This essay particularly discusses the importance of good maintenance to sustainable infrastructure and review the best practices of sustainability. Infrastructure management is a significant challenge facing sustainable development of infrastructure particularly in the Third World cities. The major issue in the field is that maintenance strategy is not incorporated or considered into the entire life-cycle costing of developing infrastructure in the formation stage of developing cities or nations in spite of the role of infrastructure as the fundamental base on which, all depend for sustainable living. It is quite undeniable that adequacy of infrastructure in environment is directly associated with the adequacy of output of existing bodies including the non-living. Therefore, it is highly necessary to plan for maintenance of infrastructure to remain under a functional state. The major purpose of the essay is to examine the necessity of good maintenance required for the sustainability infrastructure and address the stated issues. Thus, to shape the discussion, essay includes some best practices of maintaining infrastructure in a sustainable way. To present the findings, few journal articles on sustainability have been considered as well as few real-world example of implementing sustainability practices in infrastructure have also been used in the essay.
According to Bocchiniet al. (2013), infrastructure maintenance helps to keep the fabric of infrastructure intact. Maintenance is also considered as an act of putting or developing infrastructure like vehicles, machine and in a very good conditions. In this context, Weber, Alfen and Staub-Bisang (2016) commented that understanding importance of sustainability in infrastructure could mean incorporation of long term facility management agreements in all fundamental projects. On the basis of this fact, it is worth stating that infrastructure sustainability could let people have it both ways –such as it can help to create value for society as well as contribute to enhanced environmental outcomes while still increasing the overall returns to those involved in the implementation of operation of infrastructure. However, Proctor et al. (2015) mentioned the fact that in spite of the deficiency of understanding of what sustainability stands for in infrastructure as well as propensity for management to consider it as an imposition which could incur costs, delay and damage the environment. Nonetheless, when it comes to importance of infrastructure sustainability, Chester et al. (2013) mentioned that social, public, environmental wellbeing, private and public respondents in the industry must have particular responsibilities to make sure that the infrastructure in each field is efficient and effective to serve its overall purpose over life. In addition to this, design, construction, operation and ultimate demolition of infrastructure could significantly impact the consumption of natural resources as well as create significant impact on natural environment as well as the communities.
Sustainable building infrastructure could protect environment as well as enhance long-term values to facilities and roadways that all depend for prosperity. Particularly, when planning for a large building to be made, sustainability of the same is always a significant concern. Hence, green building or the sustainability design remains the fundamental practice of enhancing efficiency with which buildings and sites consume energy, and water amongst other resources. Hence, green building is considered to be reducing the effects on human health and environment for the whole life cycle of a building. When it comes to building infrastructure, Berardi (2013) particularly insisted on green building, as the growth and development of the communities has a considerable impact on national environment. Therefore, the manufacturing design, construction as well as operation of the building in which people live or work are majorly for the consumption of several national resources. It has been identified that almost 39% of overall energy consumption and 68% of overall electricity consumption in the United States account for buildings. On the other side, environmental impact of green building lies in enhanced and protected biodiversity and ecosystems (YJ Siew, Balatbat and Carmichael, 2013). On the other side, Wong and Fan (2013) also mentioned about the economic advantages of green building as sustainability such as reduced cost of operation, enhanced occupant productivity, enhanced asset value as well as optimized life-cycle economic performance.
Road and transport development are typical public good and it can generate adequate enhanced economic activity as well as internal taxes to provide for their maintenance.Vasconcellos (2014) mentioned that sustainability in transportation is highly required because transport is an essential part of daily lives and fundamental to sustainable development. Nonetheless, an effective project on a greater scale may hold the ability in demonstrating the building and rehabilitation of required infrastructure, which could be much difficult for a project of such scale. In spite of the ongoing economic challenge, the major tangible benefits that sustainable transportation infrastructure could bring to economy as well as its potential to convert people’s lives, are effectively established but not yet wide spread. In this context, Oberhofer and Dieplinger (2014) mentioned that sustainable, efficient as well as well-maintained transportation infrastructure could allow urban as well as rural dwellers the scope or the opportunity to take part in economic opportunities and access to fundamental services. This can be well understood with an example such as a new and enhanced road not only generates employment and but also create a short-term boost to a nation’s economy and such investment could help to develop and facilitate economic activities for decades.
Transportation in the present days is widely reliant on fossil fuel as well as challenge is thus better alignment and low cost carbon transportation. Furthermore, fine transportation with respect to enhancement of new sustainable development goals need to be considered and such could deliver a significant transport system that fits the purpose and provide large contribution to effective economic development. Apart from that, in the context of transportation infrastructure, Arvidsson, Woxenius and Lammgård (2013) mentioned that road safety is another significant concern as globally, 1.23 million people were killed in road accidents crushes every year and up to 50 million seriously injured. It is particularly identified that years of Action for Road Safety focuses on reducing road deaths as well as injuries across the world as well as greater action is required globally to minimize these appealing statistics. For example, Williams (2017) mentioned that UN Habitat Global Resort on Human Settlement on sustainable mobility adopt the concept that mobility was not just about developing transportation infrastructure and services but about the overcoming social, economic as well as physical barriers to movement.
Energy infrastructure is another significant concern in sustainability because for electricity grid, as a utility is highly responsible for maintaining the system. According to Ahmad and Tahar (2014), if maintenance has breakdowns, solutions could consist of enhancing overall utility management as well as cost recovery. This could also enhance the penetration rate in the areas with the grid backbone but with a limited conditions. In this context, Welschet al. (2014) commented that sustainability of energy is well understood as the significant challenge that cover two major fields such as energy generation from the renewable energy source as well as economic use of renewable and non-renewable sources. The author of this study has mentioned about the major benefit of renewable energy sources over non-renewable energy resource which is virtually unlimited for renewable resources.
On the other side, Kaminker and Youngman (2015) arguably mentioned the fact that policy makers need to do much more to enhance pension funds and other institutional investors to utilize their assets into sustainable development of energy infrastructure. There is an urgent need for shifting to a lower economy but the shift requires a massive investment in new types of infrastructure to tap and distribute energy from major sources such as solar, wind, biomass and hydro. However, Liu, Lund and Mathiesen, (2013) mentioned that more efforts are required if these infrastructure are required to scale up and displace the possibility of polluting coal-fired power station as well as curb greenhouse gas emission. The author of this study has mentioned the fact that over next 20 years over US$50 trillion in cumulative capital expenditure on energy supply as well as energy efficiency would be required to place the planet on a direction consistent with 2 degree Celsius infrastructure, the restriction greatly embraced to restrain catastrophic changes in the climate. However, this is about a large investment which is roughly equivalent to overall GDP. May (2013) mentioned that International Energy Agency figures out, that money invested could be more than offset by a large savings on fuel which could occur particularly in a low carbon scenario. Nonetheless, energy investment could be required in all manner and this might require a net investment in fossil fuel sources. Hence, the major area of understanding in this field is that investment in sustainable energy infrastructure could be a significant financial action in planet’s future. In order to implement the same, policy makers should have a clear picture of an array of public as well as private financial channels, which are available both domestically as well as internationally.
There is no doubt that humans have nonetheless mastered countless technologies to guide and manipulate the change the environment suit; however, when particularly doings things like maximising production of food corps in which machines observes a large amount of food corps. Likewise, population has also increased and people no longer are supposed to devote bulk of their time to collecting food, but due to these occurrences, environment is greatly suffering. Consequently, everyone or the people living in the catchment areas; overall activities of all individuals in the catchment could influence the overall health and sustainability of processes taking place in the catchment. In this context, Collet et al. (2015), commented that sustainable areas of lands natural vegetation could remain intact as well as need to be managed in a way that make sure vegetation communities can be retained for the future. Forest areas that have been designated to produce timber could harvest in a way that keeps pace with regrowth rate, and effective riparian areas should be retained to protect stream bank functions as well as buffer quality effect from the distribution of landscape and the connectivity of wildlife habitats.
On the other side, Wada and Bierkens (2014) in the field of sustainability has mentioned the fact that BREAM ( Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) has dominated environmental assessment of buildings around the world. The author of this article has mentioned the fact that publicly demonstrating green credential is “must-do”for organization in anew and sustainably aware society. Even the multi-national organizations are highly excited to demonstrate that every aspect of their business is green with the inclusion of green building. Conversely,Devineni, Perveen and Lall (2013) mentioned that three pillar of sustainability are the most significant tool for defining and addressing the issue of a complete sustainability; so, the pillars might include economic, social and environmental pillar. According to the author, if any of the stated pillars is found to be weak, the environmental system as a whole could be unsustainable. The following figure shows how these pillars are considered and placed for taking actions for the overall sustainability.
Conclusion
It is worth stating that sustainability is always a significant concern for any field and it require more serious consideration in the coming days because environment is being negativelyinfluenced by several man-made activities. The consequences against suchactivities could be alarming for all species in the environment. This greater issue of sustainability is widelyassociated to the concern of whether the infrastructure deficit is addressed at all. All businesses should note the fact that maintenance is not an exercise that occurs by accident, it is rather a part and parcel of infrastructuredevelopment. Thus, the resources should be available particularly for the maintenance if they have to continue their functions.
References
Ahmad, S. and Tahar, R.M., 2014. Selection of renewable energy sources for sustainable development of electricity generation system using analytic hierarchy process: A case of Malaysia. Renewable energy, 63, pp.458-466.
Arvidsson, N., Woxenius, J. and Lammgård, C., 2013. Review of road hauliers’ measures for increasing transport efficiency and sustainability in urban freight distribution. Transport Reviews, 33(1), pp.107-127.
Berardi, U., 2013. Clarifying the new interpretations of the concept of sustainable building. Sustainable Cities and Society, 8, pp.72-78.
Bocchini, P., Frangopol, D.M., Ummenhofer, T. and Zinke, T., 2013. Resilience and sustainability of civil infrastructure: Toward a unified approach. Journal of Infrastructure Systems, 20(2), p.04014004.
Chester, M., Pincetl, S., Elizabeth, Z., Eisenstein, W. and Matute, J., 2013. Infrastructure and automobile shifts: positioning transit to reduce life-cycle environmental impacts for urban sustainability goals. Environmental Research Letters, 8(1), p.015041.
Collet, L., Ruelland, D., Estupina, V.B., Dezetter, A. and Servat, E., 2015. Water supply sustainability and adaptation strategies under anthropogenic and climatic changes of a meso-scale Mediterranean catchment. Science of the Total Environment, 536, pp.589-602.
Devineni, N., Perveen, S. and Lall, U., 2013. Assessing chronic and climate?induced water risk through spatially distributed cumulative deficit measures: A new picture of water sustainability in India. Water Resources Research, 49(4), pp.2135-2145.
Kaminker, C. and Youngman, R., 2015. Sustainable energy infrastructure, finance and institutional investors. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD Observer, (304), p.20.
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May, A.D., 2013. Urban transport and sustainability: The key challenges. International journal of sustainable transportation, 7(3), pp.170-185.
Oberhofer, P. and Dieplinger, M., 2014. Sustainability in the transport and logistics sector: lacking environmental measures. Business Strategy and the Environment, 23(4), pp.236-253.
Proctor, E., Luke, D., Calhoun, A., McMillen, C., Brownson, R., McCrary, S., and Padek, M. 2015. Sustainability of evidence-based healthcare: research agenda, methodological advances, and infrastructure support. Implementation Science, 10(1), 88.
Vasconcellos, E.A., 2014. Urban Transport Environment and Equity: The case for developing countries. Routledge.
Wada, Y. and Bierkens, M.F., 2014. Sustainability of global water use: past reconstruction and future projections. Environmental Research Letters, 9(10), p.104003.
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Welsch, M., Deane, P., Howells, M., Gallachóir, B.Ó., Rogan, F., Bazilian, M. and Rogner, H.H., 2014. Incorporating flexibility requirements into long-term energy system models–A case study on high levels of renewable electricity penetration in Ireland. Applied Energy, 135, pp.600-615.
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