The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has formally approved a new technical division on infrastructure resilience.

The decision was made by the ASCE Board of Direction at its January meeting in Miami. The newly formed Infrastructure Resilience Division (IRD) merges three existing ASCE units: the Committee on Critical Infrastructure, the Council on Disaster Risk Management and the Technical Council on Lifeline Earthquake Engineering.

“Among the things we are looking at are wastewater, portable water systems, transportation systems, solid waste management systems, liquid fuels, natural gas, inundation protection systems, information technology, electric power systems, communications systems,the performance of building systems, and how civil engineering relates and pulls all of this together,” says Craig Davis, chair of the new six-member IRD executive committee and trunk line design manager for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

IRD began as a working group in March 2014. IRD is expected to provide ASCE members with resources and tools to fully prepare for risk and safety concerns in infrastructure and systems, says IRD member, Bilal Ayyub.

“Current practices lack the explicit consideration of recovery in system design. The IRD offers ASCE members a focal point for what we anticipate will be an increased need for addressing resilience,”Ayyub says.

Ayyub and Davis anticipate that new codes andstandards, guidelines, manuals of practice, webinars, seminars and pamphlets will come out of IRD. IRD is also expected to work with other ASCE divisions and committees, as well as stakeholders such as the Federal Energy Management Agency, the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Question or comments about this article? Contact an editor: engineering360editors@ihs.com