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In the construction industry, various parties are involved in a project. Consequently, claims and disputes are inevitable in this industry. This paper aims to develop Integrated project delivery (IPD) practices including early involvement of stakeholders and multiparty contracts which its combination with advanced technologies such as blockchain can lead to better dispute management and improve the whole construction process.

Based on literature review, the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) for IPD contacts were identified, and three formats of IPD contracts were selected, and the dispute resolution process of them has been analyzed. Then, based on blockchain review, a conceptual blockchain-based dispute management (BDM) model was generated for ADR in IPD. Model validation was done by an interview. Experts were asked to compare the BDM model with the traditional system regarding the ADR duration.

Analyses of the collected data from the experts demonstrated that the BDM model has better function in terms of time and cost for ADR process when the project is facing serious and considerable number of disputes. The relation between blockchain technology (BCT) and building information modeling (BIM) has been examined through a framework, and the ability of the proposed model for administrating dispute resolution process has been verified using four different scenarios of construction claims that show the system can run successfully.

The current study proposes a truthful model, reliable framework to address the problem of project dispute management in IPD contracts. The system combines the ability to being unchangeable and the reliability characteristics of BCT with informative and automation aspects of BIM together to improve dispute resolution issue in the IPD system.

There has been a substantial growth in the construction industry in the last decades. However, as this sector grows, there is also a growth in its effects on the environment. Owing to this fact, professionals in the sector are promoting practice focusing on how these environmental impacts caused by construction activities can be reduced to the barest minimum during and after construction. This study focuses on the environmental performance of construction projects with the goal of mitigating the negative environmental impacts of building construction. In this chapter, the environmental performance characteristics, forms of pollution that cause these environmental difficulties and the relevance of sustainable construction were not overlooked.

Urban communities can be faced with many destructive events that can disrupt the daily functioning of activities and livelihood of people living in the communities. In this regard, during the last couple of years, many governments have put a lot of efforts into building resilient urban communities. Essentially, a resilient urban community has the capacity to anticipate future disasters, prepare for and recover timely from adverse effects of disasters and unexpected circumstances. Considering this, it is therefore important for the need to continuously review the existing urban community resilience indicators, in order to identify emerging ones to enable comprehensive evaluation of urban communities in the future against unexpected events. This study therefore aims to conduct a systematic review to develop and critically analyse the emerging and leading urban community resilience indicators.

Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRSIMA) protocol, 53 journal articles were selected using Scopus. The selected papers were subjected to thorough content analysis.

From the review, 45 urban community resilience indicators were identified. These indicators were grouped into eight broad categories namely, Socio-demographic, Economic, Institutional Resilience, Infrastructure and Housing Resilience, Collaboration, Community Capital, Risk Data Accumulation and Geographical and Spatial characteristics of community. Further, the results indicated that the U.S had the highest number of publications, followed by Australia, China, New Zealand and Taiwan. In fact, very few studies emanated from developing economies.

The outputs of this study will inform policymakers, practitioners and researchers on the new and emerging indicators that should be considered when evaluating the resilience level of urban communities. The findings will also serve as a theoretical foundation for further detailed empirical investigation.

Critical infrastructures (CIs) are essential components of the built environment. They ensure the interconnectivity and good operability of any major urban environment. CIs are exposed to several disruptions such as natural events, hazards or threats that may disturb their normal functionality. These disruptions may impact societies not only from a socio-economic perspective but also environmentally. Therefore, ensuring the resilience of CIs is crucial to modern cities. This paper aims to explore the main standards and criteria used to assess the resilience of CIs.

A three-stage systematic review process was adopted to retrieve relevant papers. A total of 44 papers were carefully selected, and the content analysis technique was used to thoroughly analyse the papers.

Results show that researchers’ interest to investigate the assessment criteria of CIs resilience increased after 2004. Further, a total of 28 resilience criteria of CIs were identified, of which the most reported ones are organisational resilience; performance loss, disruption and recovery process; resilience metrics and index; safety, security and risk analysis; societies/communities’ resilience and/or social-equity responsibility; dynamic networks connectivity; resilience through design and structural integrity; and economic resilience.

The findings of this research will serve as a solid foundation for the development of hypothesis for future empirical studies into the development of assessment criteria index for CI resilience. Further, the outcomes will contribute to the ongoing international discussions and debate on the appropriate ways to develop CI resilience.

The growth in ageing population globally has led to the increase in demand for retirement or aged care homes. Adopting public–private partnership (PPP) in the global retirement village market has become the new approach to address some of the emerging challenges. This paper aims to explore and analyse the critical success factors (CSFs) for the adoption of PPP in the global retirement village market.

An empirical questionnaire survey was conducted with experienced practitioners in the global PPP and retirement village markets. Mean score analysis, normalization range method, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance and factor analysis were used for analysis.

Results show that out of the 27 CSFs identified, the most significant ones in developing PPP retirement village projects are “the age-friendly design of villages”, “appropriate location of PPP retirement village”, “reliable and accessible health and physical facilities” and “effective social inclusion and integration in villages”. Further analysis shows that the 27 CSFs can be grouped into 7 major factor groupings, namely, “effective project monitoring”, “financial support”, “social integration”, “effective contractual arrangement between parties”, “government commitment and support”, “sustainable design of village” and “effective payment structure”.

The outputs of this study will adequately inform retirement village developers, retirement village stakeholders and local government authorities of the best practices they should put in place to ensure the sustainable growth of the global retirement village market.

This research aims to propose a model for the complex decision-making involved in the ecological restoration of mega-infrastructure (e.g. railway engineering). This model is based on multi-source heterogeneous data and will enable stakeholders to solve practical problems in decision-making processes and prevent delayed responses to the demand for ecological restoration.

Based on the principle of complexity degradation, this research collects and brings together multi-source heterogeneous data, including meteorological station data, remote sensing image data, railway engineering ecological risk text data and ecological restoration text data. Further, this research establishes an ecological restoration plan library to form input feature vectors. Random forest is used for classification decisions. The ecological restoration technologies and restoration plant species suitable for different regions are generated.

This research can effectively assist managers of mega-infrastructure projects in making ecological restoration decisions. The accuracy of the model reaches 0.83. Based on the natural environment and construction disturbances in different regions, this model can determine suitable types of trees, shrubs and herbs for planting, as well as the corresponding ecological restoration technologies needed.

Managers should pay attention to the multiple types of data generated in different stages of megaproject and identify the internal relationships between these multi-source heterogeneous data, which provides a decision-making basis for complex management decisions. The coupling between ecological restoration technologies and restoration plant species is also an important factor in improving the efficiency of ecological compensation.

Unlike previous studies, which have selected a typical section of a railway for specialized analysis, the complex decision-making model for ecological restoration proposed in this research has wider geographical applicability and can better meet the diverse ecological restoration needs of railway projects that span large regions.

Public–private partnership (PPP) has been adopted in many areas especially within the architecture, engineering and construction research domain. However, the PPP in critical infrastructure resilience (CIR) has not received the needed attention even though it has been acclaimed to be the panacea for building infrastructure resilience. This paper aims to adopt a systematic review to proactively identify the risks factors that pertains to using PPP as a mechanism to build the resilience of critical infrastructure.

Using a systematic methodology, a total record of 51 academic publications and 5 institutional reports from reputable organizations were identified and analyzed.

The selected literature was subjected to content analysis to retrieve 46 risk factors in PPP in CIR. The outcome of the systematic revealed the topmost risks as corruption, natural and unavoidable catastrophes, wars, terrorism, sabotage, cost overrun issues, a lack of centralized mechanism for coordinating integrated actions, inconsistent government policies, inadequate supervision, high operational cost due to robust and redundant measure, lack of supporting infrastructure, lack of open and integrated communication, unstable government, political interference, lack of PPP experience and legislation change. A conceptual framework was developed by grouping the identified risks under 13 categories.

The outcome of this study will be a guide for decision makers and stakeholders with the responsibility of building the resilience of critical infrastructure.

The study contributes to CIR research area by providing an in-depth knowledge on risks that are inherent in PPP in CIR.

This study aims to map out contractors' thoughts on construction-related environmental recovery as an excuse for deliberately carrying on unsustainable construction.

A typical highway construction project in China was investigated. Textual materials were collected through semistructured interviews. Content analysis was conducted to derive qualitative data from the textual materials.

The research findings reveal a trend of environmental recovery associated with construction activities. It is found that contractors utilize this trend to maintain unsustainable construction. Furthermore, the effects of environmental recovery equip local governments with a tolerance for environmental degradation, and the environmental tolerance allows contractors to continue unsustainable construction without being discovered.

This paper presents an environmental recovery-based perspective on unsustainable construction and sheds some light on the promotion of sustainable construction.

Since megaproject social responsibility (MSR) has received increasing attention in megaproject management and plays critical roles in megaproject practices, the purpose of this paper is to explore how MSR facilitates an improved sustainability of the construction industry.

By integrating multiple theoretical perspectives of transaction cost theory, institutionalism and attention- and resource-based views, and by using survey data of Chinese megaprojects and construction enterprises, this paper offers a theoretical elaboration of and an empirical investigation into the impacts that MSR’s four dimensions exert on industrial improvement in economic sustainability and social responsibility.

The study’s empirical results indicate that MSR has positive impacts on improving the sustainability of the construction industry, and that such positive impacts are weakened by the interactions of primary stakeholders in the megaprojects but are strengthened by the interactions of secondary stakeholders.

This paper suggests that managers and policymakers make efforts to governmental guidance, media monitoring and public participation in megaprojects, so as to limit the potential unethical behaviors in megaproject management and enhance the sociopolitical legitimacy that are essential for the sustainability of the construction industry.

By analyzing the industrial outcomes of MSR, this paper extends studies on the topic beyond the current literature’s focus on the antecedents of MSR, and it enriches the research on MSR stakeholders by elaborating on the contingent roles of the various stakeholders in megaproject management.