Preface

Life on this planet has been undergoing severe challenges owing to the rampant anomalies in the natural climate and the ecosystem getting modified by human interventions at multitudes of scales. It is inevitable to admit that we have compromised a lot in maintaining global sustainability during the process of ever-satiating quench for better life comforts. There is a much wanted look-back, get corrections and move forward to ensure the essential implementations of sustainability principles in every walk of our life. The concept of sustainable infrastructure envisions inclusive growth for design, development and delivery of the services and products. Therefore it is imperative to adopt environmental stewardship for conscious and responsible consumption of natural resources to build sustainable enterprises. Technology has a crucial role in enabling to achieve the audacious goals by promoting institutionalization and a large scale influence in the lifestyle. The idea of smart city has captivated the infrastructure industry and developmental activities in a different pace and style, in contrary to the conventional approach based on architectural prevalence. The infrastructure industry has been experiencing a radical shift in its normal expectations in terms on the space utilization, materials used, degree of comforts defined and auto/remote-controlled features anticipated to replace the direct human interventions for better experiences. The basic requirements for such a system to co-exist, would be, to have a network of connected devices and sensors based on the technology framework, followed by a communication system to translate and share the data to enable to make quick decisions, and to extrapolate the system to suit for a wide range of amenities in the intended space to inspire better decisions and to enable behaviour change. This is very prominently exhibited in the increasing interest in research for widening the application of smart technology to contribute for improved monitoring and management systems in the core pillars of infrastructure, namely, water, energy, mobility and waste. There are increasing reports on the adoptability of decision support systems based on real-time monitoring of environmental parameters, structural health and energy production and consumption, giving rise to enable high visibility, accessibility and reproducibility to the decision makers in multi-layered platforms. In any case, it is inevitable to accept the deeper synergistic correlations happening in the construction industry with advancement in technology. From a holistic viewpoint, the concept of sustainable infrastructure is based on global and domestic sustainable development goals (SDG) and carries a strong regard to social, financial and political issues, public health and wellbeing, as well as economic and environmental concerns. The key aspects of making tailor-made versions of the SDGs should, nonetheless, cover the policy measures, data/information flows and financial mobilization. Considering the infrastructural projects as the key driver, there is a wide scope for addressing the compatibility and resilience with climate, physical, social and institutional environment. From a wider perspective, inviting investments in such sustainable infrastructural projects can provide a good non-volatile source of economic growth, community wellbeing and financial returns. The unforeseen pandemic situation due to the outbreak of Covid-19 has created more digital business enabling more vendors to invest on information technology based incubations, which can be further imported to the existing hardware for enhancing the productivity and functionalities. A smart approach can provide an opportunity for knowledge integration, necessary to solve crucial problems of contemporary societies. Therefore it is highly envisaged that a synergistic interaction between smart technology and infrastructure development can enliven the vitality of sustainability in the best of its interest. Here is an example of such a techno-scientific interaction happened virtually by virtue of the current pandemic situation. This First International Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure with Smart Technology for Energy and Environmental Management (FIC-SISTEEM-2020) organized by the Department of Civil Engineering, Bannari Amman Institute of Technology Sathyamangalam, India envisages a unique platform to discover the deeper intricacies of energy, environment and infrastructure development where deliberations on the current and futuristic approaches were critically discussed. It also aims to develop and maintain long-term knowledge-sharing among the research communities to further enlighten the research attributes for global welfare. The conference program includes four key-note speeches by eminent academicians and practitioners, followed by paper presentations by the faculty/scholars/students from various universities and research centres in three themes namely, Smart and Sustainable Infrastructure [SSI], Smart Technology for Energy [STE] and Sustainable Environmental Management [SEM]. The selected papers for this publication are further classified into nine topics viz. Innovations for Smart City, Sustainable Engineering Design, Advanced Materials for Construction, Recycled Materials for Construction, Advances in Soil Stabilization, Sustainable Technology for Energy, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, Remediation and Resource Recovery and Environmental Modeling and Management. This conference proceedings book will be valuable reference material to be recommended for the libraries. However, there is a great scope in reaching this compendium of latest research articles for the intellectual benefits of the young generation who wants to update with the latest ones. It will be highly beneficial not only to the academicians and scholars, but also to the industry researchers and policy makers who are keen in observing the latest trends in engineering and technology towards product/service/policy formulation. In this regard, we anticipate a good welcoming opportunity for this title to get exposed and popularized, especially through the banner of IOP Publications. On behalf of the organizing committee and the host institute, we thank all the contributing authors, members of various committees, technical reviewers, and co-editors to make this attempt a grant success. We apologize for any inadvertent mistakes occurred in this edition. Dr. M Vasudevan, Dr. B Soundara, Dr. N Karthiga and Mrs. V Preetha [Editors] Department of Civil Engineering, Bannari Amman Institute of Technology Sathyamangalam, Tamil Nadu, India