Impact Of Road Construction Research Articles

Impact of Road Construction and Agriculture on Soil Aggregate Stability and Aggregate-Soil Organic Carbon: Ultisols of Derived Savannah

Impact of Road Construction and Agriculture on Soil Aggregate Stability and Aggregate-Soil Organic Carbon: Ultisols of Derived Savannah

Toward Sustainable Road Infrastructure Through Production of Nega-Resources

The paper deals with the actual problem of achieving sustainable development, through ensuring the sustainability of certain sectors of the national economy, in particular the road sector. The concept of “sustainable development” has been revealed and the steps to achieve it in the Republic of Belarus today have been assessed. In addition, an attempt has been made to substantiate the impact of the sustainability of the road sector, as an integral and connecting part of economic entities on the sustainable development of countries and regions. The influence of the road sector on the elements of sustainable development is considered and its further prospects are assessed. For this, it is proposed to consider the impact of road construction at various structural levels: mega-, meso-, macro- and micro-level, which affect all aspects of the road economy, such as design, construction, maintenance and repair, production of building materials and products. The possibility of implementing the concept of nega-resources in the road sector is considered. Nega-resources are understood as such potential resources that are formed as a result of improving the processes of handling the final product by rationalizing its consumption, as well as with initial resources by optimizing individual stages of the production and logistics cycles. A market for nega-resources could be created following the example of the existing market for emissions allowances under the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Climate Agreement. The road sector today has many promising technologies, the use of which generates a larger amount of nega-resources. So taking into account nega-resources in the life cycle of transport facilities, as well as creating a system of material incentives based on nega-resources, will ensure the sustainability of road construction, and at the same time the sustainable development of the country and the region as a whole.

The Impact of Road Construction in Eswatini Soil Erosion

The Impact of Road Construction in Eswatini Soil Erosion

ANÁLISE DE DUPLICAÇÃO DO TRECHO RODOVIÁRIO DA BR-101/RJ

Brazil is in a situation of marked degradation in the road system, both in the sense of lacking new road projects and needing repairs to its current infrastructure. It is known that with the demographic increase over the years several positive and negative environmental impacts were caused and that the highways are works that generate great environmental impact. An environmental impact is defined as any change caused to the environment by humans, in turn the negative leads to an ecological imbalance, causing serious damage to the environment. In addition to the great polluting effects of the gases released by car exhaust, there is also the impact of road construction, which implies the withdrawal and transfer of huge amounts of land, deforestation, changes in the form of water runoff, silting of rivers and associated urban expansion. The purpose of this article is to analyze the fundamentals that support the concept, understand the challenges posed and the level of adequacy that reveal the need for legitimacy of the article.

Regression Models of Road User Cost Prediction for Highway Maintenance and Rehabilitation for Life Cycle Planning in California

Road user costs (RUCs) have been studied for the past few decades and still need to be considered to obtain a complete picture of the impact of road construction, maintenance, and rehabilitation. RUCs comprise delay costs (value of time), vehicle operating costs, and accident costs. Federal Highway Administration’s Life Cycle Cost Analysis software RealCost has been adapted, customized, and enhanced by California’s Department of Transportation (Caltrans) for California’s traffic patterns and maintenance practices in RealCostCA. However, the different types of roadways, traffic distributions, and work zone types have not been analyzed. In addition, RealCostCA works for selecting the most cost-effective pavement alternative under a project-specific basis and does not address network-level integration of RUCs. This study aimed to build easy-to-use look-up tables to obtain RUCs for a factorial of different work zone and traffic conditions. Different combinations of three roadway types (freeways, state highways, county roads), four representative hourly traffic distributions, three typical work zone closures (10-hour nighttime, 24-hour, 55-hour weekend closure), the numbers of lanes available in normal conditions (no work zone), and the numbers of lanes open during work zones were included in the factorial to calculate RUCs for specific traffic demand ranges at an interval of 5,000 vehicles per day per direction. The data obtained were subsequently used to combine into mixed regression models. These models enable calculation of RUC at any traffic level customized to the location of the project. Future work will be undertaken to combine the models into Caltrans’ network-level pavement management system.

The Impact of Road Construction on Subjective Well-Being in Communities in Madre de Dios, Peru.

The interoceanic highway (IOH) in Madre de Dios, Peru has driven dramatic change in the Peruvian Amazon basin. We conducted a mixed methods study to examine the impact of these changes on the subjective well-being (SWB) of four communities on the IOH. Themes that emerged qualitatively included changing health threats, environmental degradation, and the impact of increased migration. To achieve a higher level of SWB, respondents emphasized the need for higher incomes, opportunities to learn new skills, and a better education for their children. Potential threats to SWB included marital problems and poorer health. Quantitative analyses suggested that social support and a sense of security impacted reported SWB scores based on life satisfaction, and the impact of income on life satisfaction was mediated by food security. Although long-term residents felt that specific determinants of SWB had both increased (food variety, transport and access to work) and decreased (access to natural resources and hunting), the majority reported that their lives had improved overall. Health had been affected by the IOH in both negative ways (increased dengue and road accidents) and positive ways (improved access to health services). Our results suggest that the rapidly-changing communities near the IOH link well-being to health, income, community, and the environment.

Time-Dependent Transportation Network Design considering Construction Impact

A traditional discrete network design problem (DNDP) always assumes transportation infrastructure projects to be one-time events and ignores travelers’ delays caused by construction work. In fact, infrastructure construction usually lasts for a long time, and the impact on traffic can be substantial. In this paper, we introduce time dimension into the traditional DNDP to explicitly consider the impact of road construction and adopt an overtime policy to add flexibility to construction duration. We address the problem of selecting road-widening projects in an urban network, determining the optimal link capacity, and designing the schedule of the selected projects simultaneously. A time-dependent DNDP (T-DNDP) model is developed with the objective of minimizing total weighted net user cost during the entire planning horizon. An active-set algorithm is applied to solve the model. A simple example network is first utilized to demonstrate the necessity of considering the construction process in T-DNDP and to illustrate the trade-off between the construction impact and the benefit realized through capacity extension. We also solve the T-DNDP model with data from the Sioux Falls network, which contains 24 nodes, 76 links, and 528 origin-destination (O-D) pairs. Computational results for the problem are also presented.

The impact of road construction on market and street trading in Lagos

In 2009, the Lagos state government in Nigeria commenced the construction of a ten-lane highway incorporating a light rail track along the existing Lagos–Badagry expressway. With the assistance of the World Bank and at a cost of about (220 billion Naira) US$1.5 billion, when complete, the project will link Lagos with the Republic of Benin and other West African countries as part of the ECOWAS transit Corridor. While the proposed development is intended to potentially improve the business and international status of the city of Lagos, the expansion of the road has had implications for a variety of non-transport activities adjoining locations around the proposed highway. To fulfil the conditions for expanding the road, the government has had to acquire rights of way to adjoining areas of the existing expressway. Through this process, places of worship, residential buildings, motor parks, schools, markets, mechanic workshops, to mention a few activities, have been displaced in order to fulfil the project. This study explores the impact of such displacement arising from road construction activities on the livelihood of market and street traders at two markets located along the expressway; the Agboju market and New Alayabiagba market. A qualitative study with traders in the two markets in 2010 and 2012 is used to explore the often ignored implications that large-scale transport development initiatives, albeit well intentioned, can have on the livelihoods of urban residents who may attach varying meanings to a road.

도로 종류와 도로생애주기별 탄소배출량, 에너지소모량 및 비용에 대한 거시적 분석방법

PURPOSES : The authors set out to estimate the related carbon emissions, energy use, and costs of the national freeways and highways in Korea. To achieve this goal, a macro-level methodology for estimating those amounts by road type, road structure type, and road life cycle was developed. METHODS : The carbon emissions, energy use, and costs associated with roads vary according to the road type, road structure type, and road life cycle. Therefore, in this study, the road type, road structure type, and road life cycle were classified into two or three categories based on criteria determined by the authors. The unit amounts of carbon emissions and energy use per unit road length by classification were estimated using data gathered from actual road samples. The unit amounts of cost per unit road length by classification were acquired from the standard cost values provided in the 2013 road business manual. The total carbon emissions, energy use, and cost of the national freeways and highways were calculated by multiplying the road length by the corresponding unit amounts. RESULTS: The total carbon emissions, energy use, and costs associated with the national freeways and highways in Korea were estimated by applying the estimated unit amounts and the developed method. CONCLUSIONS: The developed method can be employed in the road planning and design stage when decision makers need to consider the impact of road construction from an environmental and economic point of view.

The Impact of Road Construction on a Community of Farmland Birds

Birds are commonly used as tools in environmental monitoring. Bird population changes were studied during construction of the new Vuosaari harbour in 2001–2011. The aim of the monitoring programme was to determine the impacts of road construction on bird populations in the Osterangen agricultural area (Helsinki, Finland). Our results indicate that the number of species and territories increased during and after construction, with more territories located closer to the road than before the road was constructed. Thus, road construction resulted in a momentary positive impact on bird populations. New grass and bush areas and even large rocky outcrops clearly benefited some species such as the threatened northern wheatear. The bird populations declined slightly several years later, probably as a result of habitat succession.

Regional Impact of Roadway Construction on Traffic Operations

The objective of this study was to develop a methodology for assessing the impact of road construction that could be used to (a) predict the network-level impact of road construction projects, (b) identify critical roadway segments and corridors in which the impacts of construction are expected to be the most severe, and (c) compare alternative construction scenarios and schedules. Dynamic traffic assignment formed the basis of an approach to assess the regional impact of road construction and compare alternative construction schedule scenarios. The application of the model was illustrated with the use of a hypothetical case of two road construction projects in the roadway system of El Paso, Texas.

The Babeldaob Road: The Impact of Road Construction on Rural Labor Force Outcomes in the Republic of Palau

This research examines the impact of road construction on rural labor force outcomes in a developing country. A new road built in the Republic of Palau links formerly inaccessible rural areas to more urban wage sector employment. We use two censuses conducted five years apart which perfectly bracket the road construction period. The data allow us to identify households that moved in the intervening five year period, thereby correcting any endogenous movement attributable to the road construction. Utilizing a difference-in-difference regression strategy and matched panel data, we find that households impacted by the new road construction tend to increase their wage sector employment, decrease their self-employment in agriculture, decrease the number of international migrants sent abroad and increase their ownership of automobiles. The findings also show that inequality decreases both within and between regions. The impact of road construction on average household wages and income is negligible.

Impact of road construction on vegetation alongside Qinghai-Xizang highway and railway

Based on the field investigation in August 2001 and August 2002, digital China Vegetation Map in 2001 and Qinghai-Xizang (Tibet) Plateau Vegetation Regionalization Map in 1996, vegetation characteristics along two sides of Qinghai-Xizang highway and railway are studied in this paper. Meanwhile, the impact of Qinghai-Xizang highway and railway constructions on the vegetation types are analyzed using ARCVIEW, ARC/INFO and PATCH ANALYSIS. It was found that: 1) Qinghai-Xizang highway and railway span 9 latitudes, 12 longitudes and 6 physical geographic regions (East Qinghai and Qilian mountain steppe region, Qaidam mountain desert region, South Qinghai-Xizang alpine meadow steppe region, Qiangtang alpine steppe region, Golog-Nagqu alpine shrub meadow region and South Xizang mountain shrub steppe region); 2) the construction of Qinghai-Xizang highway and railway destroyed natural vegetation and landscape, especially in 50m-wide buffer regions along both sides of the roads, it was estimated that the net primary productivity deceased by about 30 504.62t/a and the gross biomass deceased by 432 919.25–1 436 104.3t. The losing primary productivity accounted for 5.70% of the annual primary productivity within 1km-wide buffer regions (535 005.07–535 740.11t/a), and only 0.80%–0.89% of that within 10km-wide buffer regions (3 408 950.45–3 810 480.92t/a). The losing gross biomass was about 9.47%–17.06% of the gross biomass within 1km-wide buffer regions (7 502 971.85–25 488 342.71t), and only 1.47%–2.94% of that within 10km-wide buffer regions (43 615 065.35–164 150 665.37t).

Simulating the impact of road construction and forest harvesting on hydrologic response

Simulating the impact of road construction and forest harvesting on hydrologic response

Great Bridge Marl Pit: a case study in the prevention of contaminant migration

Abstract Great Bridge Marl Pit is a former brick pit located in the West Midlands. The pit is infilled by an assortment of materials including a wide range of toxic and aggressive substances (most significantly phenolic liquids). Phase 2 of the Black Country Spine Road (opened 1995) crosses the pit on a raised embankment. Prior to the construction of the road, the site was derelict and contaminated groundwater within the pit was thought to present only a minor risk to the adjacent River Tame and virtually no risk to local groundwater abstractions. Mobile contaminants within the pit were contained by a combination of the geometry of the pit, the location of the bulk of the contaminative materials within the base of the excavation and the low permeability of the base of the excavation. However, impact of road construction over the site, in particular the preconsolidation of the pit infill by surcharging, was considered to have the potential to mobilize significant volumes of contaminated groundwater from within the pit and therefore to present a considerable risk of pollution of the River Tame. To minimize the potential for contaminant migration, groundwater flow within the Marl Pit and in its immediate vicinity was controlled during the surcharging period by the installation of a groundwater abstraction system. Contaminated water abstracted during the surcharging was disposed of to trunk sewer and treated at the local water treatment works. The efficiency of the groundwater abstraction system was assessed by monitoring groundwater pressures and concentrations of contaminants in a number of strategically located boreholes around the margins of the site. During the surcharging period the groundwater control system successfully controlled excess groundwater pressures generated beneath the surcharge and there was no evidence of an increase in contaminant migration from the pit; in fact a considerable reduction in the volume of contaminated groundwater present within the pit is likely to have occurred.

Integrated Timber Allocation and Transportation Planning in Ireland

Coillte Teoranta, the Irish Forestry Board, was established as a forestry company in 1989, with a mandate to operate in forestry and related activities in a commercial manner. The company took over the assets of the state Forest Service and now owns and manages approximately 400,000 ha of forest. Coillte harvests and sells timber to the private wood processing industries in Ireland. Coillte harvested approximately 1.4 million m3 of timber in 1990. By 2010 this annual harvest volume will increase to 3.5 million m3. In order to manage the harvesting and transportation operations efficiently, a national timber sales allocation procedure was developed by the Forestry Department of University College, Dublin. The procedure uses Coillte's databases on harvest volumes, subdivided into supply categories; on mill demands, specified by demand categories; and on the national transportation network, including road, rail and water transport modes. The developed operational procedure was used as a decision-making tool during the allocation of the 1991 sales volumes. A comparison of the actual versus the optimized 1990 allocation strategy identified opportunities for large-scale savings. In addition to its main function as a decision-making tool for the annual sales allocation, the model has been used for other strategic and tactical planning analyses, such as the influence of new mill location on transport costs, the impacts of a timber processing industry rationalization programme on the industry as a whole and on individual mills, the feasibility of timber transport by rail, the selection of suitable ports for timber export, and the impact of road construction and improvement programmes on national timber transport strategies. The model has been successfully linked with the company's ARC/ INFO Geographic Information System which extends the post-allocation analysis and interpretation capabilities, and combines the output with existing information systems. A further integration of the procedure in the management decision-making processes in the company will result in increased cost saving opportunities.

The impact of road construction on the spatial characteristics of hospital utilization in the Meru district of Kenya

This paper examines the effect of road construction on the catchment area of a church hospital. It is hypothesized that the new road will reduce the spatial and travel cost relationships for the hospital's patients. Analysis of the data suggests that the space-reducing effect of the new road is more important than its effect on travel costs. Reductions in the cost of travel have not significantly changed the spatial pattern of in-patient utilization. In contrast, out-patients show the hospital is attracting patients from further afield, though this involves a similar expenditure on fares to that prior to road construction. Institutional barriers, particularly the economic barrier of free-paying treatment, are found to be the main explanation for this finding. The high cost of medical treatment also goes some way towards explaining the low level of child treatment apparent in the patient records.

The Karakoram Highway: The Impact of Road Construction on Mountain Societies

The opening up of regions in the high mountains for motorized traffic has led world-wide to consequences concerning the penetration of these formerly remote areas.Not only have running-times and means of transport been reduced through the modern routes, but also radical developments in the mountains have been induced. In this context physio-geographical and socio-political frame conditions are of predominant importance for the installation of functional communication systems. Especially in the high mountain regions of Asia relief, snow-covers in passes, glacial movements, earthquakes, water level fluctuations of rivers at fords and limited possibilities of fuel, fodder and foodstuff supplies all restrict the chances for the development of major trade routes.

The impact of road construction on hospital in-patient catchments in the Meru district of Kenya

This paper examines the effects of road improvements on in-patient catchments for two mission hospitals in Kenya. Two hypotheses, that the road improvements will widen and intensify the use of the two hospitals by more distant populations are tested. They are only partially upheld; the main impact of the new road has been in the shortening of the road distance to the hospitals rather than improving geographical accessibility. Institutional barriers on accessibility are identified as important constraints preventing this anticipated benefit. In particular, the economic barrier of fee paying treatment seems to be a major restriction on wider accessibility. Religious barriers are also inferred to prevail among potential users of the hospitals.

The impact of rural road construction on agricultural development: An empirical study of Anambra state in nigeria

This study attempts to evaluate the impact of rural road construction on agricultural development. Data on this study were collected in two periods, one before the construction of the roads and the other 3 years after. The impacts of the road construction were found in the areas of rapid increase of market-price for farm produce, enlargement of farm sizes and increased adoption of modern farming techniques. Further impacts were found on the development of other parts of the infrastructure—electricity, pipe-borne water and agroindustries. These infrastructures provide the opportunities for employment in the villages, and further create forward and backward linkages for agricultural development in the villages.