Fahmy, T (2015) Sustainability assessment of a municipal utility complex: A system of systems approach. PhD thesis, University of Central Florida, USA.
Abstract
Construction of municipal utility complexes has to support continuing population growth, economic development, and a widespread of social interest in environmental preservation. Municipalities face challenges in designing, constructing, and operating environmentally sustainable utility complexes, and their primary goal in developing such a complex is to minimize the environmental impact resulting from energy production and waste treatment (both liquid and solid), management, and disposal. However, decision and policy makers lack a system of systems approach that takes into account multiple interdependent systems comprised of the functional system (infrastructure, facilities, operations within the complex…), the economic system, the social/cultural system, and the environmental system (environmental impact on air, water, soil…). This research proposes a decision support system (DSS) with a new methodology using Vensim software and system dynamics methodology to assess the sustainability of a municipal utility complex system. This DSS incorporates 1) multiple interdependent systems, 2) multiple sustainability/performance indices, and 3) composite sustainability index. Engineers, managers, and researchers should benefit from a system of systems perspective, and from the application of a sustainability assessment method that is developed to provide an environmentally-conscious design, construction and management. Although a municipal utility complex is built with synergistic opportunities for integration of processes of a wastewater treatment plant, a resource recovery facility (aka waste-to-energy (WTE) or incineration facility), a material recycling facility (MRF), and a landfill; engineers tend to use the traditional sustainability assessment methods only to assess the life cycle (LCA) of each system's process over time. They might not necessarily incorporate an assessment based on system dynamics of the functional, economic, environmental, and social/cultural systems. Data from a case study is utilized in this dissertation based on the municipal utility complex in Pasco County in the western region of the State of Florida, USA.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | decision support; economic development; population; sustainability; landfill; environmental impact; integration; life cycle; policy; recycling; case study |
| Index terms: | decision support, manager, sustainability assessment, economic development, resource recovery, waste-to-energy, face, environmental impact, integration, methodology, system dynamics, population, landfill, municipality, system-of-systems, composite, case study, complex system, engineer, life cycle, recycling, dissertation |
| Subjects: | data collection methods, profession, computing systems, value management, decision analysis, organizational analysis, systems engineering, administrative law, research dissemination and communication, practitioner, environmental impact, waste management, materials science, psychology, research methods, sustainability assessment, economic development, demography |
| Topics: | Research Practice, Construction Materials, Roles and Professions, Urban Studies, Digital Applications, Organizational Design, Project Management, Engineering Principles, Risk Management, Sustainability, Legal Issues |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTE |
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