Engineering for Sustainable Communities: Principles and Practices

This introduction overviews the key concepts of the book, which provides the body of knowledge for sustainable engineering of the whole lifecycle of projects and infrastructure systems. The book is helpful for civil engineering practitioners, faculty, and students and for other disciplines concerned with planning, designing, constructing, operating, and maintaining infrastructure projects and systems. It provides overall perspective and historical background on the roles of engineers, infrastructure systems, and projects in making human civilization and communities sustainable and resilient. It also provides the body of knowledge relevant to specific aspects of sustainability and infrastructure systems and projects. The book presents case studies spanning various infrastructure types, including buildings, transportation networks, water resources, urban development, and industrial facilities.

This chapter presents ASCE’s definitions of sustainability and sustainable development and explains how these relate to engineering sustainable and resilient infrastructure projects, systems, and communities. The five capitals model—which comprises natural, human, social, manufactured, and financial capitals—illustrates how the built environment fits into sustainability. It shows how changes in the built environment (manufactured capital) can restore, sustain, or degrade other capitals. The production-consumption model illustrates the flows between manufactured (produced) capital and natural capital. The resilience of nations, communities, businesses, and infrastructure systems is a vital attribute of their sustainability. A recent study from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, entitled Community Resilience Planning Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems, is useful for planning for the resilience of infrastructure systems and the communities they serve.

This chapter focuses on global economic, social, and environmental sustainability through the lenses of the United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI), the biocapacity and ecological footprint, and the sustainability quadrant. The HDI summarizes average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, a satisfactory level of education, and a decent standard of living. The Inequality-Adjusted HDI accounts not only for the average health, education, and income achievements of a country, but also for their distribution among the population by “discounting” each dimension’s average value according to level of inequality. Ecological footprint measures the demand that human activity puts on the biosphere. Finally, the sustainability quadrant defines the social and economic goals and environmental limits of sustainability. Sustainable development moves countries toward the sustainability quadrant.

Advancements in engineering practices—especially in terms of infrastructure services—are key to achieving sustainability in both the developed and developing worlds. This chapter introduces evolving practices in financing and managing sustainable infrastructure and the need to link triple bottom line thinking with infrastructure objectives. This chapter extends the scope from sustainability in American infrastructure to a global perspective, discussing the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s (WBCSD’s) Vision 2050. Every infrastructure project now being developed will make an incremental contribution, positive or negative, to the sustainability of civilization. Because infrastructure now being developed will remain in service in 2030, 2050, and the next century, unless obsolescence requires abandonment and removal, each new and renovation project should seek conformance with the SDGs and WBCSD goals.

The built environment includes buildings of all types; facilities for communications, energy generation and distribution, industry, transportation of all modes, and waste treatment and water resources; and associated natural and virtual infrastructure. Humans rely on the built environment for shelter and support. Regrettably, urban environments are very effective at reducing water quality. A long-term objective of many city governments is to reduce reliance upon external sources of energy, water, and food, and correspondingly reduce the waste and emissions produced within the built environment. This proximity will reduce the negative impact of urban environments on the water cycle. Accomplishing these goals requires reconsidering the functions of the built environment. The provision of potable water, food, and clean air are ecosystem services provided by surrounding catchments that are modified within the urban environment.

The materials civil engineers use to build—steel, cement, stone, lumber, and petroleum products of all types—derive from the raw materials of the Earth and then make up the built environment. When considering the moral and ethical implications of doing the right project right, the basic definition of engineers is important: engineers are applied scientists—people who solve problems by using science. In the case of the civil engineer, problem solving addresses the wide range of activities related to humans and society. For civil engineers to accept this responsibility, they must accept that they are more than technicians who apply formalized techniques to solve technical problems. When considering problem-solving approaches, using and emphasizing the correct metrics is especially important in relation to sustainability objectives.

This chapter explains economic analysis tools (such as present value, cost-benefit, and lifecycle cost) that help determine the best investment opportunity for a project over the long term (complete lifecycle). These tools support planners, engineers, and others involved in infrastructure development with the types of decisions they typically encounter, including accept/reject evaluation of projects or alternatives, selection of optimal system size, selection of optimal combination of interdependent systems, and ranking of independent projects. Present value analysis—which is relatively easy to apply and suitable for many small and medium-size infrastructure projects—combines capital costs with the present value of all future operation and maintenance costs to compare investments. In cost-benefit analysis, the present value of benefits and the costs over the study period are computed. Lifecycle cost analysis sums all relevant project costs over a given study period in present-value terms.

Understanding that activities associated with built infrastructure can have environmental impacts is important. This chapter provides an overview of the greenhouse effect and quantitative tools (carbon footprint analysis and lifecycle assessment) to estimate such impacts. It explains the greenhouse effect—necessary background to the ongoing discussion on climate change. Climate change has directly or indirectly had global environmental impacts, both physical and ecological. Undertaking environmental assessment studies during site or project development can uncover and clarify local environmental impacts, which may provide opportunities to mitigate or minimize such impacts. Carbon footprint analysis and lifecycle assessment are common tools used in quantifying greenhouse gas emissions and other broader environmental impacts such as air pollutants, smog, ozone depletion, acidification, and eutrophication.

Quality of life (QOL) issues are becoming important parts of sustainability. Equal access to facilities and infrastructure systems that support QOL services, such as recreation, libraries, and education, is an important part of providing social equity/opportunity. Many cities explicitly address the social impacts of infrastructure. Under Mayor Bloomberg, New York City developed PLaNYC to address sustainability and resilience, and Mayor de Blasio later added social justice as an objective. Incorporating social aspects into civil engineering projects starts with assessment. This chapter addresses assessment, followed by design and construction. It describes some research done in this area and provides several resources, including a description of the social aspects in Envision. A popular social impacts tool is the corporate social responsibility reporting done by many companies. More valuable to civil engineers is the formalized lifecycle assessment methodology, which is widely used to inventory and estimate resource use.

In the United States, past civil engineers built transportation systems that moved people and goods at faster and faster rates, at larger and larger scales, and with greater and greater benefits and impacts. Maintaining accessibility to the built and natural environments while catering to growing mobility and commerce needs shaped the transportation discipline of civil engineering, from travel modes, to maintenance and support facilities, to system oversight and management systems. In the early twentieth century, the rise of automobiles expanded street and transportation systems to enhance travel within and among communities. Drawing on opportunities raised by sustainability, the transportation sector can cost-effectively promote economic development, encourage context-sensitive design, and develop solutions that protect the natural environment.

This chapter presents the fundamentals of ecology to help engineers preclude, minimize, and/or mitigate adverse infrastructure impacts. This knowledge base enables engineers to design infrastructure systems that contribute to productive, environmentally restorative, and socially desirable uses of land and protection of native flora and fauna. While ecosystems provide many invaluable services for humans and the environment, unsustainable activities affect the flows of energy within and among these ecosystems, causing loss or degradation of ecosystem services. Infrastructure can also indirectly affect ecosystems, by altering material and energy flows through a system or by damaging ecosystem function. The resulting damage can cause cascading impacts throughout an ecosystem. In the United States, the effects of human activities on ecosystems have been significant, including extensive habitat loss and fragmentation.

Based on the ASCE Continuing Education Course “Sustainable Land Use,” by Neil Weinstein and Emily Clifton, this chapter provides a foundation in land use planning principles, the history of land use planning, future planning objectives, and useful planning tools. The chapter describes the most common land use planning tools, which drive where and how development and redevelopment occur, and shows how to integrate sustainable development and infrastructure with community planning. Sustainable infrastructure planning provides and maintains physical infrastructure (public works and utilities) that enables communities to function properly and reliably. The chapter also describes how to develop and implement regulatory and professional frameworks for sustainability. It discusses the issues related to the principal infrastructure systems that are relevant to land-use planning.

Engineers must play nontechnical educational and leadership roles in understanding and supporting engineering that is sustainable throughout the lifecycle of an infrastructure project. These involve interaction with stakeholders who help engineers in all stages of a project. In the early design phases, they help engineers define needs, identify concerns, and understand the social and political forces in the community that shape their participation and preferences. During the later design and build stages, they help engineers prioritize criteria, rank options, explain choices to those not directly involved, and build potentially broad support. Working with communities means working with individuals, groups, and institutions. Although individuals may also be part of groups or even leaders of institutions, they participate as individuals and should be treated as such. Every community and each project presents a unique situation and requires different tools and techniques for community participation.

After introducing some project management systems and certificates relevant to civil engineers, this chapter discusses features necessary to sustainable project management in infrastructure design and construction. It explains how project management practices are incorporated into sustainability ratings systems such as LEED and Envision. To include sustainability in project management, the five-step approach makes additions to project formulation to ensure the right project is done, to the design and construction phases to ensure the project is done right, and finally to the project close phase to ensure that sustainability goals are achieved. The chapter lists the criteria to be met at the end of each project step. Between steps in the sustainable project management process, stage gate reviews assess completion of work tasks in the project step.

Since the enactment of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act in 1976 and its amendments, managing wastes typically follows the waste hierarchy. The waste hierarchy starts with the most environmentally preferred waste management option, conservation; continues with reuse, recycling, and energy recovery; and ends with the least preferred option, disposal (landfilling). The waste hierarchy has also been called the resource efficiency hierarchy to emphasize that only resource consumption generates waste. Construction and demolition (CD) waste refers to materials produced in construction, maintenance, and/or demolition of structures such as buildings and infrastructure projects and systems. Hazardous CD waste falls under the jurisdiction of the EPA or local jurisdictions with delegated authority to implement federal and state hazardous waste regulations. Waste prevention, reuse, and recycling practices of other fractions are applied more often in building than in infrastructure projects.

This chapter addresses issues of water quantity and quality, impacts of development on surface waters and waterway connectivity, and changing hydrologic conditions (nonstationarity). Wastewater treatment plants, now considered resource recovery facilities, could potentially provide different levels of water treatment based on the proposed water use. Some issues related to water quality are surface water runoff and the impact of impervious surfaces. Methods to address reduced water quality from nonpoint sources have been developed, in addition to aquatic habitat connectivity and fish passage. Working in interdisciplinary teams, civil engineers have assisted in developing best management practices, low impact development, and green infrastructure that use or mimic naturally occurring ecosystem services to address stormwater quality and quantity and aquatic habitat.

Analyzing lighting, noise, and air quality programs early in the planning process is wise to identify who would be affected and address evident needs. Emerging techniques and technologies can assist the civil engineer in this regard. Design considerations for light, noise and vibration, and air quality previously dealt primarily with the finished product: the road, the building, or the neighborhood. This chapter explains ways to address economic, environmental, and social considerations. The Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES) has many guidance documents for roadway lighting design, including two ANSI standards: ANSI/IES RP-8-14 and RP-22-11. Guidelines for maximum noise levels allowed in various civil engineering contexts—on or alongside roads; in neighborhoods; and inside residential, commercial, and institutional buildings—are well established.

Through the lens of civil engineering and infrastructure, resilience is generally considered on three scales: community or urban, organizational, and individual assets. For human or ecological populations, maintaining population levels above mortality levels and the overall condition or health of the population is often the focus of resilience thinking. A resilient organization can continue to exist and deliver services during and after major external or internal disturbances. The challenge of addressing resilience increases in scope and complexity from the scale of individual assets through to organizations and communities. From the perspective of the civil engineer, implementing resilience on the scale of infrastructure demands consideration of more than engineering design attributes and encompasses, for example, organizational attributes of the institutions charged with owning and operating civil infrastructure.

Climate change, or global warming, is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans resulting from greenhouse gases building up in the atmosphere. Most civil engineering projects contribute to climate change because buildings and infrastructure emit greenhouse gases throughout their useful lives. This chapter provides some guidance for civil engineers to adapt the structures they design to the future impacts of climate change. Some climate change mitigation strategies include minimizing embodied carbon of materials and products, minimizing energy use, utilizing renewable energy, using low-impact development techniques, reducing transport distances by using local materials, using recycled materials in lieu of virgin materials, and using ecological engineering solutions. The chapter presents several recommendations for reducing lifecycle emissions of concrete buildings.

This chapter provides a theoretical framework for measuring sustainability; describes various sustainability assessment or rating tools, including Envision; and presents examples of the use of these rating systems for developing sustainable infrastructure. It also presents case study applications of Envision to a wetland park and a wastewater treatment facility. Envision is a state-of-the-art, holistic sustainability rating system and planning guide that helps professionals plan and execute more sustainable infrastructure projects. The Envision Rating System includes the opportunity for professional credentialing. An Envision Sustainability Professional (ENV SP) is trained in the use of Envision and understands how to integrate sustainable credits into projects.

This chapter summarizes the body of knowledge related to sustainable civil engineering, reiterating that civil engineers should contribute effectively to “doing the right project” and not just to “doing the project right.” Engineers can anticipate emerging sustainability needs and opportunities and offer suggestions for enhancing sustainability. Rising above routine practice includes many things: creative thinking and problem solving, challenging regulations and standards where they result in excessive costs and/or complexity, understanding and communicating appropriate solutions, and considering the big picture first. In some situations, the alternatives are hard to evaluate in terms of carbon footprint or other measure of sustainability. Here detailed analysis, precise data, and templates help the most. In others, the sustainability choice is much clearer: upgrading a well-performing sewage lagoon to a tertiary activated sludge plant, for example.

Water resources management is critical to sustainable development. This is especially true for Hong Kong, which relies predominantly on imported water from mainland China. The Hong Kong Housing Authority, which is responsible for numerous high-density residential developments in Hong Kong, collaborated with AECOM on several projects to introduce rainwater harvesting for nonpotable uses to reduce potable water demand. Low-impact development (LID) is an approach to land development (or redevelopment) that works with nature to manage stormwater as close to the source as possible. LID employs principles such as preserving and recreating natural landscape features. The water-harvesting system at Shui Chuen O (SCO) provides a learning environment for the community and serves as an example of smart water management for other large-scale developments in Hong Kong. The chapter shows the flow schematic of the SCO project’s rainwater harvesting system.

Environmental lifecycle assessment is important for assessing the greenhouse gas emissions of transportation systems. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro) provides planning, funding, construction, and operation functions for all transportation systems in LA County. It approaches its environmental challenges holistically, integrating environmental lifecycle assessment into its sustainability practices to meet state and regional greenhouse gas policies. LA Metro’s Orange bus rapid transit, Gold light rail transit, and Expo light rail transit lines were recently examined to illustrate the value of an environmental lifecycle assessment to major capital projects. Several lifecycle models were used to estimate how much greenhouse gas emissions are emitted and at what point in the lives of the respective systems. The results for the transit systems show how much lifecycle processes contribute to understanding greenhouse gas emissions of transportation systems.

Curitiba (Brazil) is well documented as a global example of sustainability. Curitiba has received numerous sustainability awards, most recently the Global Sustainable City Award in 2010, which is given to cities and municipalities that excel in sustainable urban development. Curitiba has come a long way since the 1960s, when it was a city in social, economic, and environmental crisis, lacking the leadership to address its problems. Over the next 20 years, Jaime Lerner, Curitiba’s mayor, and his team of civil engineers, urban planners, social planners, and architects addressed these problems individually and in an integrated, system-based approach that has reversed Curitiba’s fortunes and made it into a leading global city. In every aspect of Curitiba’s world-leading sustainability initiatives, civil engineers have played key roles.

Beginning in the 1990s, key changes led to the eventual restoration of Onondaga Lake’s damaged ecosystem. The new plan, known as Save the Rain, focused on greatly improved stormwater management and social benefits through green infrastructure job programs, project placement, and funding opportunities. The stored rainwater and snowmelt from rooftops is used to produce ice for the Syracuse Crunch hockey team. The Save the Rain program required collaboration with the City of Syracuse, private businesses, and county residents. To engage the community, the Save the Rain program utilized educational programs to garner support. Onondaga Lake has had a remarkable recovery.

The City of Edmonton has established an integrated system for managing its solid waste streams that is founded on environmental sustainability, social benefit, and fiscal responsibility. Edmonton’s integrated solid waste management system spans the continuum of municipal waste management, encompassing educational, collection, processing and disposal, and research and development programs. The most visible infrastructure developed for Edmonton’s integrated solid waste management system is the Edmonton Waste Management Centre. While some individual facilities at the Edmonton Waste Management Centre exemplify leading practices, just as noteworthy is the integration of all components of Edmonton’s integrated solid waste management system to provide capabilities greater than the sum of the parts. While the Edmonton Waste Management Centre forms the visible focal point of the system, other elements are also important to the overall success of Edmonton’s integrated solid waste management system.

The Alewife Stormwater Wetland showcases how innovative approaches to science, engineering, landscape architecture, ecology, and construction can concurrently resolve infrastructure needs, enhance the environment, and create new resources for the community. As a stormwater asset, the Alewife Stormwater Wetland holds up to 10.3 acre-ft of runoff, enabling upstream sewer separation and reducing combined sewer overflow by 43.6 million gallons annually. Moreover, it avoids the need for costly storage tanks that only activate during heavy rainfall and serve no function when dormant. As a whole, the Alewife Stormwater Wetland showcases how an integrated facility can address the needs and goals of multiple agencies and stakeholders simultaneously, rather than each taking on traditional, expensive, and uncoordinated methods. Infrastructure projects such as this are best initiated by embracing the concept of a multiuse project in the planning phase.

Chari Chari Bridge (Bolivia) is the recipient of the 2013 Innovation in Sustainable Civil Engineering Award. The bridge vastly improves safety and enhances economic and educational opportunities in the region. Prior to construction of the bridge, local residents in and around the farming community of Omereque had to walk miles out of their way each day to ford the river. The American nonprofit organization Bridges to Prosperity (B2P) facilitated the financing and construction of the bridge. Because the Chari Chari Bridge was the longest span bridge that B2P had built to that point, it required a unique engineering design and analysis. The Chari Chari Bridge has provided a year-round transportation link for the community since 2013. To ensure the bridge sustains safe operation, B2P operates a program of periodic bridge inspections by trained engineers.

Phipps Conservatory opened in 1893—a gift from Henry Phipps to the City of Pittsburgh. At that time it was the largest and finest conservatory in the country. Learning about and understanding the rationale behind Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) initiated an evolutionary process that raised the bar with each subsequent building at the conservatory and led the organization to change its operations and mission statement, making sustainability an important part of its identity. Phipps’ latest campus improvement—the Exhibit Staging Center—repurposes a dilapidated former public works building built on the brownfield. Phipps’ programs and practices reflect the same level of attention to sustainability as the buildings do. Phipps conducts original and collaborative research with Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, which includes biophilic design, building performance, green-roof efficacy, human and ecological wellness, brownfield restoration, and the benefits of human contact with nature.

The Poplar Island project improves sustainability through a combination of design and construction. Material dredged from the Port of Baltimore’s shipping channels creates remote island habitat (including wetlands and uplands) in the largest estuary in the United States. The project promises to help restore and recover remote island habitat, contributing to the sustainability of the Chesapeake Bay estuary as demonstrated by comparison with nearby natural reference marshes and habitat utilization. The existing 1,140-acre ecosystem restoration project at Poplar Island will provide 570 acres of upland habitat and 570 acres of wetland habitat when completed. Lessons learned from the design, construction, and adaptive management process at Poplar Island will be applied to the Mid-Chesapeake Bay Island project, which will replicate and extend further developments in sustainability of remote island habitat in the Chesapeake Bay.

The Cerro Dominador project is one of the most innovative in Latin America, where solar concentration energy technology is seen as a possible energy supply solution for the future. Upon completion, the Cerro Dominador Concentration Solar Plant will generate 110 MW of energy by concentrating solar power, supplying it almost continuously, 24 hours a day, and will create an additional 110 MW by a photovoltaic plant located nearby. A highlighted benefit of the Cerro Dominador project is site accessibility through existing roadway and transmission line infrastructure. This accessibility also helps facilitate linkages between existing and new access to the area and reduces the need to build new infrastructure.

In 2009, Urban Design Associates of Pittsburgh helped to conduct a study for redesign of I-75 in Cincinnati, Ohio. In addition to the reconstruction of I-75, the city was under a consent decree to improve its storm and sanitary sewer systems and was exploring restoration of historic watersheds feeding into the Mill Creek River to accommodate stormwater surges. The city and the sewer authority jointly funded the I-75 Corridor Study because it was more than a highway project. The scope considered interstate reconstruction and interchange redesigns, environmental improvements to natural watersheds, and economic development opportunities arising from these major infrastructure improvements. The city regarded this project as an illustration of what could happen when the Federal Highway Administration, EPA, and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development collaborate on major planning initiatives.

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts of the book. The book offers civil engineers the body of knowledge for sustainable engineering for the whole lifecycle of infrastructure projects and systems. It provides perspective and historical background on the roles of engineers, infrastructure systems, and projects in making human civilization and communities sustainable and resilient. The built environment and associated natural features have key roles (as hero or as villain) in the economic, environmental, and social aspects of sustainability and thus in achieving a sustainable civilization. The book presents case studies spanning various infrastructure types and summarizes ASCE’s policies and programs for sustainability and resilience for the practicing engineer.