An expert system utility prototype for the evaluation of environmental impacts of civil engineering projects

The idea of this thesis is to create a prototype primary environmental impact assessment computer program for use by engineers in the planning of civil engineering projects. The idea is that this system will be used early in the planning phase of projects, to identify potential negative environmental impacts and there by iteratively modify proposals before further work on them is undertaken. The result would be a saving in time and money to clients by minimising abortive work. The problem is highly complex in that there are almost limitless combinations of environmental characteristics available for selection for the evaluation of a project proposal. Each characteristic in turn, is able to assume a varying level of importance. The structure of the system developed to solve this problem uses a combination of an expert system shell and conventional computer programs. The trend of modern environmental impact assessment methods is towards qualitative methods of assessment. As a result, the expert system shell SYNAPSE was chosen to provide a decision making facility for each environmental characteristic using heuristic techniques. Due to certain limitations of SYNAPSE a number of computer programs were developed to enable other supporting capabilities to be available to users. These programs were written in the Turbo Pascal language together with Turbo Vision, an object-orientated application framework for providing features such as windowing and event-driven regimens.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Civil Engineering

Year dc:date.issued

1994

Author dc:creator

• Mercer, K G

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Martin, JB
• MacGregor, Ken

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8456

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/8456