What information is necessary to assess the environmental impacts of deconstruction?

4D modeling - the simulation and visualisation of the construction process - is now a common method used during the building construction process with reasonable support from existing software. The goal of this paper is to examine the information needs required to model the deconstruction/demolition process of a building. The motivation is the need to reduce the impacts on the local environment during the deconstruction process. The focus is on the definition and description of the activities to remove building components and on the assessment of the noise, dust and vibration implications of these activities on the surrounding environment. The outcomes of the research are: i. requirements specification for BIM models to support operational deconstruction process planning, ii. algorithms for augmenting the BIM with the derived information necessary to automate planning of the deconstruction process with respect to impacts on the surrounding environment, iii. algorithms to build naive deconstruction activity schedules.

The impacts of variable speed limit on speed variation and headway distribution

This thesis investigates the impacts of variable speed limit on motorway speed variation and headway distribution. Initiative techniques of traffic flow categorisation study contribute in analysing the effects of variable speed limit on various traffic states. The project focuses on the speed harmonisation impacts within and across lanes as well as the uniformity of headway spread in the application of variable speed limit.

'Not a Local Win': Rural Australian perceptions of the sustainable impacts of forest plantations

Australian forestry plantations have doubled in the past 15 years, with rural communities harbouring a diverse range of positive and negative of economic, environmental and social impacts – the so-called triple bottom line (TBL). Utilising two Australian rural communities in Eden/Gippsland and Tasmania as qualitative case studies, this research explores how 23 non-forestry affiliated rural residents perceived and experienced the TBL economic, environmental and social impacts of plantation forestry. Residents criticised the economic plantation forestry benefits because of lengthy periods of inactivity and limited local employment, explaining that their community was reliant on the industry yet the promised economic benefits had never fully materialised. There was a sense the industry ‘plant and walk away.’ Residents were concerned about the environment impact on water quality, water tables and fire hazards, although they praised plantation forestry for carbon sequestering, eradicating erosion and water run-off. Negative social impacts were described, specifically how the land-use change from farming to forestry had significantly reduced the local population, employment and need for services. Natural resource management and communication strategies are offered, derived from non-forestry affiliated rural resident perspectives on how best to ensure sustainable forest development in their community.

Jurisprudential Challenges to the Protection of the Natural Environment

Nature exists. Humans exist. The behaviour of one impacts upon the other. The behaviour of humans is governed by the artificial contrivance described as the law. While the law can in this way control the behaviour of humans and the impact that human behaviour has on nature, the behaviour of nature is governed – if at all- in accordance with nature’s own sets of values which are quintessentially a matter for nature. The relationship between nature and humans may be the object of rules of law, but traditional legal doctrine dictates that humans but not nature are the subjects of the rules of law. The jurisprudence of the earth – it would appear – seeks to equalise in the eyes of the law nature as part of the global environment and humans as part of the global environment. How might this be done?

Socio-demographic vulnerability to heatwave impacts in Brisbane, Australia : a time series analysis

Objective: Examining the association between socioeconomic disadvantage and heat-related emergency department (ED) visits during heatwave periods in Brisbane, 2000–2008. Methods: Data from 10 public EDs were analysed using a generalised additive model for disease categories, age groups and gender. Results: Cumulative relative risks (RR) for non-external causes other than cardiovascular and respiratory diseases were 1.11 and 1.05 in most and least disadvantaged areas, respectively. The pattern persisted on lags 0–2. Elevated risks were observed for all age groups above 15 years in all areas. However, with RRs of 1.19–1.28, the 65–74 years age group in more disadvantaged areas stood out, compared with RR=1.08 in less disadvantaged areas. This pattern was observed on lag 0 but did not persist. The RRs for male presentations were 1.10 and 1.04 in most and less disadvantaged areas; for females, RR was 1.04 in less disadvantaged areas. This pattern persisted across lags 0–2. Conclusions: Heat-related ED visits increased during heatwaves. However, due to overlapping confidence intervals, variations across socioeconomic areas should be interpreted cautiously. Implications: ED data may be utilised for monitoring heat-related health impacts, particularly on the first day of heatwaves, to facilitate prompt interventions and targeted resource allocation.

Investigating the interplay between transport, land use and the environment : a review of the literature

Integration of land use and transport decisions to achieve sustainable travel behavior has been considered an integral element for sustainable urban development. However, before the popularity of urban sustainability concept, land use and transport interaction had been scrutinized as strictly separate entities in the urban planning and development domains. Fortunately today the concept of sustainability has been pushed to the forefront of policy-making and politics as the world wakes up to the impacts of climate change and the effects of the rapid urbanization and modern urban lifestyles. The paper therefore aims to highlight the importance of the interplay between transport, land use and the environment. This review paper provides evidence from the literature including the Transport, Land Use and the Environment Special Issue contributions and global best practice cases to showcase new empirical approaches and investigations from different parts of the world that contribute to the wealth of knowledge in exploring the interplay between transport, land use and the environment thoroughly.

A conceptual approach to track design changes within a multi-disciplinary BIM environment

Successful management of design changes is critical for the efficient delivery of construction projects. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is envisioned to play an important role in integrating design, construction and facility management processes through coordinated changes throughout the project life-cycle. BIM currently provides significant benefits in coordinating changes across different views in a single model, and identifying conflicts between different discipline-specific models. However, current BIM tools provide limited support in managing changes across several discipline-specific models. This paper describes an approach to represent, coordinate, and track changes within a collaborative multi-disciplinary BIM environment. This approach was informed by a detailed case study of a large, complex, fast-tracked BIM project where we investigated numerous design changes, analyzed change management processes, and evaluated existing BIM tools. Our approach characterises design changes in an ontology to represent changed component attributes, dependencies between components, and change impacts. It explores different types of dependencies amongst different design changes and describes how a graph based approach and dependency matrix could assist with automating the propagation and impact of changes in a BIM-based project delivery process.

Environment, political economies and livelihood change

Between the national and household factors, community or “meso-level” changes in political economy and livelihoods in southwestern Bangladesh illustrate that in order to understand the impacts on people and nations of climate change-related environmental changes – changes that are expected to include rising sea level, saline inundation, and increased likelihood and intensity of cyclones in Bangladesh – we need to understand the dynamics of the built and natural environment and the political economies these sustain. Meso-level political economies affect the sources of income and livelihood available in distressed environmental conditions, and therefore influence how well the people in them can adapt to changing environmental conditions. In this study we have seen the underlying political economies whose dynamics, and not slow onset environmental changes or disastrous environmental events, are pushing Bangladeshis to incorporate migration strategies into their livelihood strategies.

Understanding pressures on the future of roads: A sustainable built environment National Research Centre Discussion Paper

According to the Australian Government, when combined with expected population growth and internal migration, expected changes in temperature and rainfall are expected to increase road maintenance costs by over 30 percent by 2100. This presents a significant future economic risk, in response, this paper will discuss the potential for roads to improve their resilience to the impacts of climate change and other key pressures. The paper will also highlight how such measures can inform state and national main road infrastructure planning and reduce future associated risks and costs.

Tornado damage and impacts on nuclear facilities in the United States

This report provides an overview of the tornado impact on the safe operation and shutdown of nuclear power plants in the United States. The motivation for this review stems from the damage and failure of the Fukushima nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011. That disaster warrants comparison of the safety measures in place within the global nuclear power industry.

Genetic Impacts of the Hull on Barley Grain Quality

Barley hull plays an important role in malt and feed quality and processing. In this study we measured the variation in hull con-tent along with other grain quality traits namely, kernel discolouration and degree of pre-harvest sprouting, in a single map-ping population. There were significant (p < 0.05) genetic as well as environment effects. In addition, heritability was calculated for hull content to be 29% and 47% for two years’ data. From the analysis, major QTL markers were identified in con-trolling the expression of hull content on chromosomes 2 (2H), and 6 (6H) with significant (P < 0.05) LOD scores of 5.4 and 3.46 respectively. Minor QTLs were identified on 1 (7H), 4 (4H), 5 (1H) and 7 (5H). The region at marker Bmac310 on 4(4H) could be associated with dormancy gene SD4. A number of the QTLs also coincided with regions for either kernel discolouration or preharvest sprouting resistance (dormancy). The results indicate that variation exists for hull content, which is influenced by both growing environment as well as genetically, although the genetic variance explained less than half of the total variance. Further, hull content also impacts on other grain quality attributes including dormancy, sprouting resistance and kernel appearance.

Non-target impacts of poison baiting for predator control in Australia

1. Mammalian predators are controlled by poison baiting in many parts of the world, often to alleviate their impacts on agriculture or the environment. Although predator control can have substantial benefits, the poisons used may also be potentially harmful to other wildlife. 2. Impacts on non-target species must be minimized, but can be difficult to predict or quantify. Species and individuals vary in their sensitivity to toxins and their propensity to consume poison baits, while populations vary in their resilience. Wildlife populations can accrue benefits from predator control, which outweigh the occasional deaths of non-target animals. We review recent advances in Australia, providing a framework for assessing non-target effects of poisoning operations and for developing techniques to minimize such effects. We also emphasize that weak or circumstantial evidence of non-target effects can be misleading. 3. Weak evidence that poison baiting presents a potential risk to non-target species comes from measuring the sensitivity of species to the toxin in the laboratory. More convincing evidence may be obtained by quantifying susceptibility in the field. This requires detailed information on the propensity of animals to locate and consume poison baits, as well as the likelihood of mortality if baits are consumed. Still stronger evidence may be obtained if predator baiting causes non-target mortality in the field (with toxin detected by post-mortem examination). Conclusive proof of a negative impact on populations of non-target species can be obtained only if any observed non-target mortality is followed by sustained reductions in population density. 4. Such proof is difficult to obtain and the possibility of a population-level impact cannot be reliably confirmed or dismissed without rigorous trials. In the absence of conclusive evidence, wildlife managers should adopt a precautionary approach which seeks to minimize potential risk to non-target individuals, while clarifying population-level effects through continued research.

The impacts of policy change on collaborative governance networks

For many complex natural resources problems, planning and management efforts involve groups of organizations working collaboratively through networks (Agranoff, 2007; Booher & Innes, 2010). These networks sometimes involve formal roles and relationships, but often include informal elements (Edelenbos & Klijn, 2007). All of these roles and relationships undergo change in response to changes in personnel, priorities and policy. There has been considerable focus in the planning and public policy literature on describing and characterizing these networks (Mandell & Keast, 2008; Provan & Kenis, 2007). However, there has been far less research assessing how networks change and adjust in response to policy and political change. In the Australian state of Queensland, Natural Resource Management (NRM) organizations were created as lead organizations to address land and water management issues on a regional basis with Commonwealth funding and state support. In 2012, a change in state government signaled a dramatic change in policy that resulted in a significant reduction of state support and commitment. In response to this change, NRM organizations have had to adapt their networks and relationships. In this study, we examine the issues of network relationships, capacity and changing relationships over time using written surveys and focus groups with NRM CEOs, managers and planners (note: data collection events scheduled for March and April 2015). The research team will meet with each of these three groups separately, conduct an in-person survey followed by a facilitated focus group discussion. The NRM participant focus groups will also be subdivided by region, which correlates with capacity (inland/low capacity; coastal/high capacity). The findings focus on how changes in state government commitment have affected NRM networks and their relationships with state agencies. We also examine how these changes vary according to the level within the organization and the capacity of the organization. We hypothesize that: (1) NRM organizations have struggled to maintain capacity in the wake of state agency withdrawal of support; (2) NRM organizations with the lowest capacity have been most adversely affected, while some high capacity NRM organizations may have become more resilient as they have sought out other partners; (3) Network relationships at the highest levels of the organization have been affected the most by state policy change; (4) NRM relationships at the lowest levels of the organizations have changed the least, as formal relationships are replaced by informal networks and relationships.

Impacts of improved grazing land management on sediment yields, Part 1: Hillslope processes.

Summary Poor land condition resulting from unsustainable grazing practices can reduce enterprise profitability and increase water, sediment and associated nutrient runoff from properties and catchments. This paper presents the results of a 6 year field study that used a series of hillslope flume experiments to evaluate the impact of improved grazing land management (GLM) on hillslope runoff and sediment yields. The study was carried out on a commercial grazing property in a catchment draining to the Burdekin River in northern Australia. During this study average ground cover on hillslopes increased from ~35% to ~75%, although average biomass and litter levels are still relatively low for this landscape type (~60 increasing to 1100 kg of dry matter per hectare). Pasture recovery was greatest on the upper and middle parts of hillslopes. Areas that did not respond to the improved grazing management had <10% cover and were on the lower slopes associated with the location of sodic soil and the initiation of gullies. Comparison of ground cover changes and soil conditions with adjacent properties suggest that grazing management, and not just improved rainfall conditions, were responsible for the improvements in ground cover in this study. The ground cover improvements resulted in progressively lower runoff coefficients for the first event in each wet season, however, runoff coefficients were not reduced at the annual time scale. The hillslope annual sediment yields declined by ~70% on two out of three hillslopes, although where bare patches (with <10% cover) were connected to gullies and streams, annual sediment yields increased in response to higher rainfall in latter years of the study. It appears that bare patches are the primary source areas for both runoff and erosion on these hillslopes. Achieving further reductions in runoff and erosion in these landscapes may require management practices that improve ground cover and biomass in bare areas, particularly when they are located adjacent to concentrated drainage lines.

An economic approach towards estimating health impacts of major transport investments and transport policies: A case study of transport emission abatement policy

The PhD thesis developed an economic model as an integral part of the current Health Impact Assessment (HIA) framework. Based on a Health Production Function approach, the model showed how to estimate economic benefits of positive health gains generated by transport investment programs and transport policies. Using Australian mortality and morbidity statistics and applying econometric analysis, the case study quantified health benefits induced by transport emission abatement policies in dollar terms for the Australian households. Finally, the thesis demonstrated transferability of the economic model through two example case studies, establishing a wider application capacity of the model.