AASHE Campus Sustainability Hub

Civil engineering infrastructure is the backbone upon which society is built. Civil engineers design the infrastructure that forms urban centers, including buildings, bridges, roads and other transportation networks, hydraulic infrastructure such as canals and pipe networks, water and wastewater treatment plants, and waste management facilities. Civil engineers are responsible for ensuring that this infrastructure is resilient to natural and anthropogenic hazards, including floods, earthquakes, and terrorist attacks. Given recent climate change and geopolitics, the risk imposed by such hazards is increasing, resulting in the need for stronger infrastructure with greater capacity. At the same time, construction, operation, and maintenance of this infrastructure consumes vast quantities of natural resources and energy, and industrial expansion of urbanity across the planet has degraded the biosphere and changed the atmosphere. The sustainability of society depends on innovative infrastructure design solutions that minimize resource and energy use. More resilient infrastructure may have longer design life, which improves sustainability, but may also consume more resources. Design of resilient yet sustainable infrastructure is an existential challenge for civil engineers.