Review
"...It is an excellent introduction to the environmental impact of construction, written by people who can write with some authority..." (Civil Engineering, 4 November 2002)
..."It is an excellent introduction to the environmental impact of construction .... " (Civil Engineering, 23 June 2003)
"it encapsulates current thinking within the civil engineering discipline on environmental impact mitigation." (Building Research & Information, Vol.30, No.2, 2002)
"...It is an excellent introduction to the environmental impact of construction, written by people who can write with some authority..." (Civil Engineering, 4 November 2002)
..."It is an excellent introduction to the environmental impact of construction .... " (Civil Engineering, 23 June 2003)
Civil Engineering, 23 June 2003
Product Description
∗ Wide–ranging, comprehensive, structured treatment of a vast subject
∗ The only book to cover both theory and practice across all relevant issues
∗ International coverage, with case studies from Europe, America, Asia and Africa
From the Back Cover
Volume 1 gives a detailed treatment of built development in a variety of geographical situations. Volume 2 explains further how each field of civil engineering can be related directly to natural resources and the environment. The two volumes are split into four parts dealing with effects of construction on resources, describing examples of these themes, identifying appropriate practical construction solutions and recognizing the economic and political realities that are faced in their implementation. It gives new emphasis to established solutions in recurrent situations and an integrated analysis of new options available for tackling problems in sustainable development.
This book will appeal to students and post–graduates of geography or civil engineering, and professionals in land use, transportation planning and earth and environment sciences.
Excerpted from The Enviromental Impact of Construction and Sustainable Development: 2 Volume Set by Thomas G. Carpenter. Copyright © 2001. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Construction is as old as civilization. Buildings, roads, bridges, aqueducts and dams have enabled mankind to thrive in numbers and to a standard not possible in less organized communities. However burgeoning populations and the extravagant lifestyles of the most successful people threaten the natural resources of the earth.
‘The Environment’, representing both the existence of these resources and their fragile quality, is a concept brought to public attention only in the last 30 years. This is not to say that environmental issues were previously ignored. Cultivators – both settled and nomadic – practised soil conservation; engineers constructed highways and aqueducts to suit the landscape as well as to serve its development; and building materials, like brick or stone, were chosen to suit local circumstances rather than just to exploit them. But the thirst of growing communities, first for water and fertile land space, then for mineral resources and most recently for easily exploitable but non-renewable fossil fuels, have resulted in unprecedentedly rapid resource depletion. This forebodes shortages which will make civilized life support systems precarious for future generations; even man-made infrastructure may be rendered redundant or inadequate unless it is adapted to suit new development strategies and controls.
The role of construction in sustainable development involves a dilemma. Civil engineering, which is the design and implementation of construction, was defined as harnessing the great forces of nature for the service of mankind; but more people and their demand for greater material advantage use more resources than nature can continue to supply.
Opposition has arisen to construction, as it has to many forms of human activity, where it is either as building development unnecessarily grabbing land or other scarce resources or as a supporting element for new ventures or processes that will pollute the environment. Objection emanates most directly from those who stand to suffer – for example, displaced by a dam project or losing the amenity of quiet countryside where a new trunk highway is constructed. They may be joined by official or unofficial guardians of global resources. Support for construction projects comes from those who plan water supplies, electric power or transport systems to satisfy the demands of increasing populations and developing economies.
Planners have to devise optimum solutions and persuade all parties to accept them. Civil engineers have to provide structures that will most effectively and sustainably perform essential functions. In conjunction with regulatory and fiscal measures, the consequent pattern of the built environment must encourage systems of land use, energy production and movement of people and goods that can be justified in the long term.
In preparing this book we looked back over the last 100 years – further where the precedents of ancient construction techniques and achievements still apply. We then attempted to look forward over an equal period, well beyond the relatively short planning periods that are commonly practicable in political planning processes. To the extensive literature of the last two decades concerning threats to regional and global environments, we have endeavoured to add a comprehensive review of the part played by construction – in causing current situations or in improving them. These two volumes defend those measures necessary to enhance equitably the lot of present and future populations; they identify needs for modifications or fundamental changes where construction is extravagant in the use of resources; and they determine how structures can best be planned to influence the sustainable pursuit of human aspirations.
Many people must share credit for this inspiration, effort and eventual completion of this task including:
- Iain Stevenson who suggested what seemed, even then, an ambitious theme
- Many acquaintances who helped, over more than two years, to make contacts with the many contributors needed to cover what became an expanding subject.
- The authors themselves who, for little recompense, have offered, agreed or been cajoled into participating – some to a recent and rapid schedule, others to ground rules which changed as themes and priorities developed.
- Swift comments on particular aspects from Brian Brent, Clifford Lawrence, James Robertson, Graham Tombs and Professor Alan Williams
- Many old and new friends, especially at Gibb’s office in Reading, whose incidental but vital help enabled full advantage to be taken of modern computer and information technology as well as traditional library shelves (at Gibb and throughout the Bodleian) which is where, in construction, much of the mature wisdom is to be found.
Hopefully they will think it all worthwhile if references to historic experience unite successfully with the application of modern solutions in responding to the increasing awareness of environmental issues.
Tom Carpenter
Henley-on-Thames
