[The Grammarian]

Urban Planning, as in "Planning", is just another branch of Architecture. That, BTW, is a complete set of knowledge, just like engineering, or arts & sciences. "Environmental Management", as it is euphemistically known, has a place in Planning. Nothing like a town that has no plans in place to deal with garbage, trash and abandoned cars and industrial sites.

Exactly my point, on urban planning. As for the environmental sciences grad, she wasn't going into environmental sciences as a career field. She was looking into geographic information systems--which is not exactly a "fluff" field either.

They are the ones who draw up maps of cities and counties for emergency services and the like, to show "best/quickest routes" for fire/ambulance/police first-responders.

They also do disaster evacuation planning for cities and counties. My in-laws do this for Pierce County in Washington state. During flood season, they've had to draw up computer models for how the area is likely to flood, and show the best routes for evacuation should the river in the area exceed its banks by X amount.

[muawiyah]

"They" should have been doing that for Arkansas in the vicinity of Mt. Nebo. Someone probably forgot that just because a park camping area is very near a lake that doesn't mean a flash flood can't come out of the nearby "fronts" and destroy all before it.

16 dead and 20 missing and it's dollars to doughnuts the flood danger areas hadn't been marked in 21 years.