Teaching and Research Facilities

Air quality, water quality, and ecological engineering laboratories are located primarily in O'Brien Hall. The campus laboratories for research and teaching are configured for organic and inorganic chemical analysis in air, water, and soils; process analysis for aerosol dynamics; microbial and molecular biological analysis of soils, waters and sludges; biological kinetics; photochemical reactions; mass transfer rates in porous media; and computational facilities to support environmental transport and fate modeling. UC Richmond Field Station and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory facilities include mesocosms and experimental wetlands as well as extensive facilities for air quality, water quality, and environmental microbiology research.

Fluid mechanics laboratories in O'Brien Hall are equipped for experimental work in general fluid mechanics, granular flow, water-sediment interactions, surface and groundwater hydrology, hydraulic structures, wave hydrodynamics, and sediment transport.  Additional experimental facilities are available at the Richmond Field Station. Available facilities include flumes for estuary studies, a large model basin for studies of harbors, river restoration, and related problems, wind-wave channels, and flumes for stratified flow and debris flow studies.  Computational laboratories for hydrology are located in Davis Hall and are configured for manipulation and visualization of large data sets from surface and subsurface hydrologic investigations.

O'Brien Hall is also home to the Fluid Mechanics Instructional Work Station. The hands on opportunity provides a compelling and lasting perspective of the realities of fluid flow, aspects that are missing from books and computers. The Work Station features an open and self-contained design. The facility has a large table foot print and its own regulated water supply. There is extensive use of transparent materials, so that almost the entire water flow path is visible to the students. The Work Station can be operated in six independent modes, which demonstrate the principles of mass conservation, energy conservation, momentum conservation, pipe friction, flow-induced force and open channel flow.

The Berkeley campus is home to the largest academic library in the western United States. The Environmental Engineering program also makes extensive use of the 100,000-title Water Resources Archives, a specialized branch of the University of California library system housed in O'Brien Hall, which is devoted to Western United States water issues.