A sustainable development aims to enhance the quality of life by improving the social, economic and environmental conditions for present and future generations. Hence, a sustainable engineering decision-making strategy - for design and assessment of civil infrastructure - should take into account considerations regarding the society, the economy and the environment. The present study aims to articulate the role of structural reliability, defined in terms of the probability of exceeding a specified limit state, in a sustainable decision-making framework for critical infrastructures subjected to seismic actions in their service life.

A methodology is presented that evaluates the time-dependent probability of exceeding a limit state considering the uncertainty in the representation of seismic action and degrading structural behaviour. By employing this methodology, the earthquake-induced damages can be related to the environmental, economical and social losses caused by the occurrence of the earthquake. In other words, a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of the critical infrastructure accounting for the time-dependent seismic reliability, based on economical, environmental and social considerations, can be conducted. This approach can be implemented in a sustainable decision-making tool for design and assessment of critical infrastructure.