne smeri, dodane so bile nove interdisciplinarne vsebine predmetov, ki so jih pripravili predavatelji z drugih fakultet. Univerzitetni študijski program Vodarstvo in komunalno inženirstvo se je začel izvajati s študijskem letom 1998/99. Do konca študijskega leta 2011/12 je diplomiralo 192 študentov in pridobilo strokovni naslov “univerzitetni diplomirani inženir vodarstva in komunalnega inženirstva”.

Leta 1995 je bil na Univerzi v Ljubljani organiziran interdisciplinarni podiplomski študij varstva okolja (IPŠVO). Pri izvajanju so s posebnimi sklopi predmetov sodelovale številne fakultete. Študentje so se vpisovali na vsaki članici univerze posebej, skupna so bila samo nekatera predavanja. Sedež študija, ki se je kasneje preoblikoval v univerzitetni podiplomski študij varstva okolja (UPŠVO), je bil na FAGG. Do septembra 2009 je na IPŠVO magistriralo sedem kandidatov, na UPŠVO pa en študent. Na univerzitetnem podiplomskem študiju Varstva okolja pa sta do danes doktorirala dva kandidata z UL FGG.

Fakulteta je leta 2007 akreditirala prenovljeni »bolonjski« študijski program – prvostopenjski univerzitetni program Vodarstvo in komunalno inženirstvo, ki ga je že začela izvajati v študijskem letu 2009/10, leta 2009 pa drugostopenjski magistrski študijski program Okoljsko gradbeništvo. Leta 2013 se je prvostopenjski študij preimenoval v Vodarstvo in okoljsko inženirstvo.

S prenovo študija na Univerzi v Ljubljani se je prenovil tudi UPŠVO in prerasel v interdisciplinarni doktorski študijski program VARSTVO OKOLJA, kamor se je v študijskem letu 2009/10 vpisala prva generacija študentov. Vpis na ta študij izvaja UL FGG.