Emerging Issues and New Expectations

Abstract

The origin of physical asset management for civil infrastructure can be traced back to the development of pavement management systems in the 1970s, and there is widespread agreement that it came from the confluence of principles from economics, management, and engineering. At its outset, infrastructure management systems created means to handle the heavy burden of objectively justifying maintenance and rehabilitation investment decisions. As time passed, its scope was broadened to cover upgrade and expansion, as well as coordination considerations. IAM has been recently revised especially by scholars taking potential advantages of civil infrastructure to address novel concerns such as environmental and vulnerability issues, and with the adoption of sustainable goals by the United Nations, it is expected that IAM will continue to evolve to include aspects pertaining to the dimensions of sustainability (society, economy, and environment), including human development and climate change. This chapter presents some of the emerging issues and new expectations that will render IAM more complex and more realistic; it is not intended to be exhaustive but to provide a panorama for the need for forward-thinking among IAM professionals. Perhaps one day all IAM systems will be handled in a unified manner to identify optimal decisions across all systems that maximize the welfare of society and the sustainability of our planet.