• Smart cities: performance monitoring of roadway infrastructure; pavement asset management; smart pavements; traffic flow modeling and simulation; traffic operations and management; pedestrian safety; intelligent transportation systems; underground transportation and lifeline systems; high-speed rail corridor; IoTs; artificial intelligence; deep learning; electric vehicles.
• Water and resource security: optimal and real-time operations of water distribution networks; SCADA; reservoir systems; lake rejuvenation; effluent management
• Resilient and sustainable infrastructure: ground engineering, reinforced soil technologies, performance and reliability-based design, seismic resistant design, CFS systems, structural health monitoring, nondestructive evaluation; repair, rehabilitation and retrofitting, behavior of structural and secondary elements.

CEE is involved in the development of innovative and green technologies, which encompass various facets of material design, characterization, application, and reuse. It is noteworthy that the group has created networks that cut across several disciplines in science and engineering.

• Sustainable construction: cost-effective, waste-derived, eco-friendly; urban housing; valorization of solid waste materials such as construction and demolition waste, scrap-tire derived materials, supplementary cementitious materials such as fly ash, mine tailings, silica fume, etc.
• Green pavements: asphalt-rubber to reuse scrap tires in roads; permeable concrete for mitigation of urban heat island and flash floods; warm-mix asphalt to enhance fuel efficiency.
• Nanomaterials: affordable and scalable production technique; environmentally friendly synthesis route; waste-derived nanomaterials (waste plastic; agricultural and food waste; aquaculture waste); water harvesting from atmosphere; anti corrosive paints, sealants for healing microcracks in concrete; desiccant based cooling system; food-packing

CEE scientists are engaged in various interdisciplinary research areas pertaining to this theme as follows: 

• Climate change: downscaling models; rainwater harvesting for enhanced water security; implications for hydrologic systems; floods and disaster management.
• Sustainable watershed development: agricultural management for water, energy, and nutrition security; assessment of WELF nexus; interventions for watershed rejuvenation; Internet of Things (IoTs): sensors and machine learning; non-stationary statistics; multi-scale hydrologic modeling; coastal aquifer management
• Adaptation and resilience: Designs for thermal comfort and energy efficiency; fire protection technologies; flood resistant pavements.

CEE researchers have been developing and applying rational and reliable methodologies for improving the endurance of various infrastructure systems subjected to extreme events, their risks and vulnerabilities thereof. The various sub-areas include:

• Reliable infrastructures: design and performance of structural elements under earthquake, landslides, and associated hazards; mechanistic pavement design; tire-pavement interaction; performance pay factors, uncertainties and randomness
• Repair and rehabilitation: structural health monitoring; nondestructive evaluation; forensics; rehabilitation and retrofitting
• Efficient hydrosystems: optimal hedging of reservoir operations for hydropower, irrigation, and water supply; hedging; urban flood risk assessment, urban resilience through system dynamics approach
• Environmental impacts: risk assessment, climate change mitigation and adaptation; modeling of extreme events using non-stationary approaches; urban and coastal floods
• Intelligent Transportation: road safety assessment; accident prediction models

CEE scientists are engaged in the interdisciplinary research areas pertaining to natural resource management:

• Urban health and environment: air quality modeling and management; sustainability and integrated impact assessment; life cycle analysis and GHG accounting; industrial ecology; urban ecosystem management; transportation-related noise; construction noise.
• Sustainability: resource efficiency; Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); energy and transport; circular economy; life cycle cost assessment; waste-to-wealth; waste-to-energy.
• Geoinformatics and remote sensing: Utility and resource mapping; estimation of evapo-transpiration and soil moisture; land use-land covers; urban heat islands; slope stability, watershed management.

CEE is actively involved in transdisciplinary research related to science and technology for the treatment of air, water, wastewater, and solids.

• Affordable technologies: waste derived adsorbents; biological treatment of wastewater; removal of heavy metals and fluoride in water; disinfection.
• Advanced treatment: photocatalysis; capacitive deionisation; plasma based oxidation; remediation of emerging contaminants in water and wastewater; membrane filtration.
• Nano-technology: Synthesis and application of heterostructured nanomaterials, metal organic framework, and polymer nanocomposites; plasma mediated synthesis of nanomaterials and its application in water purification; antibacterial and antiviral composites; affordable production of graphene and its derivatives from cellulosic and hemicellulosic wastes.