Last year, New York City brought a long-overdue water project to completion by the activation of a new drinking water tunnel from Brooklyn to Staten Island. The $250 million tunnel was delayed when Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012. Ironically, disasters such as Sandy are the very reason that this tunnel has been built. In a crisis, this critical backup system can deliver up to 150 million … [Read more...]
Water Utility Planning – Is Deep Uncertainty Analysis A Better Option?
A new scientific society, the Society for Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty, is arguing that water managers need to use a different system of analysis for planning ahead. The Society thinks that uncertainty in this time of rapid environmental and social change implies that managers need to consider potential outcomes and the probability of those outcomes occurring. The deep … [Read more...]
New California Legislation Recognizes Watersheds as Critical Infrastructure
It is no secret that the US State of California has spent the last hundred years creating a vast system and network of pipes, pump stations, and aqueducts that reach far and wide into distant regions in order to filter water from remote rivers into hard to reach dry zones in the Southern part of the state. It's an engineering marvel, but only so long as the ecosystems they are drawing from can … [Read more...]
Canadian Study on Stormwater Infrastructure – Infrastructure Management
Recently the Sustainable Prosperity, an environmental think tank based at the University of Ottowa, conducted a study, aptly labeled "New Solutions for Sustainable Stormwater Management in Canada." The study reviews the current state of stormwater management in Canada and the two most regularly employed tools: green infrastructure and Stormwater user fees. It goes into great depth exploring … [Read more...]
Kansas City Wins Sustainable Infrastructure Award – Asset Management Planning
The Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure recently awarded Kansas City Water's Middle Blue River Green Infrastructure projects their Envision Platinum award. These projects were specifically engineered to cut combined sewer overflows and improve water quality in the project region - which includes 744 acres of watershed flowing to two combined sewer outfalls. Sustainability in … [Read more...]
The ASCE 2017 Wastewater Infrastructure Report and Asset Management Planning
Wastewater and Stormwater infrastructure in the 2017 ASCE report Card received a D+. This is up from the 2013 report card grade of D. This is in part due to the fact there has been some innovation with the treatment plants to ensure protection against flooding and cross contamination and new more efficient and modern techniques being used to preserve water and reuse waste. However, to keep … [Read more...]
End of Gas-Fueled Cars in 2030? Impacts of the Electronic Vehicle Disruption
Tony Seba has published an updated lecture: The Electric Vehicle Disruption - End of Oil 2030 Having attended a lecture by Tony Seba two years ago, I have found his analysis coherent, well-researched, and well worth taking note of. If you are involved in Transportation infrastructure management, or you own an internal combustion engine vehicle, then this presentation is well worth your … [Read more...]
ASCE 2017 Infrastructure Report Card and Asset Management Planning
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) release a report on the state of the USA’s general infrastructure both on a Federal and State level every few years, with the previous report being issued in 2013. The ASCE conducts this detailed report in sixteen major target areas of infrastructure, such as Roads, Transit, Rail, Inland Waterways, Wastewater and Drinking water to name a … [Read more...]
Singapore’s Answer to Wastewater Management – Effective Infrastructure Management
Engineers in the tiny island nation of Singapore have been constructing a state of the art new sewer system, know as the DTSS (Deep Tunnel Sewer System). Phase one of the project was completed in 2008 and phase two began in 2013. It is a cost-effective and sustainable solution, offered by the Singapore Public Utilities Board, to meet the country's long-term wastewater needs. The main … [Read more...]
2017 Infrastructure Management
For those of you who follow this blog, you will have realized that it has been a slow start to the year for the blog. Here in New Zealand, January is the month of our summer vacations, and this year it was coupled with some family celebrations that saw the month disappear. During February we were undertaking a range of background activities on the site to improve security and get the site … [Read more...]
1.1 Billion People More in 2030 – Are We Planning Globally to Meet the World’s Population Growth and Challenges?
By 2030, scientists predict that another 1.1 billion people will be inhabiting planet earth, bringing the world's total population count to a number just shy of 9 billion. Most of them will be born in densely populated urban areas in Asia and Africa - areas which cannot sustain such immense population growth. A group of experts at nature.com have several interesting ideas about how this … [Read more...]
Climate Adaptation and Infrastructure Planning for Diminishing Flow of Arizona Rivers
The Grand Canyon, the Mojave Desert, Monument Valley...If you think about Arizona, images of beautiful water-filled canals and orange groves aren't exactly what come to mind. Yet, these are exactly the pictures that were painted for Americans by a government trying to convince them to move into the state in the early 1900s. As a result, water infrastructure in Arizona, rather than being … [Read more...]
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