Table of contents

Foreword

The 13^th edition of the International Scientific Conference PEOPLE, BUILDINGS AND ENVIRONMENT (PBE2018) was organized by the Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering in cooperation with the Riga Technical University. The conference was held in Brno, Czech Republic from 17^th to 19^th October 2018.

PBE is a middle-sized conference, convened biennially in order to address current research issues related to two main specific areas which are Economics and management of sustainable construction and Water and landscape engineering.

Conference started with a welcome reception, followed by two keynote lectures, parallel oral presentation sessions, poster session and social part of the event. Keynote speeches were delivered by Prof. Juris Smirnovs from the Riga Technical University, Latvia, and Prof. Anca Constantin, from the Ovidius University in Constanta, Romania, respected researchers in the main conference fields. Prof. Smirnovs gave an engaging lecture about "Road Traffic Safety in Latvia" and Prof. Constantin spoke about "Considerations on Water Pumping Station Operation in the Context of Sustainable Development".

All papers published in this volume of IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science have been peer reviewed through processes administered by the proceedings Editors. Reviews were conducted by expert referees to the professional and scientific standards expected of a proceedings journal published by IOP Publishing.

The article discusses development trends in road traffic safety indicators in Latvia. Changes in society and vehicle fleet after the regain of independence created new situation on the roads. More dynamic vehicle fleet allowed achieving higher average speed of the traffic flow. Reduction in the service level of public transport resulted in much higher use of cars which in turn led to increased traffic flow density. Currently the use of cars in Latvia and in particular in the rural areas has become an integral part of everyday life. It is obvious, that road traffic safety improvement is a complex and complicated task. Despite some achievements during past years, general road traffic safety situation in comparison to other EU countries has still relatively big improvement potential. The article is thus aimed at showing the influence of automobilization increase on road traffic safety level and discussing the reasons for improving road traffic safety level.

Water and energy are among the most valuable resources worldwide, therefore specialists have to focus on technical means that enable better use thereof, also with respect to safety and efficiency. The study presents the operation efficiency improvement of a newly modernised water supply pumping station in Galesu irrigation system in the Dobrogea region, Romania. The technical measures led to a decrease of electrical power requirements by about 30%. A thorough study on the hydraulic shock pointed out the best protection solution provided with low-cost devices. A numerical simulation, conducted by the use of a noncommercial software, allowed to conduct a comparative study of the pressure field in different protection scenarios. The simulation showed no dangerous high-pressure values, but it revealed the occurrence of cavitation during hydraulic shock when the ducts have no protection devices. Simple protection solutions were compared, such as a two-stage closure of the check valve on the discharge duct and one or two air valves mounted in the most vulnerable cross sections of the discharge duct. The best protection was provided by a combination of these simple means.

In today's digital age, the rate of process automation is increasing. Building Information Modelling (BIM) is being used for this purpose. BIM is a smart, model-based process that provides construction professionals with an overview and tools for more efficient planning, designing of building solutions, facility management of buildings and infrastructure. Cost management represents a very important part of BIM technology. 5D-cost model in Building Information Modelling is used for budget monitoring and cost analysis. 5D-cost model allows to directly extract individual quantities and then assign unit costs to them. 5D-cost model increases level of safety and reduces or makes use of cost at all stages of the construction project more efficient. The paper discusses the issue of the fifth dimension of BIM. The main objective of survey was to create overview of 5D (BIM) implementation in selected countries and to bring comparison within this topic. Based on a thorough analysis of the sources, the overview and comparison was carried out. The main conclusion of the research suggested that the selected countries have a different degree of 5D BIM implementation.

Wastewater treatment processes are designed to achieve improvements in the quality of wastewater, however, it also brings both positive and negative environmental impacts (on ecosystem quality, on human health and on resource use). This issue raises many questions. Is it possible to assess these impacts? Which method is the most suitable for assessing the impact on the environment? This paper reviews articles dealing with a methodology for accessing environmental impacts of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). Analysis of the published papers has indicated that the most frequently used evaluation tools is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) or methods based on LCA, Cost-benefit Analysis (CBA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in combination with other methods. These methods were described with their characteristics and weaknesses in evaluating. Selecting the appropriate assessment tool is the first step in the decision-making process. It is also necessary to take into account some key aspects: focus point, data that is required, obtained result as well as regulation and direction aspects. Based on extensive research and comparison of assessment methods, especially CBA method in the ex-ante evaluation and DEA method as a suitable supplement in the ex-post evaluation have been recommended for WWTP project evaluation by the authors.

Technical consultants develop visions into buildable designs. Despite having a large impact on a construction project, there is a lack of research into the consultant's potential contribution to innovations. The main measure to stimulate innovation in the construction sector is providing contractor with degrees of freedom through design-build contracting. This contracting form is not new, but there are still problems with the sector productivity. Consultants enter construction projects in the planning stage and set the framework for what the contactors, in the following phase, can build. This paper aims at identifying the consultants' incentives for innovations in road construction. Four barriers for consultants to preserve degrees of freedom in the planning process have been identified: the legislation, strive for concretion, fixed prices payment schemes and monetary bonuses on finishing the road plan obstruct innovation. Removing such barriers can both improve productivity and contribute to a more sustainable construction market.

The aim of the article is to present findings gained from the specific research focused on the activities of voluntary associations of municipalities in the Czech Republic which ensure operation and development of technical infrastructure. Voluntary associations of municipalities represent one of the forms of interregional cooperation through which municipalities provide public services to their citizens. Similarly to municipalities, voluntary associations of municipalities are public corporations that can be created by municipalities for the purpose of mutual co-operation, environmental protection and promotion of their common interests. Associations of municipalities provide both fulfilment of public administration tasks in the sphere of education, social care, healthcare, culture, fire protection, public order and environmental protection and the needs of self-government in the areas of transport services, promotion of the region, development of tourism, municipal waste management, construction of water supply, sewerage systems including wastewater treatment plants and other technical infrastructure facilities. The article introduces the insight in the number of voluntary associations of municipalities as well as the analysis of voluntary associations of municipalities in the Czech Republic with focus on their impact on the development of technical infrastructure in the regions.

The paper presents some results of the research into a development of a cost estimating model that is capable of using information from building information model and implementing machine learning for cost prediction. Accurate estimates, provided throughout the whole construction project, allow for actual cost savings and assist in achieving sustainability goals. The model which is based on the support vector regression and radial basis kernel functions has been developed and proposed to support cost estimates of building's floor structural frames. The author's main assumption was to combine the benefits of building information modelling - namely the ability to extract certain information about the building and structural members of the floor frames from the models and the capabilities of machine learning. The research, presented in this paper, came down to solving a regression problem with the use of the support vectors approach. The training data for machine learning included inputs that represented features of the building and structural members' belonging to the floor structural frames and outputs that represented corresponding real life cost estimates of the floor structural frames. The obtained results show that the proposed model allows predicting costs with satisfactory accuracy.

Rail transport generates lower external costs related to environmental pollution in comparison to other means of transport. Sustainable development and environmentally friendly attitudes are increasingly used in present construction projects. Railway investments usually involve large projects in the field of transport infrastructure (megaprojects in transport infrastructure). Construction and modernization encompasses railway lines and overhead lines, engineering structures, buildings and railway traffic control devices. In the case of railway projects, numerous different risk factors that are not reflected in other construction projects may exist. Such investments typically generate high costs and require appropriate methods to manage risk factors. Effective project management relies primarily on the precise recognition of its characteristics, existing conditions as well as political and economic situation in its environment. The paper describes mechanisms related to implementation of railway construction investments in Poland in the context of the financial perspective planned for 2014 - 2020 period. In addition, formal and legal environment existing on the railway market has been analysed.

Being aware of the construction machinery work efficiency is one of the key conditions of dynamic planning of machine work at the construction site and it can be considered as one of the earthworks sustainability factors. The main topic of this paper is the time study analysis of one standard technological cyclic construction machine process (the excavators' loading the transportation vehicle), which was observed on-and-off site and analysed. On-site data was obtained by snapback chronometry method with the purpose of determining actual work efficiency; while the (off-site) planned work efficiency was determined using the standardized tables. The aim was to determine the existence of a deviation and examine the differences between planned and actual work efficiency of particular technological process in earthworks as well as to identify its cost-effective area as a prerequisite for identifying the earthworks sustainability. As the earthworks sustainability is the synthesis and concordance of beneficial activities for technological, economic, environmental and social performance context, the balance of excavators' work efficiency is needed. It was concluded that in order to achieve sustainability, i.e. to be in cost-effective area, the maximum value of excavators' cycle time extends up to 50 seconds.

Cost prediction in early stages of construction projects is one of the crucial problems of project sustainability. Previous research has been aimed at process based and data driven model development by using various techniques, e.g. regression analysis, support vector machine (SVM), neural networks etc. According to the research results, neither of the techniques can be considered the best for all circumstances. Therefore, the research has been redirected towards hybrid modelling, i.e. combination of different techniques. In this research, for prediction of the target variable - real construction cost of road structures, available variables: contracted construction cost, contracted construction time and real construction time and cost, hybrid model - combination of SVM technique (data-driven model) and Bromilow time-cost model (TCM) (process-based model) have been used. Five hybrid models have been built for comparison purposes: SVM-Bromilow TCM, LR-Bromilow TCM, RBFNN-Bromilow TCM, MLP-Bromilow TCM and GRNN-Bromilow TCM, combining Bromilow TCM with SVM, LR (linear regression), RBFNN (radial basis function neural network), MLP (Multilayer perceptron) and GRNN (general regression neural network), respectively. The highest accuracy has been obtained with SVM-Bromilow TCM with mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) 1.01% and coefficient of determination (R²) 97.61%.

It is essential to create a comfortable and healthy indoor microclimate in order to assure proper conditions for work or recreation as people are spending 80-90% of their life in buildings. Therefore the building performance can help in achieving such sustainable living area, but also one should look into at other sources of temperature and humidity generators such as occupants' habits. Based on gathered data from observed apartments an insight into preliminary analysis of indoor temperatures and humidity in urban social housing is given. The analysis of the results confirm the set hypotheses that the occupants' habit significantly influence the indoor temperatures and humidity in urban social housing.

Construction industry is one of the most dangerous industries in many countries, resulting in the fact that safety in construction industry is being considered a very important issue. From the period 2000-2012, 19.5% of all deaths were from construction industry. Safety factors influencing construction and methods of construction safety risks assessment have to form an integral part of construction safety management and therefore part of the construction project management. Analysis, assessment and elimination of construction safety risks are dealt with in the plan of occupational safety and health, which presents one of the construction management documents in Slovakia. Proposal of the plan of occupational safety and health processing for business centre construction has been presented in this paper. Safety risk assessment and way of risk elimination presents the input information into one dimension of building information model, which should be an integral part of integrated building design.

The aim of this article is to analyse carbon footprint associated with construction industry, to identify its sources in the construction processes and to determine its theoretical amount in connection with its liquidation. In recent years, great emphasis has been put on the ecology issue and human impact on the environment, as the existence of global warming and the greenhouse effect due to human activity has been evident. The worst greenhouse gas affecting the mentioned situation is carbon dioxide. In this paper, the calculation of the carbon footprint is processed during the production phase of the house construction, in terms of material demand, in both low-energy and standard design. Furthermore, a calculation is made to calculate the carbon footprint equivalent. Subsequently, the economic demandingness of the investment in the construction of the above mentioned houses is evaluated, depending on the cost of material and the disposal of carbon dioxide. The obtained results imply that the amount of the carbon footprint, e.g. its environmental impact by the production of low-energy and standard houses in the construction phase is comparable, therefore the motivation for implementation of more ecological buildings is currently missing.

Sustainable development in public investments is the crucial assumption for the sustainable development of the whole society. The paper is focused on both economic and risk evaluation of revitalization projects of constructions owned by public institutions. The evaluation methodology is based on the output of the detailed analysis of approaches, methods and indicators suitable for the economic and risk analyses. The Cost-Benefit Analysis, which includes both economic and risk analyses and fits the solved problem, was chosen as a crucial approach. The solved problem consists in both economic and risk evaluation of the public investment revitalization project of an existing construction in order to adapt it for its next utilization carried out by public investor. The results have been presented on the case study showing possible efficiency of the project and key risk factors and their possible impacts.

The LCC analysis can be applied to assess effectiveness of construction variants or acquisition of new facilities as well as modernization of the existing ones. The authors of this paper intended to apply the LCCA method at analysing a building in the final stage of the building life cycle (grade phase). The authors decided to create and analyse costs for three scenarios assuming combination of a preventive strategy that stops the deterioration of the building's condition with three alternative end-of-life-cycle possibilities: Scenario I - preventive maintenance together with the demolition of the object; Scenario II - preventive maintenance together with the deconstruction of the object and recovery of some materials; Scenario III - preventive maintenance and sale of the object at the set point of the life cycle. An energy-efficient single-family detached residential building was chosen for the analysis. The results show that differences between LCNPV are not significant. Nonetheless, the authors suggest investors to be aware of the possibilities of the last phase of the life cycle of a building and their financial consequences.

Development of nowadays cities takes place in both the peripheral and central zones. In the peripheral zones, cities grow to the width and in the central zones, cities grow to the height. Cities and their development is complex for both main city zones: peripheral and central, development of any part of the city has consequences for different parts of the city. There are tools for sustainable development of the cities as the city plan and another city planning documentation, however, development can be slowed down by many features which have influence on the structure development. A primary problem can be a poor city plan which does not meet current requirements of the city. A collision of the city plan and other limits set by the authorities can also appear. One of the most serious problems is collision of the city plan and flood zones. The aim of this paper is the adjustment of the equation for the Index of Development for the use of private sector as a development of the research. This paper is based on city of Brno case study. The main objective of this paper is development of residential zones and analysis of the land intended for residential buildings as well as its limits.

This paper focuses on the evaluation of flood losses in buildings using genetic algorithms. Specifically, the paper aims to evaluate the influence of material structure and, consequently, different prices on the accuracy of evaluation, taking into account the size of rooms, i.e. the length and width, shape, width-to-length ratio, and flooding depth. The calculation considered three variants of the floor covering solution: laminated composite covering, PVC covering and carpet covering. The results show that the genetic algorithm methodology under development can be used for various materials and compositions, given adequate inclusion of an itemised budget in the data set. The achieved accuracy of evaluation with deviations of <-1 %; 1.72 %> meets the needs of e.g. settlement of insurance claims.

European cities usually consist of old building stock, which often present social, financial and tourist center points of the cities. With regards to sustainability and in accordance with the aim of the European Union to limit soil use, to keep usefulness of existing building stock and to ensure sustainability, the EU invests a lot of effort in promoting energy efficiency and low-carbon emissions. On the other hand, even though large parts of the EU are seismically active regions with questionable seismic resistance of older built environment preventive seismic disaster risk reduction measures are attracting less investments. Additionally, private investors are reluctant to invest in seismic safety of their buildings for a number of reasons. As seismic and energy efficiency retrofits should be implemented together to prevent damage, life and financial losses as well as to reduce costs of works that would otherwise be duplicated, the aim of this paper is to review and discuss barriers which limit the possibility to extensively undertake combined seismic safety and energy efficiency retrofits. Moreover, several incentives used in different countries are presented in the paper that might reduce or eliminate barriers and increase interest of private investors in investing into sustainable development.

The implementation of the project at the highest level influences the process of implementation and cooperation of participants in the construction process. The article describes the proceedings for the preparation of design documentation. Particular attention was paid to tender evaluation criteria in public procurement. The article also presents the results of research conducted on 100 procedures for the implementation of design documentation initiated in 2018 for three types of construction objects: buildings, sewage treatment plants and road. The aim of this research was to check what kind of criteria were used when selecting the most advantageous tender for the execution of design documentation. Contracting authorities are mostly using more than one criterion to evaluate tenders. The most frequent non-price criterion used is the experience of designers.

This article draws attention to the need of certifying Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings (NZEB). It concerns buildings with a very low energy demand that will have to meet certain standards after 2021. Certification process should include on-site tests confirming quality of buildings and comfort of their use. This research presents methods of building certification that are popular around the world. The authors' contribution to science lies in the presentation of a building certification method developed in Poland. It is the first certificate of energy-efficient buildings (MCBE Certificate) in Poland, developed together by the scientists at the Cracow University of Technology, experts from the National Energy Conservation Agency and experts of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The assumption of the certificate was derived from the case study based on the methodology for calculating energy performance of buildings. The requirements of the MCBE Certificate were determined based on energy analyses carried out for various types of buildings. The certificate is based on a multi-criteria approach to the assessment of energy-efficient buildings.

Selection process of a construction contractor is highly important and successful implementation of a project and realization of sustainability are largely dependent on it. Computer programs - expert systems - may be used to help the employer or his consultants in the process of best tenderer selection. This paper presents a new expert system based on the implementation of fuzzy logic as an aid in selecting a contractor for construction of high rise buildings.

The need to use Building Information Modelling (BIM), which brings multiple benefits, including sustainable construction, in the Czech Republic is also reflected in the area of construction-economic systems. Construction-economic systems include building cost estimation, LCC calculation and facility management. The Czech construction sector is hampered by the diversity of these systems, despite the need for them to be interconnected and share data amongst themselves. For this reason, previous research has proposed a general connecting database to integrate data from the individual systems and effectively share them also within the framework of BIM designing. This paper generally describes further possibilities of expanding the connecting database to include another level. Specifically, this is demonstrated on one of the functional parts, i.e. the wall. A more detailed classification with attributes necessary for conclusive listing in the price database is proposed for the selected functional part.

Environmental risk management provides policy makers and resource managers as well as the public with systematic methods that can facilitate informed decision making. The results provide comprehensive sediment contamination status of heavy metals and potential origin of contamination in the rivers, giving insight into decision ensuring water source security. Numerous sediment quality guidelines have been developed to monitor the sediments. Sediment quality guidelines are very useful to screen sediment contamination by comparing sediment contaminant concentration with the corresponding quality guideline, provide useful tools for screening sediment chemical data to identify pollutants of concern and prioritise problem sites and relatively good predictors of contaminations. The present study suggests that these indices are useful tools for the identification of different sources of contamination of the bottom sediment. Investigation was focused on heavy metals (Zn, Cu, Pb, Cd, Ni, Hg, As, Fe, Mn). The degree of sediment contamination in the Hornad river has been evaluated using the Enrichment factor and Geo-Accumulation Index. This paper aims to contribute to the development of a sediment pollution prevention strategy. The main topics that may need to be investigated are the control of industrial and domestic discharge, regular observation of pollutants, and evaluating the effects of pollutants on the ecosystem over the long term, coordinating the pollution source and preventing inflow of pollutants to the sediment.

The aim of the investigation is to determine water resources available in the Bratunac municipality as an opportunity for irrigation in agriculture, one of the most important economic sectors in that municipality at the present time. The study area covers almost the whole Bratunac municipality and includes 20 of the total of 27 local communities. Research of the hydrogeological characteristics and the required quantities of water for irrigation in the studied local communities showed that in 10 local communities, irrigation can be provided using underground water withdrawn by means of excavated or drilled wells. Adequate water supply in many other local communities could be obtained from nearby surface water streams. In five local communities, the surface water from local rivers is not sufficient to ensure adequate water supply; therefore, an alternative solution consisting in the catchment of water from the Drina river has been proposed. The alternative solution for all local communities situated in the Glogovac river valley could consist in securing the required amounts of water from that water stream.

The paper deals with a questionnaire survey aimed at assessing the preparedness of municipalities in Prešov region in terms of flood protection. The questionnaire contained 27 questions which, in addition to formal information on the municipality were focused on the occurrence and periodicity of floods, the time axis of floods, the current state of preparedness of municipalities in terms of floods, as well as the improvement/worsening of the situation in the case of applied flood protection measures. The answers provided by municipalities have been processed and evaluated by using tables and charts in the paper. The questionnaire survey was intended to help municipalities and self-governments to deepen their knowledge level in the area of flood protection. Many of them have expressed interest in the feedback - the results of the questionnaire survey to be sent to them. Based on the results obtained and their evaluation, the research can make a significant contribution to increasing flood protection, especially in areas affected by this phenomenon. It should be emphasized that reducing the risk of flooding increases the safety of people in the areas under consideration.

Main causes of slope failures in soils are: geological activities (earthquakes), hydrological influence (rise of the groundwater table), topographical features, weathering processes (a rainy season, snowmelt), human activities (vibrations from explosions, machinery, road and air traffic, loading the slope crest, etc.) and vegetation and climatic conditions. As a result, the shear strength of the soil decreases and factor of safety of the slope reduces to a low value that may trigger failures. The slope of the Aleksotas Hill was sliding in 2015. To protect the slope from future landslides, the reconstruction work began in 2018. Geotechnical modelling software SLOPE/W was used for determination of the factor of safety. Model with three modifications (variants) was created by SLOPE/W software for the slope behaviour modelling. The Aleksotas Hill slope stability calculations of original (natural) slope and excavated slope with constructing subsurface drainage was performed in order to evaluate the solutions proposed in the reconstruction project.

Buildings show symptoms and suffer injuries or failures that demand efficient approaches and sustainable solutions in order to maintain or improve their condition. In previous studies, the authors of this paper proposed a network methodology which stores and analyzes information on the degradation of the built environment in different cities, based on a visual inspection methodology for data collection. The demand for accurate information analysis of facades, along with the inspection time for each facade, creates a need for new information collecting techniques. Therefore, this article aims to evaluate technological equipment incorporated in the traditional inspection methods that can work as a complement to achieve better and more advanced results. For this, an experiment was carried out in the city of Brno, Czech Republic, where five building facades in the city center were analyzed in order to qualify and validate a mobile georeferenced scanner, static georeferenced scanner and thermographic camera equipment for potential incorporation into the current inspection method. Quantitative and qualitative analyses are included, together with some of the capabilities and potential uses of these technological resources for an improvement in the network methodology.

Resulting from the devastating earthquake in 1963, the housing stock of the capital city of Skopje was destroyed by 85%. Due to the crucial need for rapid construction of residential buildings in order to provide homes, more than 60% of the existing residential buildings in Skopje were built in the period between the 1963 and 1980. Today, many of these buildings are in the same condition as they were built then, and they do not correspond to current energy efficiency standards. Therefore, there is a need for urgent application of energy saving measures to these buildings. The aim of this paper is to analyse architectural, structural and thermal characteristics of the most common type of the already existing residential buildings in a selected city quarter of Skopje, built after the earthquake which are lacking thermal insulation materials. Based on the documented data, a comparative software analysis of structural elements of the most common type of building was carried out for both the existing condition and the future scenario with improved thermal characteristics. According to the analysis, the analysed buildings have great energy efficiency and sustainability potential. If proper renovation is carried out, it can significantly improve their energy performance and meet criteria for current energy efficiency standards.

The unavoidable deterioration of the built urban front in the cities has been increasingly generating a huge environmental impact. From this perspective, it is necessary to develop systematized methods that facilitate strategic maintenance of the facades and which study the variables that can potentially play a significant role in the damage occurrence. Therefore it is convenient to implement analytical methodologies to the decision making process on conservation and sustainability of the built urban front with a macro-scale approach. The BRAIN platform (Building Research Analysis and Information Network) is a Multi-scale Predictive System of the Degradation of the Urban Front. By means of periodic inspections, BRAIN allows analyses of damage progression and prediction of the future affectation, based on survival/reliability statistical models. The aim of this paper is to introduce a preliminary study on the implementation of the Urban Laboratory in the city of Brno, Czech Republic. Results of this primary approach have been displayed and discussed.