The flood plains of the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and the Meghna cover approximately 40% of the total geopolitical area of Bangladesh. The Ganges builds up, by far the largest area of this Indo-Bangla delta. The Ganges, the Brahmaputra-Jamuna, the Surma-Meghna and the Padma and their numerous tributaries and distributaries are the arteries of the drainage system for the country. In such a geological formation, the construction and maintenance of an uninterrupted road-rail network across the country posed to be the biggest challenge for the civil engineers, even more for the bridge engineers. Soon after independence of this land from British India in 1947 and emergence of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971, the engineers passed through various phases of transfer of technology and authority in designing, constructing and maintaining numerous medium and short span bridges of Bangladesh in the continual change of techno-economic scenarios.

The construction of the longest bridge (4.8 km) of the country over the mighty Jamuna was abandoned as the feasibility study by JICA in 1976 judged the project to be nonviable both technically and economically. The advancement of Bangladesh economy and the world knowledge on bridge engineering made it feasible subsequently when the Bongobondhu Jamuna

In this backdrop, the Committee of Steel Structures, Japan Society of Civil Engineers organized the first seminar on the Advances in Bridge Engineering jointly with the Civil Engineering Division, IEB, Roads and Highways Department and the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge Authority, Government of the Peoples’ Republic of Bangladesh on 10 August 2005. Special emphasis was given on

steel-composite construction. Again these major stakeholders, now also with the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering have joined together to make further effort to hold the series conferences to be held on 8-10 August 2010 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. This time, emphasis will be given on the maintenance, repair and rehabilitation of bridges