The interdisciplinary field of environmental science draws on ecology, geology, meteorology, biology, chemistry, engineering, and physics in its integrated study of the environment. Typically, the quantitative approach of environmental science is considered separate from environmental studies, which emphasizes the human relationship with the environment and the social and political dimensions thereof, though both fields overlap and codevelop, and their correlating university programs frequently share faculty and other resources. While environmental studies and environmental science both deal with, for instance, the problem of climate change, environmental studies would focus on the economic and political dimensions of international climate change protocols, while environmental science would quantify the effects of climate change, construct climate change models, and evaluate means of mitigation.

Though the study of the environment is as ...