Ecological engineering focuses on integrating human activities into the natural environment to the benefit of both.
Ecological engineers emphasize ecological diversity, resilience, and adaptation to maintain sustainability and balance. Their aim is to simultaneously sustain human activities and protect the world in which they occur.
They engage in many activities geared to help humans flourish within the natural world, such as restoring rivers and wetlands, improving agricultural water quality, rehabilitating abandoned mines, addressing climate change, designing sustainable industrial and agricultural systems, and recharging aquifers.
As a collaboration between the College of Engineering and the College of Agriculture, Oregon State's ecological engineering program is the first of its kind nationally. The curriculum blends a mix of disciplines and offers greater academic diversity and freedom than conventional branches of engineering. Class sizes are also smaller than most engineering disciplines. A degree in ecological engineering prepares graduates to analyze and solve the complex problems that occur at the interface between humankind and the natural environment.