Developing sustainability criteria for urban infrastructure systems

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Research in the area of sustainable urban infrastructure reflects the need to design and manage engineering systems in light of both environmental and socioeconomic consideration. A principal challenge for the engineering is the development of practical tools for measuring and enhancing the sustainability assessment of urban infrastructure systems. The framework focuses on key interactions and feedback mechanisms between infrastructure and surrounding environmental, economic, and social systems. One way of understanding and quantifying these interacting effects is through the use of sustainability criteriaand indicators. A generic set of sustainability criteria and subcriteria and system-specific indicators in put forward. Selected indicators are quantified in a case study of the urban water system of the City of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.