JSCE Magazine Summary & Index
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vol.111 No.10 Oct. 2026
From maintenance to management
The January 28, 2025 road cave-in in Yashio City, Saitama, shocked Japan: a truck driver died,
about 1.2 million people faced sewerage restrictions, and full restoration will take over five
years. Caused mainly by an aged, corroded sewer pipe, it showed how severely lost infrastructure
function affects daily life.
Infrastructure from the rapid-growth era will age further over the next two decades, while
funding and personnel shortages under population decline hinder responses --most acutely
in municipalities, which manage most facilities.
Hence a shift is under way from "maintenance" --inspection, repair, and renewal --to strategic
"Management," extending to facility consolidation, reorganization, and the design of regional futures,
in debates that reach beyond civil engineering.
The feature opens with a cross-disciplinary dialogue, an introduction to strategic management
of regional infrastructure groups, and a government -industry -academia discussion on sewerage.
It then presents technological (AI, robotics) and institutional (joint support for municipal practice,
workforce development) initiatives, closing with columns prepared with JSCE's "Infrastructure
as Our Own Matter" committee on taking ownership of the problem.
