A Review of Multi-Criteria Assessment of the Social Sustainability of Infrastructures

Assessment of Social Sustainability Indicators in Mass Housing Construction: A Case Study of Mehr Housing Project

The performance of structures and infrastructure under natural hazards can have a significant impact on the sustainability of the system, often characterized in terms of environmental, economic, or social indicators of performance. This paper commences with a brief review of the relation of natural hazard performance to sustainability and an assessment of bridge infrastructure sustainability with an emphasis on environmental indicators. A framework for life cycle sustainability analysis (LCS-A) is then posed that elucidates the role of natural hazard risks when evaluating sustainable bridge performance using risk-based indicators of environmental sustainability, including embodied energy and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Its application provides insight on the sustainability of mitigating damage from natural hazards through retrofitting deficient structures, considering uncertainty in the hazard occurrence, structural performance, and repair or reconstruction actions that affect energy expenditu...

Sustainability of Natural Hazard Risk Mitigation: Life Cycle Analysis of Environmental Indicators for Bridge Infrastructure

Growing environmental and socioeconomic concerns due to rapid urbanization, population growth and climate change impacts have motivated decision-makers to incorporate sustainable best practices for transportation infrastructure development and management. A “sustainable” transportation infrastructure implies that all the sustainability objectives (i.e., mobility, safety, resource efficiency, economy, ecological protection, environmental quality) are adequately met during the infrastructure life cycle. State-of-the-art sustainability rating tools contain the best practices for the sustainability assessment of infrastructure projects. Generally, the existing rating tools are not well equipped to handle uncertainties associated with data limitations and expert opinion and cannot effectively adapt to site specific constraints for reliable sustainability assessment. This paper presents the development of a customizable tool, called “Green Proforma” for the sustainability assessment of roadway projects under uncertainties. For evaluating how well the project meets sustainability objectives, a hierarchical framework is used to develop the sustainability objective indices by aggregating the selected indicators with the help of fuzzy synthetic evaluation technique. These indices are further aggregated to attain an overall sustainability index for a roadway project. To facilitate the decision makers, a “Roadway Project Sustainometer” has been developed to illustrate how well the roadway project is meeting its sustainability objectives. By linking the sustainability objectives to measurable indicators, the “Green Proforma” paves the way for a practical approach in sustainable planning and management of roadway projects.

Sustainability assessment of roadway projects under uncertainty using Green Proforma: An index-based approach

Bridges are a critical part of our nation's economic prosperity and local community well-being. One of the latest trends in bridge engineering is sustainable design, which is designing so that resources are available for many generations to come. Sustainable design considers the ecological, economic and socio-cultural environments and works to balance all three. There are some sustainable infrastructure rating systems (RSs) available, such as Envision that can be applied to bridges. However, no system has been developed that would specifically apply to bridge sustainability assessment. The objectives of this study are first, to investigate bridge sustainability issues from three main aspects: environmental, economical and social; and second, to apply multi-criteria analysis to assess the sustainability of the Penang Second Bridge in Malaysia. A hierarchy structure of the sustainable bridge attributes was developed for each RS, and an analytical hierarchy process method was then applied for the appraisal o...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15732479.2014.893002

A multi-criteria analysis for bridge sustainability assessment: a case study of Penang Second Bridge, Malaysia

Sustainability rating systems such as LEED, BREEAM, and others, had a significant impact in the design and delivery of buildings and in the increased adoption and understanding of sustainability metrics, solutions and value proposition within governments, developers, and end-users. Sustainability rating systems facilitated the broad adoption of the term by providing point-based certification that is easy to understand, communicate, market, and include in project scope. Notwithstanding the criticism on the scientific base and comprehensiveness of some of the systems available, the adoption, use, and benefits of rating systems for building sustainability is clear and undisputable. However, missing from much of this discussion and action has been infrastructure, the base network for cities and buildings. Although there are examples of infrastructure projects that adopted sustainable solutions throughout the country, there is no system available to compare and assess the differential in sustainability results and performance within the infrastructure project domain. In this paper we will present our efforts to develop a rating system for sustainability assessment in infrastructure projects. Our research led us to develop a framework or system that can act as a decision-making tool for the major agents involved in infrastructure provisions. Our goal is to provide the infrastructure industry with a sustainability rating system that will be widely adopted and that would improve the adoption of sustainable solutions and make the cities of the future a better place to live and thrive.

https://research.gsd.harvard.edu/zofnass/files/2013/05/COF-2010_5B_Georgoulias.pdf

Libby Farley

Papers

Towards the Development of a Rating System for Sustainable Infrastructure: A Checklist or a Decision-Making Tool?