General Overview:

Studies and develops policies and plans for the control of factors which may produce pollution, imbalance or degradation of the environment.

Tasks Include:

• studies the effects on animal and plant life of such factors as terrain, altitude, climatic conditions, sources of nutrition, and predators
• investigates the structure of communities of organisms and predicts the effects of disturbances by human or environmental changes
• plans and conducts field trips to study animals and plants in their natural environments and collect specimens for laboratory studies
• studies and analyses pollution, atmospheric conditions, demographic characteristics, ecology, mineral, soil and water samples
• prepares graphs, charts and statistics from data, analyses data and correlates them with the work of other scientists, evaluates data and prepares reports of conclusions
• develops and tests models of the environment using knowledge of ecology, mathematics, statistics and physical sciences
• develops conservation or harvesting policies for management of biological resources such as fish populations and forests
• assesses pollution problems, establishes standards and develops approaches for the control of pollution and the rehabilitation of areas disturbed by activities such as mining, timber felling or overgrazing
• may prepare environmental impact studies of activities such as mining, building and housing