GEOSTRATA Magazine

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015, enumerates 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) to be achieved by the member countries by 2030. The resolution highlights the importance of sustainable cities and communities to their future needs for sustenance and livability. Transportation infrastructure like roads, embankments, bridges, railroads, airports, docks, and canals serve as pathways for the mobility of people, goods, and services, and form the backbone of cities and communities. The construction, operation, and rehabilitation of these facilities puts significant strain on the local, state, and federal agencies, for example by depleting natural resources and contributing to the global carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions. Further, these features stimulate anthropocentric (i.e., human beings are the most significant entity of the universe) development in a region that affects land-use patterns and influences the demography of communities.

Most people realize that the nation’s transportation infrastructure is aging faster than federal, state, and local governments can manage with traditional methods. In fact, a national and international trend is occurring where stakeholders are moving toward better management of transportation assets through the concepts of asset management. Asset management focuses on the long-term performance of assets at the lowest, long-term costs. Key components of asset management include maintaining assets in a state of good repair, meeting performance requirements in a cost-effective manner, consideraring life-cycle costs, and maintaining a functioning network.

What is paleoflood hydrology? How are paleofloods analyzed? What are common paleoflood results? What are the implications of paleoflood analyses?

The nation’s infrastructure is showing its age. The signs are obvious with structure distress, lack of functionality, and failure reported frequently over the last several decades. Specialty geotechnical construction techniques may provide a solution to help reduce the cost and increase the speed of repairing this infrastructure. Direct and indirect examples of the infrastructure woes include: ASCE’s Report Card disclosing repeated low grades dating back to 1988; High-profile incidents like failure of the Oroville Dam spillway in California in February 2017, and the I-35 Mississippi River bridge collapse in Minnesota in August 2007; Lack of spending at state and federal levels to maintain even the current infrastructure condition specifications (e.g., in Missouri, transportating spending is at its lowest levels since 1992; the budget for 2018 is $325 million versus $1.3 billion in 2011); Declining revenue for state DOT funds because the federal gas tax rate has not changed since 1992, and today’s vehicles are more fuel-efficient.