Yuan, H (2011) A dynamic model for assessing the effectiveness of construction and demolition waste management. PhD thesis, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.
Abstract
It is widely accepted that a huge amount of waste is produced by construction activities every year throughout the world. This waste not only depletes finite landfill resources and contaminates the environment, but it also harms society. To help deal with the increasingly severe problems of waste generation in the construction industry, a plethora of studies have investigated construction and demolition (C&D) waste management. However, none of them developed a tool for assessing the performance of any given C&D waste management process. This study used a system dynamics (SD) approach to examine the relationship of three measures of performance (economic, environmental, and social) that underlie the key variables of waste management practice. A literature review was conducted to identify the key variables, which the iThink SD simulation program then converted to stock-flow diagrams. The resulting model was validated using data collected from a construction project in China. This study contributes to the body of waste management knowledge by having produced a holistic dynamic model that not only provides an improved understanding of how C&D waste management activities are dynamically influenced by the interactions of key variables, but is also capable of providing solutions for effectively controlling such variables.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Shen, L |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction activities; construction project; landfill; waste management; China; simulation |
| Index terms: | system dynamics, construction project, program, waste management, China, landfill, society, construction and demolition, literature review, effectiveness, interaction, construction industry, waste generation, construction activity |
| Subjects: | computing systems, data analysis and analytics, performance management, software systems, industry analysis, waste management, environmental impact, construction operations, Geography, production management, communities and social development, behavioral psychology |
| Topics: | Quality Management, Geographical Context, Project Management, Sustainability, Digital Applications, Site Management, Research Practice, Stakeholder Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here