Assessment of Project’s Environmental Impacts in Construction Phase

Environmental impact of construction projects represents challenges for the civil engineers in Egypt. This paper presents a list of environmental impact indicators in the construction phase. A preliminary list of environmental impact indicators has been collected from literature. The environmental impact indicators are divided into four groups, Ecological indicators; resources indicators, social indicators, and construction indicators. The ecological indicators are: Dust generation, Noise, Air quality, water quality, vibration, and erosion. The resource indicators are: Materials consumption, Energy consumption (fuel), Water consumption, Power consumption (electricity). The social indicators are: Social disruption, Social health, and social safety. The construction indicators are: De-watering work sites, Road cleaning, solid waste, Nearest Utilities, Storage of chemicals and fuel, and Traffic disruption. Structured and unstructured interviews have been conducted with senior engineers work in the field of Construction projects. The main purpose of these interviews were to collect data belong to the environmental impact indicators. The experts were asked to rank the indicators according to their impacts on the environment. Statistical analysis has been conducted to calculate the relative weight of these indicators. It was found that the nearest utilities, the social health, and the traffic disruption are the greatest environmental impact in Egypt. The results of this research are useful for construction engineers in construction sites to become aware of construction processes impacts on the environment.