What is civil engineering?

Not many people know much about civil engineers and what they do. They might know that they build bridges and tall buildings but they rarely appreciate exactly how much our lives - and civilisation itself - depends on civil engineering. Much of it we think about - either because we can't see it, or because it works so well we take it for granted.

At the most basic level civil engineering is about providing people with clean water, shelter and sanitation. These things are fundamental to human life and arguably civil engineers have saved more lives than the medical profession.

...but it's more than just that. Civil engineering covers a huge array of disciplines as this video from the Institution of Civil Engineers shows.



You might be thinking, "but what has this got to do with timber?" Well quite a lot as it happens. Timber is one of the few renewable building materials and it becoming increasingly important for larger construction projects as well as for building homes. For this reason, civil engineering degrees are now more likely to include timber as well as steel and concrete (especially the courses we run at Napier). But civil engineering is also needed to create and maintain forests, to prepare the ground, ensure the right amount of water in the soil, and to provide access roads and bridges. In fact, if you've not watched the firrs DVD, you might be surprised to learn that the Forestry Commission employs civil engineers.

Social science

As well as the natural sciences, like biology, chemistry and physics, forestry involves the social sciences - the study of human behaviour and society. Forests provide many important benefits to people and communities.

Social forestry is the study of things like:

• How people interact with forests
• How foresters can improve engagement with local communities
• How forests support employment and rural economies
• How forests contribute to health and wellbeing

As a public body, the Forestry Commission has been particularly active in this area, but private forestry companies also make use of social forestry.

Forestry, timber and climate change

Forests and climate change are very closely linked, but in ways that are not generally well understood by the public. The science is complex and interconnected and often you hear only one side of the story. Fortunately the Forestry Commission has recently released a video that covers the subject in a very clear and balanced way. It also tackles a few widely believed myths too. I challenge you to watch it and see if it doesn't tell you something that surprises you.

The reality is that human impact on forests is both a problem and a solution - and that we need science to tell us what the consequences of our actions are. If you are thinking of a science or engineering based career that helps save the planet you couldn't do much better than working in the forestry and timber.

Forests are vast sinks of the greenhouse gas CO2 but they offer so much more - from renewable energy to low carbon building materials...just so long as they are sustainably managed. The challenge for foresters is to use science to understand both the effect of forestry on climate change ...and the effect of climate change on forestry.

You can download a high quality copy of the video at the Forestry Commission's website: http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-6umkar

Virtual forest tour

UPM's Forest Life is a really beautiful combination of Flash, still photography, video and audio. It takes you on a tour of a Finnish forest looking at trees, plants, animals and people. Find out about how forests are managed sustainably for different purposes and how there is much more to a forest than just the trees.

Careers in the timber industry

The UK's multipurpose forests provide environmentally friendly materials for all sorts of things and there are a vast array of different types of job out there.

For more information on jobs visit The Doorway and A Job In.

Chainsaw impersonation

Unbelievable but real...the Australian lyre bird can sing like a forester.

Deforestation and certification

This video from Greenpeace has a forceful message. It asks the question:

"Why destroy ancient forests for wood and paper, when it can all come from responsibly logged timber?"

Why indeed.

Well one reason this happens is that many people don't really understand how they can choose wood products that are environmentally sustainable - and come from properly managed forests. There is good wood and bad wood and we all need to understand the difference. Check out the certification schemes like FSC and look for the logos. Buying certified wood is a good thing...it encourages people to look after their forests.

Horses

Some of the UK's forests were created hundreds of years ago as places for the rich to ride their horses...and now anybody can do it.

There are several jobs involved in working with horses in the forest and maintaining the bridalways. For small tree harvesting operations and tree thinning it is often best to use the traditional methods of horse logging. Horse loggers can move up to 10 tonnes of timber in a day leaving hardly a trace, and making hardly a sound. The big shire horses work best on flat lowland forests, while forests with hills and steep banks require smaller, more agile, horses. Horses are also used to move materials and equipment and to control invasive weeds like brambles and bracken.

How trees are harvested

Think you know what a lumberjack is? A big guy with a beard, a checked shirt and an axe? Possibly saving girls in red hoods from wolves dressed as grandmothers? Well think again...

For starters the people (men and women) who take down the trees are called loggers or harvesters...and its all part of forest management, which also includes tree planting, silviculture, landscaping and a range of other 'forest operations'.

Technology has changed the job considerably from the days of yore. Chainsaws started to replace axes back in the 1920s, but these days most of the trees grown for timber in countries like the UK are felled by machines a bit like the ones you see on construction sites. These machines can cut a tree, strip the branches and cut the logs to length in a matter of seconds...plus they have a lot of other fancy gadgets too...like GPS to locate the trees marked for felling. Other types of specialised machines are used to get the logs to the road and on to the sawmills.

All this is done while causing minimum damage to the forest floor and to young trees. The forest owners don't want their future timber crops to be put at risk...or any income they get from other uses of the forests such as recreation and tourism.

In some areas the land is so inaccessible that other methods have to be used, such as horses and helicopters ...or even submarines and machines that walk on legs!

The story of a forest ranger

This is another film from the excellent Prelinger Archive. This one was made in 1954 and looks at the job of the forest ranger in the USA. Again, you might recognise parts we used for our own videos.

Notice how the forests are talked about as a resource...but also how emphasis is placed on sustainable forestry and protection of the environment...even back in the 50s! Notice also how they stress the importance of avoiding forest fires. Back then many people smoked and lots of fires were started accidentally. Forest fires are still a big issue...all over the world (the UK included).

Wood for war - wood for peace

Ironically, the fact that we now have so many well managed forests in the UK is down, in part, to two of the most destructive events of the 20th Century: the two world wars.

During the First World War (1914 to 1918) Britain had great difficulty meeting the demands on timber - particularly for coal production and trench warfare. Britain's forests had been on the decline since medieval times and had been put under enormous pressure by the industrial revolution. Timber had been imported in large quantities for hundreds of years, but the war meant this supply was no longer reliable.

In 1919 the Forestry Commission was created and charged with reforesting the country with the help of private foresters. The idea was to improve the productivity of the forests and to create a large reserve of wood that could be called on in times of emergency.

Such a time came only a couple of decades later with the Second World War (1939-1945). During the war, the Commission's forests produced nearly one and a half million cubic meters of wood and nearly ten times more came from private estates.

These were times of great social change too. The 'lumberjills' were the forestry equivalent of the land army girls, but they weren't just felling trees - they were planting too...and the forests have been growing in size ever since.

Over the last 40 years or so the Forestry Commission has included conservation, ecology, recreation and tourism within it's objectives...and that's why we have today's multipurpose forests.

This is a video from the Prelinger Archive that was made during the Second World War looking at the same things from the American perspective. You might recognise parts we used in our videos.

Mountain biking

Have you watched our videos about Forestry Civil Engineering? Well this is one of the benefits of the work they do - mountain biking trails! Forests are very important to recreation, heath and tourism as well as being 'factories' for growing wood. If you live in Scotland check out 7stanes.