Water & Wastewater

    Guns, Drones, and Scissors: Lessons From the North Carolina Power Station Incident

    Cyber attacks often take center stage in public and private discussions of critical infrastructure security in the U.S. The Dec. 3 incident that left some 45,000 Duke Energy customers without power in North Carolina — as well as the ongoing Russian assaults on Ukrainian infrastructure — provide an important reminder that physical attacks remain a major threat as well. On the PBS news program Amanpour and Company, Juliette Kayyem, former Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and author… Read More »Guns, Drones, and Scissors: Lessons From the North Carolina Power Station Incident

      Infrastructure in the News: Wastewater Agriculture, Rural Broadband, NIMBY Energy

      Wastewater Agriculture Urban farming may have just taken a big step toward scaleable reality. According to Hortidaily, researchers from Clemson University and South Korea’s Gyeongsang National University have developed a low-impact method for growing produce in cities. The system researchers are developing would use an anaerobic membrane bioreactor to filter harmful contaminants out of wastewater while leaving behind nutrients that fertilize plants. The treated water would be used on crops, such as lettuce, that are growing in an indoor, soil-free… Read More »Infrastructure in the News: Wastewater Agriculture, Rural Broadband, NIMBY Energy

        Coastal Reconstruction After Hurricane Ian

        The damage wrought by Hurricane Ian has already prompted conversations about a rebuilding boom in Florida as well as concerns about construction labor shortages in the state. The recovery effort certainly will be colossal: The storm took more than 100 lives and left behind private-market insured losses of between $53 billion and $74 billion, according to risk modeling company RMS. Sarasota County has already announced its intention to expedite all storm-related permits. What’s less clear is precisely how Florida will… Read More »Coastal Reconstruction After Hurricane Ian

          Site-Specific Water Infrastructure

          As a result of the climate crisis, droughts and floods are increasing dramatically in both frequency and intensity. A recent monograph of work by Denver-based landscape and planning firm Wenk Associates doubles as a manual for ecologically responsible on-site water management, which has the potential to mitigate stress on city-wide infrastructure. Working Water: Reinventing the Storm Drain (ORO Editions, $40) , as its title suggests, demonstrates efficient methods for managing urban water resources, using Wenk Associates projects as case studies.… Read More »Site-Specific Water Infrastructure

            With Smart Cities, Technology Shouldn’t Be the Goal

            The urban IT movement known as “Smart Cities” offers a seemingly infinite toolset for making cities and their infrastructure more efficient. But tech isn’t the point, cautions Riad Meddeb and Calum Handforth of the United Nations Development Programme, in the pages of the MIT Technology Review. Truly smart cities recognize the ambiguity of lives and livelihoods, and they are driven by outcomes beyond the implementation of “solutions.” They are defined by their residents’ talents, relationships, and sense of ownership—not by… Read More »With Smart Cities, Technology Shouldn’t Be the Goal

              The City of Austin, Texas, Is Piloting an On-Site Water Collection and Reuse System

              Water is not an abundant resource in Austin, Texas, and the climate crisis will only make matters worse. The city adopted a progressive water strategy in 2018. A new pilot project at the City’s Permitting and Development Center will demonstrate a different way of handling a building’s water. An underground collection and reuse system, or OSCAR, will collect 40,000 gallons of rainwater and air-conditioning condensate on site. The system filters the water and then stores it for reuse in landscaping. The process… Read More »The City of Austin, Texas, Is Piloting an On-Site Water Collection and Reuse System

                Productivity and Data in Construction: Four Facts

                According to the 1967 film “The Graduate,” the future could be summed up on just one word: “plastics.” Today that word would probably be “data.” So why has the construction industry been so slow to adopt digital technology? SoftwareOne’s Jason Dodds walks us through the downsides and the possibilities in his talk for Outlook 2022. Here are a few data points to get the conversation started. Over the past 50 years, manufacturing productivity has increased 2.5-fold, while labor productivity in… Read More »Productivity and Data in Construction: Four Facts

                  Job Site Communication Says a Lot About the State of the Construction Industry

                  You’ve probably heard the expression, “What got you here won’t get you there.” In his introduction to the Outlook 2022 event, Dodge CEO Dan McCarthy shares what’s new within the organization and how the changes underway will benefit customers and members. Now is the time to think about the future of the construction industry. His focus? In a word, technology. Just as supply chain disruptions are plaguing global trade, McCarthy observes, information supply chain disruptions are holding back efficiency and… Read More »Job Site Communication Says a Lot About the State of the Construction Industry

                    Agile Construction

                    Is the value of Agile Construction fact or fiction? Join us as we show you what it looks like to bring Agile Construction to life on your jobsite! We’ll discuss the best practices to succeed when rolling out digital pull planning and scheduling, the real value of Agile Construction on a jobsite, why adoption by your entire team is the secret to success, and how providing value to all your stakeholders is the key.

                      Driving Actionable Commercial Construction Insights Through Data

                      Data has the power to unlock new insights into your business; however, obtaining that level of understanding requires data to be mastered. This panel will discuss mastering data from a variety of data sources including customer-specific content, data de-duplication, creating relationships amongst data elements, and examples of the insights this provides to customers.