THE PRIORITIZATION OF IMPROVEMENT NEEDS FOR UNDERGROUND CONSTRUCTION ENVIRONMENT

Underground construction requires long construction duration and a variety of equipment, and environmental management and improvement of its activities are considered necessary. For the purpose of the environmental improvement of underground construction activities, the appropriate development of technologies to reduce generated pollutants is mandatory. However, the analysis of the needs of technology development and the evaluation of development priorities should take precedence. In this research, the needs for the improvement of each construction activity are analyzed as a preliminary study for a proposed technology development plan to improve the environmental performance of underground construction. Firstly, environmental problem factors caused by underground construction activities are determined while underground construction types, methods, and activities are classified. A questionnaire survey to determine the needs for the improvement of each activity is then carried out. The survey indicated that the most urgent activity to be improved is that of cutting excavation, which causes environmental problems associated with flying dust. This study could be used as a basis for a technology development plan for the environmental improvement of underground construction activities. The result of this study, the priority of improvement needs, contributes to the effective allocation of a limited Research and Development (R&D) budget.