Environmental Planner

The job of Environmental Planner uses your background in planning and passion for environmental issues to help design parks, preserves, or housing divisions that have a reduced impact on their surroundings.

If the city builds a park, they consult Environmental Planners about the impact of traffic flow on the nearby duck pond. A company designing the new houses up the street wants advice on ways to incorporate run off into a nearby wetland. The school district wishes to add on an additional building, but wants to avoid damage to the nature preserve next door. In all of these situations, you, the Environmental Planner, deliver options to minimize the conflicts between humans and the environment.

Besides reviewing plans with concern to the environment, you also establish policies for future development of an area. To do this effectively, you understand planning and land-use laws. You also consider social, political and economic factors. Will the cost of the water treatment plant deter the company who is promising to deliver hundreds of jobs to the area? Do the citizens support a third bird sanctuary in the same part of town?

The term “environment” covers a broad range of topics. Any or all of which may be a consideration in your profession. Noise, air, water, and soil pollution, the impact of different types of transportation, water run-off, flood zones, and animal habitats name just a few. Your job is to work with Planners and developers of projects to find ways to balance man and nature.