A civil infrastructure system (CIS) is better defined by its interactive effects and integration than by its individual components. It transports people and goods, delivers clean water, electric power, gas and liquid fuel, preserves the environment from pollution, facilitates communication and mitigates the impact of natural disasters.Infrastructure systems are networks and/or lifelines of which highways, airports, canals, dams, bridges, embankments, mass transit and telecommunication systems, etc. are important components.The increasing demand for CIS availability — while new constructions may be prevented from environmental considerations and, in Europe, from architectural motivations — requires the improvement of the existing CIS. In addition, recent natural disasters have demonstrated the fragility of these systems and the devastating degree of socio-economic loss that their failure can bring. These trends are common in most industrial countries. All these countries are in urgent need of cost-effective strategies for planning, design, construction, maintenance and retrofit of their respective CISs in order to enhance and sustain the current economic prosperity into the 21st century.
