The Impact of Construction on the Environment
Introduction
The construction industry impacts on the environment in a number of ways, both directly and indirectly. The assignment will cover a number of issues that are associated with the construction projects and will identify a number of environmental components that require protection. We will look at problems on a national and international scale. Identifying the need for global co-operation in the protection of our planet. This is of utmost importance to our survival and can only be achieved unilaterally.
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Criticism aimed towards the construction industry.
The building industry was described by the Environmental Agency as the worst and most frequent source of industrial pollution in 1997 and this is at a time when preserving the environment and building intelligent buildings, thus making the most out of our natural resources, this is a key issue. This description from the Environmental Agency has done little to enhance the image of the construction industry.
The construction has certainly not helped itself because the industry is not only the worst pollutant but the number of incidents has risen when compared to previous years from 509 to 588. This is an average of 2 per day for the whole of 1997. This is at a time when the number of incidents fell by 7 percent from industrial sources.
Dr Paul Leister (director of environmental protection ) This report shows some worrying trends. The construction needs to clean up its act immediately and its time that the construction industry took its responsibility to prevent pollution much more seriously, since even under the guidance of the Environmental Agency's efforts to control the environmental perfor...
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...legal controls and contract conditions. These legal controls are normally enforced through a fine system and may be as much as £5000-00 per animal and most recently a contractor was fined £25,000-00 for damage to an Oak Tree.

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Conservation Bodies
The following organisations have regional responsibility for promoting the conservation of wildlife and natural features:
Countryside council for Wales
English Nature
Northern Ireland Environmental and Heritage Service
Scottish National Heritage
The remit of the organisations above includes the protection of designated ecological sites and protected species.
Also within each area there are additional bodies that have an environmental remit and these include :
Country Wildlife Trust
RSPB
WWF
Various wild life groups e.g. Badger, Bat and Bird Groups.
The area has been turned into a wildlife preserve to help maintain those ecosystems. The
Landscape fragmentation contributes to loss of migratory corridors, loss of connectivity and natural communities, which all lead to a loss of biodiversity for a region. Conservation of biodiversity must include all levels of diversity: genetic, species, community, and landscape (CNHP 1995). Each complex level is dependent upon and linked to the other levels. In addition, humans are linked to all levels of this hierarchy. A healthy natural and human environment go hand in hand (CNHP 1995). An important step in conservation planning, in order to guarantee both a healthy natural environment as well as a healthy human environment, is recognizing the most endangered elements.
The Convention on Biological Diversity (hereafter: “CBD”) is an international treaty adopted by United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held at Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 and came into force on December 29, 1993. Initially when it came into force there were 168 members now it is 193 in total. The aim to protect biodiversity and the dramatic steps taken for conservation, sustainable use and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits attracted the world communities to become members (History of the Convention, n.d). In principle the convention on biological diversity changed the ownership concept of biodiversity protection i.e. (“common heritage of humankind”) to the “sovereign right” of each member country (Hirsch, 2012). It is the responsibility of the each member to develop and implement policies in a way that helps in the conservation and sustainable use of biological resources. It also recognizes the knowledge of local and indigenous people for conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity (Brahmi et al., 2004).The article 8(j) of CBD has an important provision which gives the member state rights to “respect, preserve and maintain” traditional style and knowledge about the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. The protection must promote the wider application of such knowledge and stimulate innovation and also ensure that the benefits are shared in fair and equitable manner to the communities.
After several years of use and abuse of natural resources, humanity begins to awaken from its stunned by the advances of technology, to understand the magnitude of the impact caused by its presence in the environment. At present, trends in various aspects of human activity seek to achieve a harmonious relationship with nature; one of them is the practice of interior design. The main reason because the construction industry, in particular, has incorporated especially such attention, is the result that it has proved to be one of the main sources of pollution in water, air, and noise
NEED AND PURPOSE FOR CONSERVATION OF BIODIVERSITY Biodiversity conservation is about saving life on Earth in all its forms and keeping natural ecosystems functioning and healthy. Biodiversity is being depleted by the loss of habitat, fragmentation of habitat, over exploitation of resources, human sponsored ecosystems, climatic changes, pollution, invasive exotic species, diseases, shifting cultivation, poaching of wildlife etc. Since the human beings are enjoying all the benefits from biodiversity, they should take proper care for the preservation of biodiversity in all its forms and should prevent the degradation as well as the destruction of the habitats, thereby maintaining the biodiversity at its optimum level which will ultimately conserve the biodiversity for the future generation. The United Nations designated 2011-2020 as the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity. In biodiversity, each species, no matter how big or small, has an important role to play in ecosystems.
World Commission on Protected Areas (1995-2006) WCPA West and Central Africa Region Key Issues The World Conservation Union
This paper explores what it takes to be a construction manager and the responsibilities of being a construction manager and the skills that a construction manager should have. It also explores what good construction managers do to have success on their construction projects and the steps that a construction manager must follow to end a project and meet their deadlines at the same
Hughes, R. 1998. Environmental Impact Assessment and Stakeholder Involvement. International Institute for Environment And Development. Environmental Planning Issues No. 11
Ranganathan, J. et al. (2008). Ecosystem Services a Guide for Decision Makers. World Resources Institute.
Implementation of green concepts has been significant not only in design engineering but also in construction. Therefore the knowledge about green design has been a very important fact for the sustainable development in civil engineering. Concepts such as green buildings, carbon foot print, ecological foot print and LEED rating system have helped to achieve sustainable development for civil engineering
In conclusion, civil engineers have a responsibility to deal with current issues in a professional and ethical manner for the benefit of society. The topics discusses included: high energy consumption of buildings, the need for efficient water resources, transportation planning, poor infrastructures doomed to failure, the need to have higher standards to become a licensed professional engineer, how globalization has affected all engineers, and the need to have more professional use advance engineering informatics. All these subjects were pondered about how these challenges can be overcome are there effective methods that engineers can apply today. Unfortunately, not all problems are easy to handle.
Greer, D. (2004, September-October). Green builders get big help from deconstruction. In Business, 26(5), 20. Retrieved from http://www.jgpress.com/inbusiness/archives/_free/000648.html
The use of green materials is better for the environment because they have a positive impact on the planet. Looking at our environment today we see a place that has been facing a massive climate change. Scientists have been concerned over global warming for decades. The ongoing increase of the earth’s temperature is believed to be caused by the greenhouse effect (“Global Warming” 27). Building with green materials produces significantly lower greenhouse gas emission. Specifically, wood as a material for building products, requires considerably less energy than other building products such as steel and concrete. Wood product manufacture results in fewer greenhouse gas and other air-polluting emissions (“Green Building Benefits”). Green building also results in waste reduction. In the United States, construction and demolition creates a huge amount of solid waste. Green building limits the waste prod...
Construction is one of the most dangerous works during this era. The advanced technologies are to be utilized in the construction work but still it is not really safe work. Many of the human beings are now involved in the construction work. It is one of the most typical working fields. Most of the persons who have lack of knowledge, degree and skills join the construction teams in order to earn living. It is said that most of the workers related to the construction industry are not really well educated. This becomes that major cause of their less focus on the work. This proved sometimes very critical condition. One of the most important things in this regard is that workers sometimes not really work with taking great care.
(2) All the economically important organisms in protected areas should be identified and conserved as protected areas are an extremely important part of programs to conserve biodiversity and ecosystems, mainly for sensitive habitats. (3) Species in critical habitats should be identified and safeguarded. (4) Priority should be given at its outmost level to preserve ecosystems which appear to be unique. (5) There should be sustainable utilisation of natural resources. (6) International trade in wild life should be prohibited and highly regulated. (7) The poaching and hunting of wildlife should be prevented as far as practicable. For example in Assam on horned rhinos are facing extinction on account of poachers trading them at an international level for monetary gains. (8) Care should be taken for the development and improvement of reserves and protected areas. (9) Efforts should be made to reduce the level of pollutants in the environment which causes an adverse