Sustainability of Civil Infrastructure Systems: The Past, the Present, and the Way Forward

With the turn of the last two decades, sustainability has become a watch word, taking on global dimensions and significance. The concept of sustainability - which calls for a paradigm shift in the status quo of development - has grown to influence core human values encompassing significant attributes such as the physical, economic, and social survival of the human race. Civil infrastructure systems are not left out in this evolution, and stakeholders have drawn attention to the need to design, construct, and manage infrastructure efficiently so as to obtain maximum return on investment in light of increasing demand, dwindling resources, and continued infrastructure deterioration. As a result, different stakeholders have instituted their own ideas about sustainability and how it can be realized for civil infrastructure. Inasmuch as this has helped to broaden the concept of sustainability, it has also created a very fragmented field. This article examines the progression of various sustainable actions and initiatives in the field of highway infrastructure and how these individual entities could be synchronized to standardize developments in the provision of sustainable highway infrastructure.