Infrastructure
In general, infrastructure has been defined as "the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions" and maintain the surrounding environment.
[5] This includes educational programs, official statistics, parks and recreational facilities, law enforcement agencies, and emergency services.
A 1987 US National Research Council panel adopted the term "public works infrastructure", referring to: "... both specific functional modes – highways, streets, roads, and bridges; mass transit; airports and airways; water supply and water resources; wastewater management; solid-waste treatment and disposal; electric power generation and transmission; telecommunications; and hazardous waste management – and the combined system these modal elements comprise.
A comprehension of infrastructure spans not only these public works facilities, but also the operating procedures, management practices, and development policies that interact together with societal demand and the physical world to facilitate the transport of people and goods, provision of water for drinking and a variety of other uses, safe disposal of society's waste products, provision of energy where it is needed, and transmission of information within and between communities.
[8] As the United States presumably looks to upgrade its existing infrastructure, sustainable measures could be a consideration of the design, build, and operation plans.
[10] Human capital is defined by the Encyclopædia Britannica as "intangible collective resources possessed by individuals and groups within a given population".
Sustainable infrastructure refers to the processes of design and construction that take into consideration their environmental, economic, and social impact.
This includes roads, highways, bridges, airports, cycling infrastructure, water distribution networks, sewer systems, and irrigation plants.
These include schools, parks and playgrounds, structures for public safety, waste disposal plants, hospitals, and sports areas.
[15] Investors seeking core infrastructure look for five different characteristics: income, low volatility of returns, diversification, inflation protection, and long-term liability matching.
Basic infrastructure refers to main railways, roads, canals, harbors and docks, the electromagnetic telegraph, drainage, dikes, and land reclamation.
[citation needed] One such definition from 1998 defined infrastructure as the network of assets "where the system as a whole is intended to be maintained indefinitely at a specified standard of service by the continuing replacement and refurbishment of its components".
The notion of infrastructure-based development combining long-term infrastructure investments by government agencies at central and regional levels with public private partnerships has proven popular among economists in Asia (notably Singapore and China), mainland Europe, and Latin America.
Examples include barracks, headquarters, airfields, communications facilities, stores of military equipment, port installations, and maintenance stations.
Infrastructure investments and maintenance can be very expensive, especially in such areas as landlocked, rural and sparsely populated countries in Africa.
[24] In California, infrastructure financing districts are established by local governments to pay for physical facilities and services within a specified area by using property tax increases.
The private sector spending alone equals state capital expenditure, though the majority is focused on ICT infrastructure investments.
[30] Governments are facing enormous decreases in revenue, economic downturns, overworked health systems, and hesitant workforces, resulting in huge budget deficits across the board.
[31] The unusually large scale of the packages needed for COVID-19 was accompanied by widespread calls for "greening" them to meet the dual goals of economic recovery and environmental sustainability.
[32] Although it is readily apparent that much effort is needed to repair the economic damage inflicted by the Coronavirus epidemic, an immediate return to business as usual could be environmentally harmful, as shown by the 2007-08 financial crisis in the United States.
The post-COVID-19 period could determine whether the world meets or misses the emissions goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement and limits global warming to 1.5 degrees C to 2 degrees C.[34] As a result of the COVID-19 epidemic, a host of factors could jeopardize a low-carbon recovery plan: this includes reduced attention on the global political stage (2020 UN Climate Summit has been postponed to 2021), the relaxing of environmental regulations in pursuit of economic growth, decreased oil prices preventing low-carbon technologies from being competitive, and finally, stimulus programs that take away funds that could have been used to further the process of decarbonization.
[35] There have also been calls for an independent body could provide a comparable assessment of countries' fiscal policies, promoting transparency and accountability at the international level.
[38] Sustainable waste management is beneficial environmentally, and can also cut costs for businesses that reduce their amount of disposed goods.
[43] However, while they do serve as a connection between cities, transportation for people and goods, and protection for land against flooding and erosion, they only last for 50 to 100 years.
Green infrastructure uses plant or soil systems to restore some of the natural processes needed to manage water, reduce the effects of disasters such as flooding,[46] and create healthier urban environments.
[48] Green infrastructure has become an increasingly popular strategy in recent years due to its effectiveness in providing ecological, economic, and social benefits – including positively impacting energy consumption, air quality, and carbon reduction and sequestration.
[51] Bioswales are planted in paved areas like parking lots or sidewalks and are made to allow for overflow into the sewer system by trapping silt and other pollutants, which are normally left over from impermeable surfaces.
[48] Smart cities use innovative methods of design and implementation in various sectors of infrastructure and planning to create communities that operate at a higher level of relative sustainability than their traditional counterparts.
[8] When urban resilience and infrastructure reliability interact, cities are able to produce the same level of output at similarly reasonable costs as compared to other non sustainable communities, while still maintaining ease of operation and usage.
[52] Some individuals have referred to this planned settlement as "utopia-like", due to the fact that it will feature multiple sustainable infrastructure elements, including energy, water, waste management, and transportation.
