International ​Conference

 

Introduction

 

    Subsurface utility networks such as water supply, drainage, power, telecom, oil and gas transmission pipelines are essential to the proper functioning of any city.  Failure of any of these infrastructures may lead to catastrophic outcomes to the welfare of city residents, businesses, and may even affect the entire society as a whole. 

   

    There comes the professional utility specialists who are determined to the safety and management of the subsurface utilities.  Their scope of work includes conduit condition survey & assessment, appurtenances condition survey & assessment, leak detection, trenchless rehabilitation, GPR surveys, conduit flow studies, utility data management, utility construction & rehabilitation project management, utility safety, and utility management.  Their works are able to maintain and ensure the proper condition of the underground utility.  For that reason, they are vital to the operation of the subsurface utility networks.

 

    Nonetheless, the challenges in subsurface utility safety are ever growing in parallel with growing urbanization.  The subsurface space of the urban area is getting more complex and congested as buried utility often overlapped one and another.  Awareness to this issue, however, is still low.  More importantly, there is not even a proactive strategy for the development and management in the realm of buried utility.  As a result, it is imperative to discuss these problems substantially and to spread out the words as soon as possible.  In order to achieve this, a paper writing competition on this subject is announced

 

    International Institute of Utility Specialists (IIUS), in association with Indian Society for Trenchless Technology (IndSTT) are intended to raise the awareness about utility safety in engineering students.  The above organizations hope to make engineer students more attentive to the underground safety of utility infrastructure and the associated challenges through the proposed competition so that future engineers are better equipped to handle subsurface construction activities.