The 21st Century Renaissance of Tied-Arch Bridges
The Veterans Memorial Bridge (Image) Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s celebrated bridges—such as the Windsor Railway Bridge—are sometimes referred to as the earliest built examples of tied-arch bridges. But while Brunel’s wrought iron structures were groundbreaking and remain engineering landmarks, their primary innovation lies in their truss configurations, not in the development of the tied-arch system. Images describe true-arch (top) and tied-arch (bottom) behavior. Differences in comp...
Ion-Exchange PFAS Removal Expands in Northern California
Northern California water agency Zone 7 opened its second PFAS treatment facility in March 2025. (Zone 7 Water Agency) In August 2022, California water agency Zone 7 faced the prospect of taking its most productive well out of service during the driest three water years on California record. Located about 15 miles east of the San Francisco Bay in Pleasanton, Calif., the agency’s Stoneridge Well had shown elevated levels of perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), a chemical that had drawn sc...
We Don’t Have a Wildfire Problem. We Have a Building Problem.
Photos show a home in Napa under construction (above) and a completed fire-resistant home (below), both built with RSG’s resilient panel building system. Smarter materials and fire-conscious design offer a path to long-term resilience When the Tubbs Fire tore through Northern California in 2017, it left behind a grim picture: more than 5,600 structures gone, entire neighborhoods in Santa Rosa reduced to rubble. And yet, amid the scorched earth, a small handful of homes still stood—a...
Engineered Solutions: Optimize Point Cloud Data for AEC Projects
Download the Engineered Solution
Engineered Solutions: Engineering Excellence
Download the Engineered Solution
Engineered Solutions: Tapping into a Solution: Addressing Water Scarcity in the United States
Download the Engineered Solution
Engineered Solutions: How Digital Project Delivery Enables Engineering Talent
Download the Engineered Solution
Workforce Challenges: Competing for New Structural Engineering Talent
RAOUL KARP, P.E., S.E., (LEFT) and BRIAN QUINN, P.E. (RIGHT) With nine out of 10 firms looking for engineers and more than 10 percent of them considering leaving the profession in their early employment years, now is a critical time for firms to revisit their strategies on how to attract and retain new engineers. There are many factors that influence why an entry-level engineer selects a job and how long they stay with that company. By engaging directly with engineering students and review...
Thoughts From Engineers: Machine Learning and Gauging Flood Risk
Long before there were “tech kids” by any definition, I was never more content than in the company of the “huge mainframe” computer residing at the local university computing center while still in high school. (I even crafted an elaborate plan to spend the night there—but that story is for another time.) Later on, during graduate school, I combined my interest in software engineering and hydrology and have remained keenly interested in all developments relating to those two fields ever since. M...
From the Editor: Engineers Often Are the Smartest People in the Room
The “Smart Engineering” special issue each year is always a challenging column for me to write. It’s not that I don’t see the value of smart engineering—it’s just that I don’t know enough about the technical details to create a few paragraphs that would be interesting to our readers. So instead, I will illustrate what I think is a smart engineer, featuring some examples of people I’ve known. Maintain Trust A somewhat funny, but true, definition might be: A smart engineer is one who has determi...
Stormwater Interview with Robert Page, P.E., Vice President, HNTB
Santa Barbara County North Branch Jail Expansion
February Issue 2026
