Construction material selection for marine water quality: A framework and goal programming model

The paper proposes a framework and goal programming model for minimizing the environmental impact on marine water quality by optimizing building material selection. The model concentrates on five major construction categories: general construction, wall material, roof material, insulation material, and finishing. The goal of the model is to select the optimal combination of construction materials to reduce impact on coastal water quality. The steps of the framework consist of determining available material alternatives, selecting indicators of material impact on marine water quality, assigning weights to the indicators, and finally formulating the goal programming objective functions, constraints and targets. Six critical environmental indicators are were chosen based on literature investigation: eutrophication potential - marine (EP), acidification potential (AP), Comparative Toxic Unit for Humans (carcinogenic) (HTP-c), total global warming potential (GWP), water (user) deprivation potential (WDP), and potential comparative toxic unit for ecosystems (ETP). Environmental impact data for various building materials were gathered and weighted according to their significance to marine water quality. The goal programming model was formulated to minimize the environmental impacts on marine water quality. An example was then used for the application of the framework and model. For determining the ideal material combination for each category, an integer linear programming approach was used with MATLAB. The study emphasizes the importance of informed material selection in reducing environmental damage and establishes a solid foundation for future research and policy development in sustainable building design.