CIVIL ENGINEERING TRIENNIAL SUMMIT 2021

Planning for Climate Change and the Enhanced Resilience of Civil Infrastructure

Planning is underway for the Triennial Summit 2021. The conference was originally to be held in Niagara Falls on May 25 – 26, 2021 prior to the CSCE Annual Conference. However, due to the present COVID 19 pandemic, it will be held completely virtual.

The Triennial Conference is jointly organized every three years by three civil engineering societies that total more than 300,000 members, the  American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE) and Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE). The last summit was held in the UK in 2018 in conjunction with the inaugural Global Engineering Congress. A statement of intent for three organizations was signed to work together on solving problems related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The summit will connect decision makers and the community from around the world with engineers, technology experts, and built environment professionals together to address the challenges of resilience of infrastructure subjected to climate change.

There is now a broad scientific consensus that the global climate is changing in ways that are likely to have profound impacts on the hydrologic cycle and the human society. Some of these impacts include rising ocean levels, effects on river flows, severe weather disasters, floodplains and water supplies and changes to wastewater management and related civil infrastructure.  Tipping points are likely to be crossed and result in cascading effects. The increasing challenges and risks cities are thus interlinked and response actions are required for resilience. Designing for the increasing uncertainty and infrastructure need for resilience is thus of primary concern globally for engineers to be addressed in this summit. The window of opportunity available to address this urgent need is closing fast. Innovation through different applications of an existing approach or technology and breaking the thinking in silos are required by engineers. The summit will include keynote lectures from US, UK and Canadian perspectives on the current challenges and future needs to address the climate change adaptation and the resilience of critical infrastructures in civil engineering. Round table discussions will follow these keynote lectures.