TITLE:
New Model for Environmental Impact Assessment of Tunneling Projects
AUTHORS:
Farhad Samimi Namin, Hamid Ghafari, Ali Dianati
KEYWORDS:
Environmental Impact Assessment, Tunneling, Matrix Method, Urban Utility Tunnel in Tehran, Eurasia Tunnel in Istanbul, Tsuen Wan Drainage Tunnel in Hong Kong
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Environmental Protection,
Vol.5 No.6,
May
27,
2014
ABSTRACT:
Designers
of infrastructure are aware that the government, owners and users become more and
more concerned about negative environmental impacts of tunnels, so environmental
assessment of tunnels are becoming an issue in the process of tunnel design. In
this study, to assess tunnels in construction and operation phases, the matrix method,
through which the “Impacting Factors” and “Environmental Components” are determined,
is also outlined. The affected environment was divided into thirteen components,
such as Ecology, Surface water, Air quality, etc. In this paper, matrix method was
applied to evaluate the impact of tunneling in three typical tunnels and compare
them with standard diagrams of Environmental Components that were derived and introduced.
These tunnels were: Urban Utility tunnel in Tehran, Eurasia tunnel in Istanbul and
Tsuen Wan drainage tunnel in Hong Kong. Based on the acquired results, the present
paper finally concluded that among three cases, Tsuen Wan drainage tunnel affects
the environment in construction phase more than others, while Eurasia tunnel effects
on air quality are more significant in operation phase.