Abstract
The construction industry plays a significant role in the provision of physical infrastructure to meet the yearning needs of the society. It is well known that mankind has continually manipulated the natural environment in a bid to improve standard of living by the creation of amenities including buildings, highways, bridges amongst others. This paper investigates the major impacts of building construction activities on the environment in the Democratic of Congo, Kinshasa. Several possible impacts of construction activities on the environment were identified from extant literatures. Through a structured questionnaire survey, the views of respondents were elicited. The sample for this study consisted of one hundred and thirty-four (134) respondents drawn from professionals in the construction industry. The study revealed that dust generation from machinery, air pollution, land pollution, waste generation and noise pollution are among the major impacts of construction activities on the environment in Congo. This paper therefore recommends that the government alongside stakeholders in the industry are to come up with certain standards, codes or legislations relating to sustainable construction practices specific to Congo’s construction environment to ensure its proper and effective implementation.
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Mbala, M., Aigbavboa, C., Aliu, J. (2019). Reviewing the Negative Impacts of Building Construction Activities on the Environment: The Case of Congo. In: Charytonowicz, J., Falcão, C. (eds) Advances in Human Factors, Sustainable Urban Planning and Infrastructure. AHFE 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 788. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94199-8_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94199-8_11
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