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This course is part of ASCE's Sustainable Infrastructure Certificate.
INSTRUCTOR: William Wallace, M. ASCE
Purpose and Background
Civil engineers are entering a time of revolution, a time in which the practice of civil engineering is undergoing a major overhaul. Environmental operating conditions are changing radically, significantly different from what civil engineers have been taught to expect. This course offers the current early knowledge, tools and techniques that will enable civil engineers to take these changing conditions into account in their projects. Not doing so adds significant risk to public safety, health and welfare.
The long-held premise for civil engineering projects is what scientists are calling stationarity, that is, the statistical properties of engineering design parameters (e.g., ambient temperature, sea level, storm intensity, extent of droughts, heat waves, and flooding) will be the same in the future as they have been in the past. Unfortunately, multiple decades of unsustainable practices have made those assumptions unreliable. Overconsumption of resources and excessive pollution, particularly greenhouse gas emissions, have degraded significantly the Earth’s natural resources and systems, resulting in significant changes in resource availability and in the environmental conditions under which infrastructure systems are expected to operate. Consequently, non-stationarity has become the “new normal” for the built environment. Resource availability and environmental operating conditions are changing and will continue to change substantially in ways that are not readily predictable.
This course redefines sustainable engineering for the built environment. From now on, making a project “sustainable” is no longer a matter of adding “green” features to a conventional design. Today’s civil engineer needs to know how to meet project owner needs and contribute to sustainable performance, while taking into account significantly changing operating conditions.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this course you will be able to:
- Explain the concept of non-stationarity in civil engineering, recognizing how historical statistical assumptions no longer apply to environmental operating conditions.
- Identify the key drivers behind the shift towards non-stationarity in the built environment, including overconsumption, pollution, and climate change impacts such as extreme weather events.
- Analyze the implications of non-stationarity on civil engineering projects, particularly in terms of public safety, health, and welfare, and assess the associated risks.
- Evaluate the limitations of traditional sustainable engineering practices in addressing non-stationary environmental conditions, and recognize the need for a paradigm shift in sustainable design approaches.
- Develop strategies for integrating resilience and adaptability into civil engineering projects to mitigate the impacts of non-stationarity, ensuring infrastructure systems can withstand and function effectively under uncertain future conditions.
- Apply principles of sustainable engineering to optimize project performance while considering evolving resource availability and environmental constraints, balancing project owner needs with long-term sustainability goals.
- Critically evaluate case studies and real-world examples of civil engineering projects that have successfully addressed non-stationary environmental challenges, drawing lessons learned and best practices for future applications.
- Demonstrate proficiency in communicating and advocating for sustainable engineering practices within multidisciplinary teams, engaging stakeholders in discussions about the importance of adapting to changing environmental conditions for the resilience and longevity of infrastructure projects.
Who Should Attend?
- Environmental engineers
- Water resource engineers
- Transportation engineers
- Construction engineers
- Environmental or climate scientists
- Sustainability and resilience professionals
- Climate adaptation professionals
- Building Code and Standards Developers
- Infrastructure Planners
- Urban Planners
Course Outline
- Introduction
- Are We Sustainable? And if not, why should I care?
- Making Our Development Sustainable: A tectonic shift in our approach to economic development.
- The Situation: Assessing the consequences of non-sustainability.
- Climate Change: Its causes and its effects on infrastructure planning, design and operation.
- Defining Conditions of Sustainability: The sustainability quadrant.
- Sustainability: A world view.
- Achieving Conditions of Sustainability: What is required? Working against the odds.
- Social Equity and Responsibility: Including the business case.
- High Performance Buildings: Building green because it makes economic sense
- Conserving Water Resources: Setting the scale of the issue.
- Sustainable Urban Water Management: Managing water as a system.
- Pollution and Waste Management: How do you throw something away when there is no “away”?
- Making Transportation Systems Effective: Providing efficient mobility and access.
- Addressing the Issues of Sustainable Transportation: Reducing the impacts and increasing resiliency.
- Renewable Energy Deployment: The three energy challenges to solve…simultaneously.
- Environmental Life Cycle Assessments: Analyzing and comparing the impact of projects on the environment.
- Social Life Cycle Assessments: The emerging art of determining a project’s impact on society.
- Carbon Footprinting: Conducting a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory for your organization.
- Sustainable Project Delivery, Part 1: The sustainable infrastructure project challenge.
- Sustainable Project Delivery, Part 2: Handling changing operating conditions.
- The Envision™ Sustainable Infrastructure Rating System: Doing the project right and doing the right project.
- Case Examples in Sustainable Engineering: What does a meaningful contribution to sustainability look like?
- Creating Sustainable Cities: The city as an efficient form of human habitat.
- Becoming a Sustainable Society: A viable roadmap to sustainability by 2050.
- Course Wrap-up: Summary of what was covered. Sustainability and engineering ethics.
Assessment of Learning Outcomes
Achievement of the learning outcomes will be assessed via a post-assessment (true-false, multiple choice and fill in the blank questions).
How to Earn your PDHs and Receive Your Certificate of Completion
To receive your certificate of completion, you will need to complete a post-test and receive a passing score of 70% or higher within 1 year of purchasing the course.