Special Issue on Infrastructure in Developing Countries

This special issue of the Journal of Infrastructure Systems on infrastructure in developing countries was assembled from invited papers. The invitations were based on shorter papers submitted to the International Engineering Conference on Design and Innovation in Infrastructure held in Jordan in 2012. The special issue is edited by Professor Mohamad Hamdan, former Dean of Engineering at Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan, and his colleagues Professor Subhi Bazlamit, now the current dean, and Dr. Abdel Haleem Jalad. Authors come from six different countries—Iraq, Jordan, Malaysia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and the United States—reflecting a diversity of perspectives not typically seen in the Journal of Infrastructure Systems. Many thanks to the guest editors, authors, and reviewers for their time and perseverance.

The papers reflect the diverse infrastructure issues of interest in developing countries including the need for low cost sustainable solutions to resource constraints particularly energy, water, and materials, the challenges involved in analyzing structures that have not necessarily been engineered, and understanding the performance of a wide variety of infrastructure facilities and systems. The papers showcase research involving laboratory experiments, field trials, simulation, and analysis, and reflect interest in planning, design, construction, operations, and performance of infrastructure. The papers range in scope and application. They include the application of recent analysis methods ranging from the application of artificial neural networks to timely problems such as the performance of solar collectors (Hamdan et al.) and building materials (Abdelhafez et al.), to algorithms for alleviating transmission line overload (Abbas et al.), to the analysis of traffic operations using genetic algorithms (Abu-Lebdeh et al.). In contrast, traditional methods are used to analyze an emerging problem of failures in concrete shells (Al-Ani and Al-Amiri). New materials such as oil palm shells for flooring (Ng et al.) and new soil stabilization strategies (Mahasneh) are also addressed, and innovative methods for energy storage (Sakhrieh et al.), and water desalination (Badran and Jaradat), as well as alternative fuels (Janajreh and Al Shrah) are presented. However, the papers in this special issue are also a departure from the papers usually published in the Journal of Infrastructure Systems as the focus is on novel methods and analysis applied to more traditional infrastructure engineering problems rather than the crossdisciplinary papers focused on methodological advances in infrastructure systems.

This special issue also serves another purpose. From the initial proposal for the special issue to the final product, the development of the special issue provided an opportunity to introduce our review processes and procedures to guest editors, authors, and reviewers who we have not historically engaged with. We all have had much to learn from each other as we reviewed, revised, and re-reviewed papers as part of the process. It has been educational for us all. I hope the guest editors, authors, and reviewers have learned something about the rigor of the process, and I have learned a lot about the importance of communicating our expectations to participants that are new to publishing with ASCE. I also hope that this is an initial step in a journey in which we can share the results of our research and better understand the problems and results that are important to developing countries.