The Sad State of Our Buried Infrastructure Knowledge

As a civil engineer with site and utility design experience, it amazes me to think about how little we actually know about what is buried just beneath our feet. Specifically, the quality of our engineering knowledge about existing buried infrastructure - water lines, sewers, telecommunication, gas and electric utilities - does not nearly reflect just how critical this infrastructure is to the very fabric of our society. The problem is both widespread and systemic. As engineers and facility managers, we simply do not have a good history of utility-related record-keeping - a fact which profoundly affects our ability to manage, maintain and expand our engineering infrastructure today. In engineering and construction practice, uncertainty about utility locations can easily lead to budget overruns, project delays, and construction change orders. In the worst-case scenarios, it can result in unwanted legal action, costly damage to existing utilities, and safety risks to excavating contractors.

From a historical perspective, there are many reasons why our buried infrastructure records are in such an unfortunate state. Much of our infrastructure was designed and constructed decades ago - perhaps even over a century ago, in our older cities. Computer-Aided Drafting (CAD) and Geographic

Overview and History

From the time ancient humans first abandoned their nomadic ways and began to construct permanent shelters, society and individual quality-of-life have been both bound and enhanced by the technical proficiency of civil engineers---their ability to invent and apply tools and technologies as new challenges arose. During the course of history, these engineering tools naturally evolved from the groma used for surveying roads in ancient Rome, to the slide rules that helped humans land on the Moon, to the spreadsheets and computer-aided-drafting tools used by civil engineers today. As a result, the Civil Engineering Toolbox of this generation is vastly different than the toolbox of my grandfather's generation.