ASCE International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure 2014

For those of you who do engineering for infrastructure, the International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure is in Long Beach, California, November 6-8, 2014. It is hosted by ASCE.www.asce.org/icsi2014
This is the first international conference of its kind. The call for papers has closed.

Buzzwords from the program include: climate change, extreme events, risk, resiliency, adaptation, envision rating system. 

More from the program:

This conference is not about how to be sustainable. If it were, we would tell you not to waste your time. Instead, and more appropriately, this conference is about how to deal with the consequences of non-sustainability, that is, how to plan, design and construct infrastructure for a new and increasingly harsh operating environment. Today, engineers, academicians and other practitioners are facing difficult and unprecedented challenges in addressing a new reality for infrastructure design. Decade after decade of non-sustainable economic development is changing the environmental conditions under which infrastructure is supposed to operate. It is also changing the cost and availability of critical resources such as fresh water and energy. How we as engineers and scientists deal effectively with these changes is the most important challenge of the 21st century. This international conference is the first of its kind. We have brought together people from across the world; people who are building the knowledge base and developing the requisite policies and practices to handle the challenge of a changing operating environment. We designed the conference for practitioners, enabling them to engage with others, exchange ideas, and see the full spectrum of activities in infrastructure design for this new reality. 

You can also meet members of the Sustainability Committee of the Coasts, Oceans, Ports and Rivers Institute (COPRI) of ASCE. Contact Angie Lander at ASCE for more information on the committee.

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IABSE Symposium Call for Abstracts

The International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE) is hosting their 37th annual symposium on September 3-5, 2014 in Madrid, Spain. The conference will include a track on sustainable infrastructures. Abstracts are being accepted through November 30, 2013. More about the symposium is available online at IABSE.org.


The title for the 2014 symposium is "Engineering for Progress, Nature and People." Organizers have highlighted the following quote by Carlos Fernandez Casado to summarize an engineer's responsibility, "...in perfect union with Nature; however, we cannot forget our engineer goal of controlling it. Nevertheless, landscape beauty and its grandiosity get into contradiction with above attitude due to the fact that the engineer was taken over by nature, till the moment I learnt 'natura parendo vincitur', 'to get control of nature but obeying it.' The Engineer shall always love nature..."

Recommended by SEI-SC member: John Anderson

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Sustainable Infrastructure Update

The recently revived Infrastructure Working Group (IWG) strives to engage the structural engineering community outside of building designers in an effort to disseminate the fundamental concepts of sustainability that are applicable to all types of structures.

While the LEED rating system has pushed building designers to develop and apply their fundamental principles of sustainability, the lack of such a driver within the bridge, tunnel, dam, levee, and other industries has left a gap in the sustainability fundamentals of its engineers. The IWG is working to fill that gap by raising awareness about sustainability project rating systems such as Envision and Greenroads that are applicable to transportation and other non-building type structures.

Envision is a newly released system developed to help evaluate the sustainability of civil infrastructure. It was created by the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI) which was founded by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC), and the American Public Works Association (APWA). The rating system uses a holistic approach to educate owners and project teams on the aspects of sustainability and offers guidance on how to ensure each aspect receives due consideration. Projects are evaluated based on 55 credits within 5 categories: Quality of Life, Leadership, Resource Allocation, Natural World, and Climate and Risk.

More information about Envision and ISI can be found at www.sustainableinfrastructure.org/index.cfm

Post submitted by committee member Marty Chorkey.

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Infrastrucutre

The Infrastructure Working Group (IWG) primarily addresses transportation structures including bridges and tunnels. IWG supports the development and use of rating systems, codes, and standards that encourage and quantify sustainability and green design/construction/maintenance.  The objectives of the Infrastructure Working Group are: 

1. Advocate for the acceptance of green/sustainability project rating systems within the bridge and tunnel industries.
2. Monitor, comment on, and engage with the various emerging sustainability project rating systems that apply to infrastructure, including Envision and Greenroads.
3. Collect case study examples of sustainable infrastructure best practices that have been successfully implemented.

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