Assessment of sustainable highway geotechnics

摘要

Sustainable development is a national and international government objective to balance the needfor economic development against the protection of the environment and the conservation of resources for futuregenerations. As a consequence sustainable development is included in Highways Agency mission statements.A contribution to these objectives has been provided in a study carried out jointly by EDGE Consultants UK Ltd(now Coffey Geotechnics Ltd) and the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute. An innovative sustainability assessmentprocedure was proposed for relative comparison of alternative highway geotechnics options, this being justone of a number of disciplines requiring consideration for a new or improved highway scheme. The studyidentifies five themes under which sustainability comparisons of geotechnical aspects of alternative highwayschemes could be meaningfully assessed. A pilot study was undertaken to trial the sustainability assessmentprocedure and check its validity. This paper discussed the effectiveness and value of the proposed sustainabilityindicators.