Kasthurirangan “Rangan” Gopalakrishnan, a civil, construction and environmental engineering research associate professor at Iowa State University, recently edited a textbook on pavement sustainability. Co-editors include John Harvey (University of California-Davis) and Wynand Steyn (University of Pretoria, South Africa) with individual chapters contributed by several colleagues. The book, titled “Climate Change, Energy, Sustainability and Pavements,” dives in to pavement systems and their relationship with climate change, energy, and sustainability. It is a great tool for those studying, researching, teaching, or working with sustainable pavement systems.
The book, published by Springer-Verlag, is organized in such a way that educators could use the book for teaching a senior-level or graduate-level course on sustainable roadways and sustainable airport pavements. It has received great attention and appreciation from several colleagues in the pavement community. One such review is from Dr. Agnes Jullien, director of the Environmental, Development, Safety and Eco-Design Laboratory at the French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks (IFSTTAR):
“This book proposes a broad detailed overview of the actual scientific knowledge about pavements linked to climate change, energy and sustainability at the international level in an original multidimensional/multi-effects way. By the end, the reader will be aware of the whole global issues to care about for various pavement technical features around the world, among which implications of modeling including data collection, challenging data collection, challenging resources saving and infrastructures services optimization. This is a complete and varied work, rare in the domain.”
Another review came from Wei-Hsing Huang, editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Pavement Research and Technology and professor of civil engineering at National Centeral University in Taiwan:
“An excellent compilation of latest developments in the field of sustainable pavements. The chapter topics have been carefully chosen and are very well-organized with the intention of equipping the reader with the state-of-the-art knowledge on all aspects of pavement sustainability. Topics covered include pavement Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), pervious pavements, cool pavements, photocatalytic pavements, energy harvesting pavements, etc. which will all be of significant interest to students, researchers, and practitioners of pavement engineering. This book will no doubt serve as an excellent reference on the topic of sustainable pavements.”
After Gopalakrishnan published an e-book on sustainable highways, pavements and materials in 2011, he discovered the need to bring out a comprehensive book on this important topic.
Goplakrishnan says, “This book will prove to be a valuable resource in the hands of researchers, educators and future pavement engineering leaders, most of whom will work in multidisciplinary environments to address a host of next-generation sustainable transportation infrastructure challenges.” He is in the process of developing a course based on the book.
Communications Intern Kati Smith contributed to this story.