In 1970 departments were created, as a result of the university reform implemented by USP. This was established by the relevant areas: Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural Mechanics and Topography and Roads. Then forming the Department of Rural Engineering.
Since the inception the Department of Rural Engineering has increased their work areas. And from May 2009, further expands its operations with the transference of eight teachers, of all human infrastructure and graduation disciplines of Agro-environment Physics and Meteorology area from the Math, Chemistry and Statistics Department.
Developments in areas of activity since its inception, expanded with the transfer. The Department of Rural Engineering has now a focused mission to the management of the study and control of water resources, hydraulic structures, storage products, processes transfer of matter and energy in soil, plant and atmosphere, the bioclimatology, rural ambience and buildings, agricultural mechanization, topography, geoprocessing and others, involving not only the strictly rural systems.
In addition to the rural border, there is the performance in planning studies of river basins, treatment and use of waste water, control of water use in parks and gardens, in the automation of machinery and implements, in geoprocessing applied to the study of landscapes, environmental monitoring and the use of tracking techniques.
With this mission, the name that best qualifies and identifies the Rural Engineering Department is "Department of Biosystems Engineering".
The Biosystems Engineering name, already established in most of the world's universities, is appropriate to define the current and future trends in the development of research, technology and education in this area with a view to integrating the areas related to Agricultural Engineering. Therefore expanding its scope of application, not only to land issues, but also the biological and environmental, ie environmental interface with society and the ecosystem.
