October 2022 President's Report

The focus of this month’s issue is Climate Change Mitigation. As an environmental engineer and LEED AP this is a subject near and dear to my heart. The impact of climate change is becoming more apparent every year as we see the significant rise in extreme weather events across the US and the world.  The devastation of Hurricane Ian has again raised the difficult question of how to make our coastal communities safe, resilient, and reliable.

ASCE has for many years been at the forefront of climate change mitigation and sustainability. ASCE’s current strategic plan includes a goal that: “All infrastructure is safe resilient and sustainable.”  ASCE seeks to achieve this goal by promoting its Grand Challenge to encourage the use of life-cycle cost analysis, performance-based design, best practices for sustainable engineering, and resiliency standards in planning and design of all infrastructure projects. ASCE has already developed a large quantity of standards and guidelines promoting safety, reliability, and resilience. Links to these and many other resources on climate change mitigation and sustainability can be found at the website for the ASCE Sustainability Technical Group https://www.asce.org/communities/institutes-and-technical-groups/sustainability.

On endeavors here at home, Kyle Johnson from Kleinfelder has authored an interesting article about efforts by the City of Cambridge to make their community more heat resilient. BSCES has its own Committee on Sustainability. Arianna Paul from Green International Affiliates, Inc. the committee chairperson, has written a great article in this month’s newsletter on the committee´s purpose and activities. Also, please note, the committee is looking for new members! 

I lastly want to mention a BSCES event coming up that is focused on sustainability. The 18th Arthur Casagrande Lecture is to be held on November 3. The lecture is to be given by Patricia J. Culligan, PhD, CEng, F. ASCE, FICE, Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Notre Dame. The lecture will be on a decadal long study that investigated the multi-faceted performance of urban stormwater green infrastructure in New York City. 

In closing, I would like to recognize and thank Keller, which is a 2022-2023 BSCES Society Sponsor and the sponsor of this issue of BSCESNews. Please be sure to read the article entitled, “Implementing Sustainability in the Geotechnical Industry,” which is written by Karie Yamamoto and Kimberly Martin from Keller.