Sustainable Water Engineering: Theory and Practice

7 Sustainable Construction of Water Structures

Water is not just required for day-to-day activities. It provides livelihoods to more than 50% of the world's population. Occupations depending on water include plumbers, researchers, water-treatment plant operators, ships' crews, water vendors, farmers, fishermen, crews in water amusement parks, construction labourers, vehicle washers, sanitary fixture manufacturers/traders directly depend on water. Further, fish/flower/vegetable/fruit and bottled-water traders depend on farmers and manufacturers for survival. As discussed earlier, metal manufacturing and other activities including software development need water in some form.

A wide range of human/ecological crises affect freshwater resources. As human settlements grow, these problems become more serious and frequent. Construction activities have considerable impacts on the environment including the water resources. Construction has been accused of causing environmental degradation through excessive consumption of resources, carbon emission and ecological destruction. However, little or no concern has been given to the selection of more environmentally friendly designs at the project appraisal stage when environmental issues are best incorporated (Ding, 2008).

There have been noteworthy trends worldwide towards urbanization but in some of the developed countries some people are abandoning the cities and migrating to smaller communities for better living, which can become basis ...