11 / 2019-01-11 17:06:20

Evaluating the Sustainability of Land Development Projects

Non-urban land development,Sustainability assessment,Project life cycle,Project management,Performance indicators

Former construction management usually emphasizes more on the cost, schedule and quality management, while less on the environmental, economic and social sustainability. The sustainability of non-urban land development project stands out from the other issues, as it involves the change of natural planting, the protection of slope and the impact on the cultures and humanities of the local community. There has been not yet a project-level sustainability evaluation system for non-urban land development projects. Without such an evaluation system, it will be difficult for the planners to plan the sustainable project objectives, for the contractors to select the sustainable execution alternatives, and for the facility managers to operate sustainable constructed facilities. To meet the abovementioned requirement, the present research proposes a Non-urban Project Sustainability Evaluation Indicator Framework (NPSEIF) with the methodology including the reviews of legal aspects, theoretical backgrounds from the literature, focus group meetings, surveys with domain experts, and verification with case studies. Finally, three real-world non-urban land development projects are selected to verify the applicability of the proposed NPSEIF. Major findings of the research are concluded as follows: (1) an operational Non-urban Project Sustainability Evaluation Indicator Framework (NPSEIF) is proposed comprising of four levels: Level 1—three main pillars; Level 2—9 aspects; Level 3—20 indicators; and Level 4—68 assessment items; (2) the proposed NPSEIF is verified via focus group meeting with domain experts in land development and question surveys with professional and non-professional stakeholders; (3) three real-world non-urban land development projects are selected for case studies of the proposed NPSEIF; the findings from three case studies are summarized and discussed to evaluate the applicability of the proposed NPSEIF; and (4) an agenda to future development of sustainable non-urban land development projects is proposed for reference of land developers. The result of this research provides a useful reference to the owners and participants of non-urban land development projects to improve the sustainability of similar land development projects. A real-world case study is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed NPSEIF.