Toward Infrastructure Improvement An Agenda for Research (1994) / Chapter Skim
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Introduction
Introduction
Pages 9-20
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From page 9... ...
Most of the time and in most places, the nation's roads, water supplies, waste disposal, and other infrastructure serve efficiently and reliably the wide range of economic and social activities comprising our daily lives. So effective is this technological system that few people especially note it.
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From page 10... ...
New traffic control devices have helped relieve congestion, in the face of rapidly increasing auto travel, and have reduced accident rates. New incinerators burn growing volumes of municipal waste, more efficiently and with less air pollution.
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After an earthquake has caused major damage, agencies fund research on methods for repairing bridges that might have been strengthened earlier. When the public outcry grows strident over the apparent health risks posed by toxic wastes, industries search for ways to clean up what might have been prevented.
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From page 12... ...
Since 1991, the Directorate for Engineering has been working with other NSF units to define a program in CIS. The specific scope of CIS and related research are still evolving, but NSF staff have estunated that the NSF is the largest Federal supporter of basic CI~related research, its $36 million annual spending (1992)
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From page 13... ...
13 To these cited modes may be added public buildings schools, health care facilities, government offices, and the like that are linked by the functional systems they house to provide important public services, in much the same fashion as highways and water supply facilities.6 For all these elements of infrastructure, the engineering profession is by far the primary source of practitioners, and civil engineering is the leader in numbers of professionals and scope of interests. Much of infrastructure research has been civil engineering research.
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From page 14... ...
3. The facilities and users of physical infrastructure are linked in generally complex and geographically extensive networks: roads and interchanges; water treatment plants, supply mains, and distributors; generating plants, transmission lines and step-down transformers; and sewers, treatment plants, and outfalls.
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From page 15... ...
The NSF has no direct responsibilities for infrastructure development or management, and is charged to focus on activities intended to add to knowledge rather than to develop marketable products. In asking BRB and GEOB to conduct the study, the NSF requested that the committee focus on the state of the art, basic research needs, and priorities in the technology of physical infrastructure, but within the context of broad national policy issues.
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From page 16... ...
in identifying R&D opportunities and assessing priorities. The long physical life and major commitment of public resources embodied in infrastructure make rapid major change in existing networks and patterns of urban development unlikely.~3 New technology is most likely to be adopted if its benefits can be captured without requiring sudden, substantial disruption of existing urban fabric.
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From page 17... ...
These seven niches, essentially clusters of common science and technology issues, the committee judged to be particularly well suited to the NSF's goals and role in research sponsorship. The committee used their descriptions of these seven niches as idea generators for more specific topics for research.
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From page 18... ...
in 1991 to be at least $3.6 trillion, excluding mining and petroleum and natural gas recovery facilities. Estimates of damage in such recent natural disasters as Hurricane Andrew, the Loma Prieto and Northridge earthquakes, and flooding in the Mississippi River basin suggest that current replacement costs would be even greater.
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From page 19... ...
The Brooklyn Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge, for example, are valued elements of their communities, with meaning that far exceeds their transportation role. Similarly, for many environmentalists the Glen Canyon Dam epitomizes battles lost.
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From page 20... ...
Urgency of the scheme was heightened by regional air pollution and traffic congestion problems. With increasing coordination of infrastructure planning and rehabilitation, junctions between subsystems become increasingly important.
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