APPLICATION OF A NEW MECHANICAL STABILIZATION AND OTHER TECHNIQUES IN REDUCING THE COST AND IMPACT OF RURAL ROAD CONSTRUCTION

摘要

It is indeed a common notion world wide that civil engineering projects cause detrimental damage to the environment. However, concrete analysis of the balance between development oriented projects and nature and environmental conservation have yet to be pragmatically addressed from a civil and geotechnical engineering perspective. The necessity to develop the mechanical stabilization based Optimum Batching Ratio Method (OBRM) was first prompted by the lack of suitable materials for the construction of a 330km trunk road traversing mainly through lowland rural areas where the alignment soils were mostly of an expansive nature. Conventional engineering solutions would have necessitated deeper excavations of borrow pits to ensure the extrusion of quality materials. Furthermore, during the construction of this road, the 1998 El-Nino floods caused colossal damage to the pavement and hydraulic structures. The road works operations would therefore have been forced to expand requiring more land for realignment and material use. Two project case studies of trunk roads where the OBRM and other recently developed comprehensive design and construction procedures were adopted in solving issues that would have otherwise been detrimental to road users and land owners are presented from an engineering perspective. It is demonstrated that these methods effectively reduced the cost of construction and minimized negative environmental impacts mainly in terms of dust reduction, disturbance of the local habitat, contributed to the preservation of the adjacent national park and displacement of the inhabitants.