Structural Health Monitoring is becoming a major tool for physical asset management. The reduction of costs on sensors, communication technology and data storage, is helping the development of SHM in different areas of Civil Engineering under different loading effects. Some examples of applications on bridges, buildings and ports under the effect of operational conditions, blast and earthquake are presented to describe the benefits of the technologies. Technological difficulties encounter in these applications are shown and challenges are presented. In buildings I present the ambient effects of temperature and humidity on the response and modal properties, and the nonlinear response under transient loads like earthquakes and blast. In wharf structures the effects of mass loading, water level and temperature and earthquake are presented. This leads to a discussion on sensor technology for massive implementations considering cost, sensitivity and robustness. Special attention is given to promote the business case, to change from SHM research to a standard procedure for professional maintenance of civil engineering structures. As today we are not there yet for a black box use of the technology, but we should think in this direction. The presentation finishes with comments on how to increase the use of SHM as a standard tool by the profession.