Sustainable Infrastructure and Alternatives for Urban Growth

With the global urban population becoming 7.0 billion by 2050, there will be a huge demand of the provision of basic infrastructure to this population. With the growing concerns over climate change and energy /resource scarcity, there is a need of paradigm shift from the ‘Romanesque’ idea of infrastructure provision to a sustainable and resilient urban infrastructure which should be designed, constructed and operated within the means of nature. The goal of a sustainable and resilient urban infrastructure is not only to provide the infrastructure amenities but also to develop the socioeconomic attributes of the urban system. In order to attain this goal, the interconnection between the individual infrastructure components and their inter-relation with the socioeconomic attributes needs to be understood. Based on this understanding, many Low Impact Development alternatives for urban infrastructure, including but not limited to stormwater management, can be assessed designed and applied to attain this goal.

Keywords: Best Management Practice (BMP), ‘Big-pipe concept’, Bluebelt, Combined Heat and Power (CHP), Compact Communities, Daylighting, Decentralized Infrastructure, District heating and cooling, Energy infrastructure, Freshwater stress, Global population, Green Landscaping, Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission, Greywater heat recovery, Indigenous Landscape, Infrastructure, Interdependence, Land-use, Light-Emitting Diode (LED) lighting, Low-flow fixtures, Low-Impact Development (LID), On-site wastewater treatment, Pervious Pavements, Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs), Rainwater harvesting, Resilient/Resiliency, ‘Romanesque’ idea, Socio-economic environment, Stormwater Management, Sustainable/Sustainability, Transportation infrastructure, Urban infrastructure, UrbanSim, Urine separation, Wastewater infrastructure, Water- Energy Nexus, Water infrastructure, What-If, Window Design.