Search results

This research aims to propose a model for the complex decision-making involved in the ecological restoration of mega-infrastructure (e.g. railway engineering). This model is based on multi-source heterogeneous data and will enable stakeholders to solve practical problems in decision-making processes and prevent delayed responses to the demand for ecological restoration.

Based on the principle of complexity degradation, this research collects and brings together multi-source heterogeneous data, including meteorological station data, remote sensing image data, railway engineering ecological risk text data and ecological restoration text data. Further, this research establishes an ecological restoration plan library to form input feature vectors. Random forest is used for classification decisions. The ecological restoration technologies and restoration plant species suitable for different regions are generated.

This research can effectively assist managers of mega-infrastructure projects in making ecological restoration decisions. The accuracy of the model reaches 0.83. Based on the natural environment and construction disturbances in different regions, this model can determine suitable types of trees, shrubs and herbs for planting, as well as the corresponding ecological restoration technologies needed.

Managers should pay attention to the multiple types of data generated in different stages of megaproject and identify the internal relationships between these multi-source heterogeneous data, which provides a decision-making basis for complex management decisions. The coupling between ecological restoration technologies and restoration plant species is also an important factor in improving the efficiency of ecological compensation.

Unlike previous studies, which have selected a typical section of a railway for specialized analysis, the complex decision-making model for ecological restoration proposed in this research has wider geographical applicability and can better meet the diverse ecological restoration needs of railway projects that span large regions.

Occupants are one of the most impacting factors in the overall energy performance of buildings, according to literature. Occupants’ behaviours and actions may impact the overall use of energy in more than 50%. In order to quantify the impact that occupant behaviour has in the use of energy, this study simulated interactions between occupants and the systems present in two actual buildings. The main aim was to compare the deviations due to occupant behaviour with the actual conditions and energy use of the two buildings.

The buildings used as a case study in this research were green buildings, rated according to the Australian Green Star certification system as a 6-star and a non-rated building. The two buildings are university buildings with similar characteristics, from Western Sydney University, in Sydney, Australia. A comparison was performed by means of building simulations among the use of energy in both buildings, aiming to understand if the green rating had any impact on the energy related to occupant behaviour. Therefore, to represent the actual buildings' conditions, the actual data related with climate, geometry, systems, internal loads, etc. were used as input variables in the simulation models of the green and the non-rated buildings. Both models were calibrated and validated, having as target the actual monitored use of electricity.

Occupants were categorized according to their levels of energy use as follows: saving, real and intensive energy users. Building simulations were performed to each building, with varying parameters related with lighting, plug loads, windows/doors opening, shading and air conditioning set points. Results show that occupant behaviour may impact the buildings' energy performance in a range of 72% between the two extremes. There is no significant relationship between the green rating and the way occupants behave in terms of the energy use.

This study intends to show the impact of different categories of occupant behaviour in the overall energy performance of two university buildings, a non-rated and a green-rated building, having as reference an actual representation of the buildings. Additionally, the study aims to understand the main differences between a green-rated and a non-rated building when accounting with the previous categories.

This study aims to map out contractors' thoughts on construction-related environmental recovery as an excuse for deliberately carrying on unsustainable construction.

A typical highway construction project in China was investigated. Textual materials were collected through semistructured interviews. Content analysis was conducted to derive qualitative data from the textual materials.

The research findings reveal a trend of environmental recovery associated with construction activities. It is found that contractors utilize this trend to maintain unsustainable construction. Furthermore, the effects of environmental recovery equip local governments with a tolerance for environmental degradation, and the environmental tolerance allows contractors to continue unsustainable construction without being discovered.

This paper presents an environmental recovery-based perspective on unsustainable construction and sheds some light on the promotion of sustainable construction.

Public–private partnership (PPP) has been adopted in many areas especially within the architecture, engineering and construction research domain. However, the PPP in critical infrastructure resilience (CIR) has not received the needed attention even though it has been acclaimed to be the panacea for building infrastructure resilience. This paper aims to adopt a systematic review to proactively identify the risks factors that pertains to using PPP as a mechanism to build the resilience of critical infrastructure.

Using a systematic methodology, a total record of 51 academic publications and 5 institutional reports from reputable organizations were identified and analyzed.

The selected literature was subjected to content analysis to retrieve 46 risk factors in PPP in CIR. The outcome of the systematic revealed the topmost risks as corruption, natural and unavoidable catastrophes, wars, terrorism, sabotage, cost overrun issues, a lack of centralized mechanism for coordinating integrated actions, inconsistent government policies, inadequate supervision, high operational cost due to robust and redundant measure, lack of supporting infrastructure, lack of open and integrated communication, unstable government, political interference, lack of PPP experience and legislation change. A conceptual framework was developed by grouping the identified risks under 13 categories.

The outcome of this study will be a guide for decision makers and stakeholders with the responsibility of building the resilience of critical infrastructure.

The study contributes to CIR research area by providing an in-depth knowledge on risks that are inherent in PPP in CIR.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically develop a delay risk terminology and taxonomy. This research also explores two external and internal dimensions of the taxonomy to determine how much the taxonomy as a whole or combinations of its elements are generalisable.

Using mixed methods research, this systematic literature review incorporated data from 46 articles to establish delay risk terminology and taxonomy. Qualitative data of the top 10 delay risks identified in each article were coded based on the grounded theory and constant comparative analysis using a three-stage coding approach. Word frequency analysis and cross-tabulation were used to develop the terminology and taxonomy. Association rules within the taxonomy were also explored to define risk paths and to unmask associations among the risks.

In total, 26 delay risks were identified and grouped into ten categories to form the risk breakdown structure. The universal delay risks and other delay risks that are more or less depending on the project location were determined. Also, it is realized that delays connected to equipment, sub-contractors and design drawings are highly connected to project planning, finance and owner slow decision making, respectively.

The established terminology and taxonomy may be used in manual or automated risk management systems as a baseline for delay risk identification, management and communication. In addition, the association rules assist the risk management process by enabling mitigation of a combination of risks together.

This paper proposes an intact framework for building life cycle energy estimation (LCEE), which includes three major energy sources: embodied, operational and mobile.

A systematic review is conducted to summarize the selected 109 studies published during 2012–2021 related to quantifying building energy consumption and its major estimation methodologies, tools and key influence parameters of three energy sources.

Results show that the method limitations and the variety of potential parameters lead to significant energy estimation errors. An in-depth qualitative discussion is conducted to identify research knowledge gaps and future directions.

With societies and economies developing rapidly across the world, a large amount of energy is consumed at an alarming rate. Unfortunately, its huge environmental impacts have forced many countries to take energy issues as urgent social problems to be solved. Even though the construction industry, as the one of most important carbon contributors, has been constantly and academically active, researchers still have not arrived at a clear consensus for system boundaries of life cycle energy. Besides, there is a significant difference between the actual and estimated values in countless current and advanced energy estimation approaches in the literature.

Addressing global warming challenge, carbon emissions reduction potential of the construction industry has received additional attentions. The decoupling of construction industry and carbon emissions through policies, technologies and model innovations is an effective way for reducing environmental pollution and achieve eco-urban target. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Within the scope of green building carbon emissions (GB-CO₂) research, a large number of scientific literature has been published in construction discipline over the past few decades. However, it seems that a systematic summary of strategies, techniques, models and scientific discussion of future direction of GB-CO₂ is lacking. Therefore, this paper carries out data mining on authoritative journals, identified the key research topics, active research areas and further research trends through visualization studies.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge in GB-CO₂ by critically reviewing and summarizing: professional high-quality journals have a greater influence in the scope of research, developed countries and developing countries are all very concerned about sustainable buildings, and the current hot topics of research focus on the application of the life cycle models, energy efficiency, environmental performance of concrete material, etc. Moreover, further research areas that could expand the knowledge of cross-national long-term carbon mechanisms, develop comprehensive life cycle carbon emissions assessment models, build technical standards and tests for the sustainable building material and systems, and exploit multi-objective decision models considering decarbonizing design and renewable energy.

This study is of value in systematic insight the state-of-the-art of GB-CO₂ research in the more recent decade. A more vividly and effectively method is documented in extending the traditional bibliometric review to a deeper discussion. This study can also benefit construction practitioners by providing them a focused perspective of strategy and technologies innovations for emerging practices in green building projects.

Since megaproject social responsibility (MSR) has received increasing attention in megaproject management and plays critical roles in megaproject practices, the purpose of this paper is to explore how MSR facilitates an improved sustainability of the construction industry.

By integrating multiple theoretical perspectives of transaction cost theory, institutionalism and attention- and resource-based views, and by using survey data of Chinese megaprojects and construction enterprises, this paper offers a theoretical elaboration of and an empirical investigation into the impacts that MSR’s four dimensions exert on industrial improvement in economic sustainability and social responsibility.

The study’s empirical results indicate that MSR has positive impacts on improving the sustainability of the construction industry, and that such positive impacts are weakened by the interactions of primary stakeholders in the megaprojects but are strengthened by the interactions of secondary stakeholders.

This paper suggests that managers and policymakers make efforts to governmental guidance, media monitoring and public participation in megaprojects, so as to limit the potential unethical behaviors in megaproject management and enhance the sociopolitical legitimacy that are essential for the sustainability of the construction industry.

By analyzing the industrial outcomes of MSR, this paper extends studies on the topic beyond the current literature’s focus on the antecedents of MSR, and it enriches the research on MSR stakeholders by elaborating on the contingent roles of the various stakeholders in megaproject management.

There has been a substantial growth in the construction industry in the last decades. However, as this sector grows, there is also a growth in its effects on the environment. Owing to this fact, professionals in the sector are promoting practice focusing on how these environmental impacts caused by construction activities can be reduced to the barest minimum during and after construction. This study focuses on the environmental performance of construction projects with the goal of mitigating the negative environmental impacts of building construction. In this chapter, the environmental performance characteristics, forms of pollution that cause these environmental difficulties and the relevance of sustainable construction were not overlooked.