Sustainability in Civil Engineering

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2006 in the subject Engineering - Civil Engineering, grade: A, Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh (School of Build Environment), course: Sustainablilty in Civil Engineering, language: English, abstract: The term sustainability is deemed to be a model for sustainable development for the humanity. Especially the Agenda 21 is setting on sustainability for solutions of environmental problems in present and future cases. To counteract an advancing degradation of the situation of people on the globe the Agenda 21 was created at a worldwide environmental conference in Rio de Janero, Brazil in 1992. Many years of intensive spadework had to be done befor all the different countries agreed on it. But does everyone in the world has the same ideas of sustainability and what is sustainable development all about? This work will show the different aspects of sustainability especially for civil engineering as it is demonstrated in the literatur but also a personal view on the theme. After a definition of sustainability the models of sustainable development are demonstrated to have a base of knowledge. You will see that sustainability is measurable and that there are aims to be aspired for a single human beeing as well as the hole population of our planet. Sustainability in civil engineering includes many differnt aspects like energy systems and technologies, building service engineering or management of resources. A precise assessment of existing or new buildings must be done and this work will give some examples of executed buildings and developed techniques.