Subject Guide for Environmental Engineering

The development of processes and infrastructure for the supply of water, the disposal of waste, and the control of pollution of all kinds. These endeavors protect public health by preventing disease transmission, and they preserve the quality of the environment by averting the contamination and degradation of air, water, and land resources. Environmental engineering is a field of broad scope that draws on such disciplines as chemistry, ecology, geology, hydraulics, hydrology, microbiology, economics, and mathematics. (Encyclopedia Britannica)

CU = Resources marked with this symbol are available in campus libraries and to students, staff, and faculty via the campus network. Use of these resources is subject to terms of use for electronic resources. Off-campus access information.

Abstracts and Indexes to Academic or Scholarly Articles

Although many databases contain links to full-text articles, when you find book or article citations in the index databases, you need to search Chinook to see if University Libraries own that book or periodical title.

CU ASCE Research Library
The Research Library provides access to more than 33,000 full-text papers from ASCE Journals and Proceedings. Coverage: varies.

 

In addition, the ASCE Civil Engineering Database indexes and abstracts all ASCE publications, including journals, conference proceedings, books, standards, manuals, magazines, and newspapers back to 1970. When available, this Database links to the full-text in the Research Library. The handout below explains how to search and find full-text from the CE Database.

Handout: ASCE Database Overview

CU Biological Abstracts
A comprehensive index and abstract for the life sciences. Use this database to research environmental issues relating to plants, animals, microorganisms, and natural habits. Coverage: 1969 - present.

CU Biological Sciences--Cambridge Scientific Abstracts
An index and abstract service for biological sciences. Use this database to research topics in ecology and other topics. Coverage: 1982 - present.

CU Engineering Village 2—Compendex, INSPEC, and NTIS
Compendex is a comprehensive bibliographic database of engineering research literature. Contains references and abstracts to engineering journals, conferences and technical reports. Subject areas include: chemical and process engineering, computers and data processing, applied physics, electronics and communications as well as civil and mechanical engineering. Includes links to full text when available. Coverage: 1884 - present.

INSPEC is a bibliographic database that indexes physics, astronomy and astrophysics, electrical engineering and electronics, computers and control engineering and information technology. The database contains full-text links when available. Coverage: 1898 - present.

The National Technical Information Service (NTIS) database from the U.S. Department of Commerce provides access to unclassified reports from influential U.S. and international government agencies. The database contains over two million critical citations from government departments such as NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Defense. Most items cited in this database are available in microfiche format in the Government Publications Library. Coverage: 1964-present. 

Video Tutorial: "EV2 RSS Feeds in RefWorks" (1:20)

 

CU Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management + EIS Digests
The CSA Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management (ESPM) database offers access to the international literature in the environmental sciences. Abstracts and citations are drawn from over 6000 serials including scientific journals, conference proceedings, reports, monographs, books and government publications. Coverage varies.

 

EIS extracts the key issues from complex government-released environmental impact statements, converting massive documents into concise, readable abstracts. Each entry includes a clear description of the project, sections on positive impact and negative consequences, and legal mandates. EIS Digests are 1985-current.

CU GeoRef--Cambridge Scientific Abstracts
GeoRef is a bibliographic database that indexes geosciences, including geology, geophysics, geochemistry, paleontology, hydrogeology, hydrology, and mineralogy. The database contains over 2.1 million references to geoscience journal articles, books, maps, conference papers, reports and theses. The database contains full-text links when available. Use this database to research environmental issues in the earth sciences. Coverage: 1789 - present.

CU Meteorological and Geoastrophysical Abstracts (MGA)--Cambridge Scientific Abstracts
An index and abstract to literature on meteorology, climatology, atmospheric chemistry and physics, astrophysics, hydrology, glaciology, physical oceanography and environmental sciences. Coverage: 1974 - present.

PubMed: Medline
A bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts articles on all aspects of medicine, including dentistry and nursing. Use this database to research the health implications of environmental issues. Coverage: 1965 - present.

 

SciFinder Scholar
Software is available for download here.

The front-end software is also available in the Engineering, Earth Sciences, Math/Physics and Science Libraries. SciFinder Scholar provides access to journal articles and patents, substance data, chemical reactions, chemical regulatory data , and chemical suppliers. It includes journal articles, book chapters, patents, conference proceedings, technical reports, substance database and dissertations covered in Chemical Abstracts as well as articles currently being indexed, book reviews and biographical information. Coverage: 1907-present.

 

Scitopia

This federated vertical search portal was created through the collaboration of 15 leading science and technology societies. It searches the entire electronic libraries of these societies, including more than three million documents, peer-reviewed journal content and technical conference papers, spanning 150 years of science and technology can be searched through the site. Though the search is freely available, access to many documents requries authentication. Coverage varies.

 

CU SPIE Digital Library

Provides full text of articles published in the Proceedings of the SPIE and the society's journals from 1990 to the present.

CU Web of Science
Provides access to current and retrospective bibliographic information, author abstracts, and cited references found in 5,700 of the world's leading scholarly science and technical journals covering more than 164 disciplines. The database allows you to search for specific articles by subject, author, journal, and/or author address. Because the information stored about each article includes the article's cited reference list (often called its bibliography) the database is often used to search for articlesthat cite a known author or work. Coverage: 1900 - present.

Video Tutorial: "Web of Science: An Overview"

Abstracts and Indexes to Magazine & Newspaper Articles
Although many databases contain links to full-text articles, when you find book or article citations in the index databases, you need to search Chinook to see if University Libraries own that book or periodical title.

CU Applied Science and Technology Index
Indexes trade and industrial publications, journals issued by professional and technical societies, and specialized subject periodicals, as well as special issues such as buyers' guides, directories, and conference proceedings. Coverage: 1983 - present.

CU General Science Abstracts/Full Text
Abstracts popular and scholarly journals in the fields of Astronomy, Atmospheric Science, Biology, Botany, Chemistry, Conservation, Earth Science, Environment, Food, Genetics, Health, Mathematics, Medicine, Microbiology, Nutrition, Oceanography, Physics, Physiology, and Zoology. Coverage: May 1984 - present.

Dictionaries
These publications provide background information, definitions and explanations of terms.

Dictionary of Environmental Science and Technology
Engineering Library Reference TD 169.3 P67 1991

 

Facts on File Dictionary of Environmental Science
Engineering Library Reference TD 9 W95 2001

CU Scientific and Technical Acronyms, Symbols, and Abbreviations

Directories

Scholarly Societies--Environmental Sciences

Encyclopedias
These publications provide background information, definitions and explanations of terms.

 

CU Access Science: McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia Of Science & Technology

CU Alternative Energy

 

CU Beacham's Guide to the Endangered Species of North America

 

Encyclopedia of Environmental Analysis and Remediation
Earth Sciences Library Reference GE10 E49 1998

Encyclopedia of Environmental Pollution and Cleanup
Engineering Library Reference TD173 E53 1999

 

CU Encyclopedia of the Atmospheric Sciences

 

CU Pollution A to Z

 

CU Water: Science and Issues

 

CU Water Encyclopedia

 

Wiley Encyclopedia of Energy and the Environment
Engineering Library Reference TJ 163.235 M55 1997

Handbooks and Manuals

CU ChemNetBase--CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics and other tools available online.

 

CU EnviroNetBase--over 200CRC handbooks online.

CU Knovel Library --Combines essential and authoritative reference books and databases from more than 30 Sci-Tech publishers and professional societies including, McGraw Hill, John Wiley, Elsevier, Springer, Industrial Press, American Institute of Chemical Engineers and American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Covers 17 industrially important subject areas in the fields of Chemistry and the Life Sciences; Materials; and Engineering.

Internet Links

Environmental Resources on the Internet--Center for Environmental Journalism/University Libraries

InfoMine Scholarly Internet Resource Collections: Physical Sciences, Engineering, Computing and Math

 

Intute: Science, Engineering and Technology

 

Science.gov

 

National Library for the Environment

 

Scitopia

This federated vertical search portal was created through the collaboration of 15 leading science and technology societies.

CU Refworks
A Web-based bibliography and database manager that allows you to create your own personal database by importing references from text files or online databases. You can use these references in writing papers and automatically format the paper and the bibliography in seconds.

Short Video: "EV2 RSS Feeds in RefWorks" (1:20)