Natural and man-made disasters

As Hurricane Katrina painfully demonstrated, the failure of civil and environmentally engineering systems can have catastrophic impacts on the lives of tens of thousands of individuals. The same can be said about the collapse of the World Trade Center, i.e., an archetypical example of the man-made disaster. Far from being isolated instances, these tragic examples are part of a trend as the majority of disaster researchers believe that the number and severity of major disasters is on the increase. This will necessitate a concomitant enlargement of the amount of research on disasters/homeland security. This is already an area of strength in CEE, where the faculty have had a visible and prominent role in investigating levee failures, logistical failures during the Katrina emergency, and developing new paradigms of emergency logistics and evacuation modeling. These areas of strength need to be supported and expanded.

Aging and obsolete infrastructure

The bulk of the civil and environmental engineering infrastructure in the Nation is old, obsolete, and fast approaching the end of its design life. The gravity of the situation prompted the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) to produce a record card on the state of the infrastructure granting a “D” (Poor) to the Nation’s infrastructure. The collapse of a bridge in Minneapolis, where several individuals lost their lives is nothing more than a tragic footnote of this huge problem whose solution is expected to cost $1.6 trillion. This is but another facet of the silent crisis described so eloquently by President Jackson. At the same time, designing, building, and operating the new infrastructure the Nation needs necessitates a major paradigm shift as it would come in line in a context where energy and the environment impacts are of utmost importance, unmanaged urbanization and megacities are looming in the horizon, and disasters both natural and man-made are expected to be more frequent and severe. Achieving this paradigm shift will necessitate significant amounts of research in CEE.

Energy and the Environment

The importance of Energy and the Environment as high priority research areas is undeniable and obvious as for the first time in history, mankind is threatened by the consequences of decades of non-sustainable practices and energy waste and misuse. In this context, a final resolution of this huge challenge hinges on the performance of the economic sectors managed by CEE (e.g., transportation, land use, water management and distribution systems) as they concurrently are major consumers of energy, major producers of environmental pollution, and huge engines and enablers of economic development that society cannot do without. These inter-linkages between CEE economic sectors and energy and the environment run both ways. The transportation sector, for instance, consumes about 20% of total primary energy, produces 2/3 of carbon monoxide and half of the ozone. Obviously, improvements in the overall efficiency of this important sector will bring about significant environmental and energy savings. Global warming and climate change, in turn, also impact CEE projects in dramatic ways. Rising sea levels are likely to bring about major disruptions to CEE systems negatively impacting coastal populations, the corresponding infrastructure and hydrological cycles, possibly leading to mass migrations and water scarcity. Confronting this will require methodologies and techniques to restore degraded water supplies, improve the efficiency in management of water distribution systems, and better manage ecosystems. All these crucial tasks are the responsibility of CEE and, for that reason, our department has a key role to play in the quest for a sustainable society. In this context, designating Energy and the Environment as an Institute priority enables our department to pursue research in an area of critical importance to the Institute and society at large.

Unmanaged urbanization and rise of megacities

While a hundred years ago, only 20% of people lived in urban areas now this number is fast approaching 80%. This shift towards cities has significant implications as most of them are in the same coastal areas that are likely to be affected by global warming and climate change. The increased pace of urbanization is leading to the rise of megacities, encompassing thousands of square miles and tens of millions of residents, that require literally hundreds of complex CEE systems for day to day living. It is important to highlight that megacities are more imminent than most people thing, as the prospect of a megacity spanning from Boston to Washington DC is not far in the horizon. Such exceedingly complex systems will require new paradigms of CEE systems including high performance buildings that are both sustainable and resilient, efficient and sustainable water distribution systems, and sustainable freight and passenger transportation systems, among many others. This trend clearly confirms the wisdom of including Modeling and Simulation of Complex Systems as a priority in the Rensselaer Plan.

Aging and obsolete infrastructure

The bulk of the civil and environmental engineering infrastructure in the Nation is old, obsolete, and fast approaching the end of its design life. The gravity of the situation prompted the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) to produce a record card on the state of the infrastructure granting a “D” (Poor) to the Nation’s infrastructure. The collapse of a bridge in Minneapolis, where several individuals lost their lives is nothing more than a tragic footnote of this huge problem whose solution is expected to cost $1.6 trillion. This is but another facet of the silent crisis described so eloquently by President Jackson. At the same time, designing, building, and operating the new infrastructure the Nation needs necessitates a major paradigm shift as it would come in line in a context where energy and the environment impacts are of utmost importance, unmanaged urbanization and megacities are looming in the horizon, and disasters both natural and man-made are expected to be more frequent and severe. Achieving this paradigm shift will necessitate significant amounts of research in CEE.