Infrastructure Asset Management An emerging practice for geomatics professionals Dr. Robert Radovanovic, P.Eng, P.Surv, CAMA, ENV Sp. Nathan Sikkes, P.Eng., ALS, CLS, SLS, P.Surv McElhanney Ltd.
Author’s Note – This article has been previously published in the Summer 2021 edition of Ontario Professional Surveyor (Vol 64, No 3)
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opics such as “infrastructure asset management”, “smart cities” and “digital twins” have been receiving wide exposure, as we have all become aware that our networks of roads, bridges and utilities are reaching their end-of-life, and that large re-investments in these networks are going to be required to maintain our current standards of living. New technologies to analyze large amounts of usage, condition, performance and cost data can optimize investment
allocation so that most critical assets are appropriately prioritized, and unexpected failures minimized. As much of this underlying data has a geospatial component, it seems that geomatics professionals have a promising role to play in gathering up all this data. However, although the definition of “geomatics” focuses on the collection and processing of geographic data, the practice of geomatics and surveying has always been a fundamentally multi-disciplinary pursuit. Surveyors have always played multiple roles in delivering projects for clients, whether it is providing advice on regulations
pertaining to development and planning, liaising on the client’s behalf with stakeholders such as property owners and government agencies, or even supervising construction. At the same time, surveyors have been deeply involved in the design and maintenance of cadastral registration systems around the world (and one can consider ‘land’ as essentially the ‘original asset’). For these reasons, the role of geomatics professionals in the Infrastructure Asset Management practice should not be limited to collectors of information.
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the LINK | December 2021
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