Abstract Sustainability is becoming a key factor in the decision-making process of infrastructure projects throughout their lifecycles. In particular, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in the design phase is becoming a matter of significant importance, for both public and private sectors, given the long-term impacts of design decisions on the environmental performance of infrastructure projects. Traditionally, EIA is performed by a sustainability expert at the end of the design cycle, by which time the modification of design is both costly and time-consuming. In recent years, Building Information Modelling (BIM) is leveraged to better integrate EIA with the design practices. However, there are several limitations with how this integration is approached: (1) EIA is normally performed by software other than the one used for the design. This renders the continuous EIA based on incomplete BIM models difficult; (2) there is a lack of explicit data structure for the integration of EIA and BIM data. This limits the interoperability and flexibility of the EIA tools in terms of accommodating to different EIA databases; (3) in the majority of the cases the integration of EIA and BIM is not bidirectional, which results in the incapacity of the designers to immediately visualize the results of EIA in the design platform and to track the progress of the design in terms of EIA; and (4) the BIM-based EIA has rarely been implemented in an infrastructure project. Therefore, this research aims to develop a continuous BIM-based EIA for infrastructure projects that utilizes an explicit data structure to (1) systematically integrate data from various sources, and (2) enable bidirectional data exchange between BIM and EIA. The framework allows designers to run an automated EIA at any point in the design stage and immediately assess the Environmental Impact Score (EIS) of their design choices. A prototype is developed and tested on a case study to indicate the feasibility of the proposed framework. The framework is assessed in terms of functionality, ease of use, scalability, and contribution to raising sustainability consciousness through a workshop with experts. It is shown that the framework is able to quickly provide designers with accurate information about the potential environmental impact of all objects in infrastructure design projects. The workshop with experts showed that the tool clearly makes it easier to perform EIA compared to the existing, highly fragmented, process. This allows the design team to use this assessment on the same level as other design parameters in the decision-making process.

中文翻译：

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基于 BIM 的基础设施设计项目环境影响评估

摘要 可持续性正在成为基础设施项目整个生命周期决策过程中的关键因素。考虑到设计决策对基础设施项目环境绩效的长期影响，设计阶段的环境影响评估 (EIA) 尤其对公共和私营部门而言变得非常重要。传统上，EIA 是在设计周期结束时由可持续性专家执行的，届时设计修改既昂贵又耗时。近年来，建筑信息模型 (BIM) 被用来更好地将 EIA 与设计实践相结合。但是，如何进行这种集成有几个限制： (1) EIA 通常由不同于设计所用软件的软件执行。这使得基于不完整 BIM 模型的连续 EIA 变得困难；(2)EIA和BIM数据的整合缺乏明确的数据结构。这限制了 EIA 工具在适应不同 EIA 数据库方面的互操作性和灵活性；(3) 在大多数情况下，EIA 和 BIM 的集成不是双向的，这导致设计人员无法在设计平台中立即将 EIA 结果可视化，也无法根据 EIA 跟踪设计进度; (4) 基于 BIM 的环评很少在基础设施项目中实施。因此，本研究旨在为基础设施项目开发基于 BIM 的持续环境影响评估，该项目利用显式数据结构来 (1) 系统地集成来自各种来源的数据，(2) 实现 BIM 和 EIA 之间的双向数据交换。该框架允许设计人员在设计阶段的任何时候运行自动化环境影响评估，并立即评估其设计选择的环境影响评分 (EIS)。在案例研究中开发和测试了一个原型，以表明所提出框架的可行性。该框架在功能、易用性、可扩展性以及通过专家研讨会提高可持续性意识的贡献方面进行评估。结果表明，该框架能够快速为设计人员提供有关基础设施设计项目中所有对象的潜在环境影响的准确信息。专家研讨会表明，与现有的、高度分散的流程相比，该工具显然可以更轻松地执行 EIA。