Guide to Urban Engineering

Spotter’s guides traditionally focus on the natural world but if we are to understand the modern landscape it is vital to recognise its manmade features. Guide to Urban Engineering provides non-specialist readers with an introduction to the technology that underpins modern life. It is a useful identification tool to the anonymous blocks, unremarkable roads, and often disregarded features of our urban, suburban and rural landscapes. The book is divided into five main areas of infrastructure: Raw materials (including mining, agriculture, waterworks); Power (including electricity grids, power stations, oil and gas extraction and renewable energies); Transport (railways, roads, canals, aviation); Telecommunications (including telephony, radio and television, digital and satellite technology); and Waste (including sewers, industrial waste management, recycling). Each chapter fully explores the various engineering features and structures, detailing what they are, what they do, how they do it, and, most importantly, how to identify them.