Building the Future: Civil Engineering and the Advent of Smart Cities

Prof. YANG Jiachuan is an Associate Professor and the Undergraduate Programs Coordinator at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He leads the development of the Minor Program in Smart City at HKUST. His research goal is to advance the fundamental understanding of the urban environment and promote its multi-sector sustainability.

By Prof. Yang Jiachuan

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs has predicted that by 2050, over 68% of the global population will reside in cities. This massive projected urban population (6.5+ billion) will no doubt put a great deal of strain on infrastructure, resources and the world’s ecosystems, but, from an engineering standpoint, such large-scale urbanization also presents tremendous opportunities for technological, human as well as other societal and economic development.

Civil engineering is the backbone of human societies and will continue to assume an instrumental role in driving forward such urbanization. Gone are the days when civil engineers were associated with only weighty, static, brutalist structures (think roads and bridges made of concrete); we still build those robust structures, as societies will continue to depend on them, but times have changed, and civil engineering has become tremendously vibrant, agile and dynamic. Today, we reimagine and reengineer cities as interconnected ecosystems brimming with vitality—smart cities. First envisioned in the 1990s, smart cities are no longer a distant dream. They are a reality of the twenty-first century and beyond, and we civil engineers have been an integral part of bringing that reality to fruition.

Here at HKUST, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CIVL) endeavors to train the next generation of engineering leaders, readying them to tackle any complex challenges they may face as they join local, regional and/or worldwide efforts to implement smart cities. I am particularly excited to spotlight two programs offered at HKUST: the Extended Major in Artificial Intelligence (+ AI) and the specialized Minor in Smart City. These, along with the Civil and Environmental Engineering Programs offered by our Department, showcase our continued commitment to bridging conventional ingenuity with innovations of the future, empowering students to solve global challenges and craft communities that are sustainable, equitable and technologically advanced. Our programs are an excellent platform for students to learn to combine technologies and theories to create robust, efficient, and intelligent urban infrastructure. Highlights of the technological innovations embedded in these programs include (but are not limited to):

• Intelligent transportation systems that utilize real-time traffic management and feature well-designed charging networks for electric vehicles;
• Energy-efficient infrastructure such as green buildings, which feature building-integrated renewable energy and climate-resilient designs that can combat urban heat island effect and flooding;
• Tech-integrated construction, which incorporates computer vision to monitor structural health, building information modeling (BIM) for smart operation, as well as construction robotics; and
• Environmentally friendly cities that not only understand the importance of recycling but also implement a variety of ways (such as biochar applications in geotechnical engineering) to extract and/or derive reusable materials from urban waste, ultimately achieving carbon neutrality.

Throughout the learning journey, our students will gain hands-on experience in our labs, participate in internships and receive industry training, as well as collaborate with peers and professionals on design projects. Opportunities are abundant for them to connect classroom knowledge to the real world, and to embark upon a purposeful, well-admired career where legacies are built with both wisdom accumulated from the past and innovations of the twenty-first century. In essence, civil engineers build more than just infrastructure; we build better lives.

Whether you already look at our world today and wonder if daily lives can be more efficient and productive, or you dream about designing and implementing more innovative cities, or you have new visions and ideas and would like to see how they might fit into the way tomorrow’s societies are shaped, I invite you to join us in our endeavor to build a smarter, greener future!