• 1902 Waseda University is established.
• 1909 The Department of Science and Engineering, including the Department of Machinery and the Department of Electricity is founded.
• 1943 The Department of Civil Engineering is founded in the School of Science and Engineering.
• 1963 The School of Science and Engineering moves to the Nishi-Okubo Campus.
• 2003 The Department of Civil Engineering is renamed as the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
• 2007 Reorganized into three undergraduate/graduate schools of Fundamental Science and Engineering, Creative Science and Engineering, and Advanced Science and Engineering.
• 2013 70th anniversary of Waseda’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

The Department of Civil and Environment Engineering had its start in 1943 as the Department of Civil Engineering, the ninth department of the School of Science and Engineering of Waseda University. When the Department of Science and Engineering, the predecessor of the School of Science and Engineering, was founded in 1909, its memorandum of intent mentioned the Department of Civil Engineering as one of the six departments to be newly established in the future. This department was founded in September 1943 during World War II — 34 years behind schedule.
Professor Takeshi Kusama was appointed as the head of the department, which was staffed by five other full-time teachers and three part-time instructors. In its first academic year, 31 students were admitted to the Department of Civil Engineering. Waseda University was the sixth Japanese university to establish a civil engineering department and the second private university to do so. In 1945, shortly after the department’s founding, Japan was defeated in World War II. Then at the beginning of the academic year in April 1946, the department began operating on a full-scale basis and Dr. Kusuo Aoki was appointed as a full-time professor. Under the leadership of professor Aoki, who was appointed as head of the department, the teaching staff maintained their unity in laying the groundwork for the Department of Civil Engineering of Waseda University.

The department’s first 20 years — during which time all the professors who had played a leading role in the department since its founding retired — could be described as its first phase. The following 30-year period — when professors who had been trained and developed by the department played a leading role in the department — was the second phase.
In April 2003, the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Department of Civil Engineering, the department was renamed the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
The fields of research conducted by the department are classified into structural engineering, hydraulic engineering, city planning and geotechnical engineering. The following professors had been supporting the field of civil engineering at Waseda University.

Structural engineering:
Kusuo Aoki (bridge engineering), Hirotomo Murakami (applied mechanics), Masaharu Hirashima (structural mechanics), Susumu Kamiyama (concrete engineering), Kenichiro Horii (bridge engineering) and Fukashi Miyahara (structural analysis), Hiroshi Seki (concrete engineering), Teruhiko Yoda (structural mechanics), Atsushi Koizumi (structural engineering), Osamu Kiyomiya (structural design),
Hydraulic engineering:
Isamu Kusama (waterworks and wastewater management), Takusuke Yonemoto (river engineering), Shuzo Yoneya (hydroelectric power generation engineering), Hideo Sajima (port and harbor engineering), Hideo Kikkawa (river and hydraulic engineering), Ikuo Endo (water pollution control engineering), Noboru Sukegawa (hydraulic engineering)
City planning:
Eiyo Ishikawa (city planning), Tatsuo Matsui (city planning), Zenichi Otsuka (city planning). Mitsuyuki Asano (transportation planning), Yoshihide Nakagawa (city planning)
Geotechnical engineering:
Shoji Goto (soil mechanics), Goro Kubota (soil engineering), Akira Mori (geotechnical engineering), Masanori Hamada (earthquake and geotechnical engineering)
Transportation:
Ichiro Hirose (railway engineering), Naoyoshi Hyodo (road engineering) and Masanori Numata (railway engineering)

Since the name of the department was changed to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in April 2003, it now consists of 12 laboratories in three divisions: Infrastructure Engineering, Environment and Disaster Prevention , Planning and Management.