With the rapid development of urbanization in some developing countries such as China, India, and Brazil, numerous huge civil infrastructures have been built in recent years. The performance of these structures during construction, operation, maintenance, and repair becomes a major concern. In order to accurately assess the health condition of engineering structures and prevent potential failure, a variety of smart sensing technologies and methods have been successively developed in the past few decades, including fiber optic sensing (FOS), time domain reflectometry (TDR), micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS), particle image velocimetry (PIV), global positioning system (GPS), and wireless sensor network (WSN). Due to their inherent advantages, these technologies have played an increasingly important role in health monitoring of civil infrastructures.

We invite investigators to contribute original as well as review articles on up-to-date research findings, hotspots, and key subjects in this area. Also, this special issue is intended to collect the latest research results in the development and applications of smart sensing technologies in civil infrastructures. It would also cover the best papers from the 5th International Forum on Opto-electronic Sensor-based Monitoring in Geoengineering ( http://www.osmg2014.com/).

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Novel smart sensing mechanisms and devices for civil infrastructures
• Applications of smart sensors and sensing systems in civil infrastructures
• In-field implementation of structural health monitoring and diagnosis systems
• Supporting technologies in monitoring civil infrastructures, such as real-time data acquisition and processing, data transferring, and remote management
• Typical case study of sensing applications and civil infrastructures monitoring