Policy statement 500 - Resilient Infrastructure

Approved by the Infrastructure and Research Policy Committee on February 27, 2026
Approved by the Public Policy and Practice Committee on March 20, 2026
Adopted by the Board of Direction on July 21, 2026

Policy

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) supports: 

• Initiatives that increase the resilience of infrastructure against human-induced and natural hazards through education, research, planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance.
• Development of performance measures and uniform national standards that address interdependencies and establish minimum performance goals for infrastructure. 
• A multhazard risk assessment process that considers event likelihood and consequence, encourages mitigation strategies, extends service life, monitors outcomes, and addresses recovery and return to service during the planning/design process for infrastructure at all government levels.
• Plans for return to service that also allow for restoration of services for health and safety while also incorporating better resiliency during the planning/design process for infrastructure at all government levels.
• The adoption of the following six principles (from The World Bank Quality Infrastructure Investment Partnership) for infrastructure projects:
  o Maximize the positive impact of infrastructure to achieve sustainable growth and development. 
  o Raise economic efficiency in view of life-cycle costs. 
  o Integrate environmental considerations in infrastructure. 
  o Build resilience against natural disasters and other risks.
  o Integrate social considerations in infrastructure investment. 
  o Strengthen infrastructure governance. 

Issue

To be resilient, infrastructure projects require a systems-thinking approach. A multihazard, comprehensive risk assessment, including restoration of services for health and safety while also returning better resiliency in assets, should be incorporated into planning, design, construction, operation, closure, and maintenance activities for infrastructure components including design and useful life. New initiatives should be coordinated across all government levels. 

Rationale

Resilience is the ability to plan, prepare for, mitigate, and adapt to changing conditions to enable recovery of physical, social, economic, and ecological infrastructure. Improving resilience will allow for return to functionality while accounting for interdependence within and across all sectors.

Civil engineers provide leadership for planning, designing, constructing, operating, managing, evolving, improving, and maintaining infrastructure systems. The increasing frequency and intensity of disasters, combined with increasing population densities, reliance on technology, aging infrastructure, and interdependencies, present vulnerabilities to infrastructure. An important component of resilience is understanding the impact of the loss of infrastructure and the timeline and cost to restore its function following an extreme event. 

Resilient infrastructure demands coordinated governance, shared data environments, and sustained investment across public and private sectors. This system-based approach results in more comprehensive and cost-effective solutions to maintaining and restoring infrastructure.
 
This policy has worldwide application
ASCE Policy Statement 500
First Approved in 2003