Sustainable Decision-Making in Civil Engineering, Construction and Building Technology

Abstract

Sustainable decision-making in civil engineering, construction and building technology can be supported by fundamental scientific achievements and multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) theories. The current paper aims at overviewing the state of the art in terms of published papers related to theoretical methods that are applied to support sustainable evaluation and selection processes in civil engineering. The review is limited solely to papers referred to in the Clarivate Analytic Web of Science core collection database. As the focus is on multiple-criteria decision-making, it aims at reviewing how the papers on MCDM developments and applications have been distributed by period of publishing, by author countries and institutions, and by journals. Detailed analysis of 2015-2017 journal articles from two Web of Science categories (engineering civil and construction building technology) is presented. The articles are grouped by research domains, problems analyzed and the decision-making approaches used. The findings of the current review paper show that MCDM applications have been constantly growing and particularly increased in the last three years, confirming the great potential and prospects of applying MCDM methods for sustainable decision-making in civil engineering, construction and building technology.

Sustainability in Construction Engineering

“…A number of papers on sustainability problems in construction increased 7.6 times in the last decade [8]. The number of papers related to MCDM developments and applications was 7.3 times higher in the last decade [8]. Correspondingly, the number of MCDM applications in construction was 5.5 times higher in the same period [8].…”

“…A great variety of mixed information can be successfully managed by applying multi-criteria decision-making methods [7]. The findings of the review paper [8] show that MCDM applications in civil engineering and construction have been constantly growing, and the increase is correlated with an increase of interest in sustainable development. A number of papers on sustainability problems in construction increased 7.6 times in the last decade [8].…”

“…The findings of the review paper [8] show that MCDM applications in civil engineering and construction have been constantly growing, and the increase is correlated with an increase of interest in sustainable development. A number of papers on sustainability problems in construction increased 7.6 times in the last decade [8]. The number of papers related to MCDM developments and applications was 7.3 times higher in the last decade [8].…”

An Evaluation System for University–Industry Partnership Sustainability: Enhancing Options for Entrepreneurial Universities

“…First, the development of similar experiments that also involve the comparison of other multiple criteria decision methods (for a review, see Zavadskas and Turskis [68], Zavadskas et al [69]), surveys of comparisons among different methods and sensitivity and robustness analyses in order to explore which method provides more robust and reliable risk assessments. Second, the existing database and the model-base under adaptation should be extended.…”

An Optimization-LCA of a Prestressed Concrete Precast Bridge

“…Wass et al [2] stated that sustainable development implies that a decision-making strategy must be considered. Decision making is a process that can help to find a solution that provides a compromise between different aspects and therefore achieves a sustainable solution [3,4].…”