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Construction organizations are challenged with effective management of their human resource (HR) as both are integral to each other. But the state of practice in the developing countries is not encouraging and construction professionals found themselves less motivated and enthusiastic about their job. This pushes to study the motivational needs of construction professionals of different career levels. Therefore, the current study benchmarks the HR practices of the construction industry of Pakistan to measure if there is any difference between what professionals truly value and what they get. In doing so, data was collected from 250 professionals through a questionnaire survey. Results reveal that most of the motivational needs are not gratified and the only stakeholder doing better are clients who’s mid- and end-career professionals feel somewhat satisfied. Practical suggestions are provided to help the construction industry upgrade its HR vision and facilitate its most precious resource.

Road safety guidelines are not properly implemented and are not diverse enough to counter an annual increase in traffic volume. The mitigation techniques of road regulating bodies have failed in minimizing road accidents with the increase in road users. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide valuable insight to the facilitators and decision-making stakeholders by predicting the number of accidents because it is an existential hurdle toward the prevention of accidents. Therefore, this study aims to create temporal patterns to forecast the accident rates in Pakistan by utilizing univariate time series analysis such as seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) and exponential smoothing (ES) models. The results indicate that the ES model fitted better on accident data over the SARIMA model after calculating the lowest mean absolute error, root mean square error, mean absolute percentage error and normalized Bayesian information criterion. The study provides the guiding principles to implement the forecasted accident rates in the designing of roads to ensure the safety of end users which is a prime interest for accident rate collection agencies, decision-makers, design consultants and accident prevention departments.

The swiftly mounting world energy consumption has sparked questions regarding supply constraints, the collapse of energy resources, and dense environmental effects. Although the construction industry has much developed, yet construction is still a difficult, and costly process. Consequently, there is a necessity to find additional energy-efficient and cost-saving substitutes to sustain the urbanization of houses at a reasonable price to low-income groups. This study aims to provide an energy-efficient proposal for a housing scheme with strict control over cost allowing the low-income groups to enjoy livability stemming from the thermally comfortable and cost-saving technology. For this purpose, visits and surveys were carried out to critically analyze the respective housing scheme. Two proposals were suggested i.e. Proposal A by applying a low-cost technique called a Rat-trap bond to the walls and Proposal B, by designing an architectural plan for proficient utilization of space along with Rat-trap bond. Proposal B is highly recommended for construction as it saves 799 units of electricity and is 28% cost-effective during the construction phase than the existing housing unit. Summarized results were prepared from cost analysis and Ecotect analysis which ascertains the proposal to be energy efficient in addition to low cost. It is recommended to invest in cost-effective and energy-efficient technologies at the governmental level so that the challenge of inadequate housing can be answered once and for all.

The water level in a river defines the nature of flow and is fundamental to flood analysis. Extreme fluctuation in water levels in rivers, such as floods and droughts, are catastrophic in every manner, therefore, forecasting at an early stage would prevent possible disasters and relief efforts could be set up on time. This study aims to digitally model the water level in the Kabul River to prevent and alleviate the effects of any change in water level in this river downstream. This study used a machine learning tool known as the automatic autoregressive integrated moving average for statistical methodological analysis for forecasting the river flow. Based on the hydrological data collected from the water level of Kabul River in Swat, the water levels from 2011–2030 were forecasted, which were based on the lowest value of Akaike Information Criterion as 9.216. It was concluded that the water flow started to increase from the year 2011 till it reached its peak value in the year 2019–2020, and then the water level will maintain its maximum level to 250 cumecs and minimum level to 10 cumecs till 2030. The need for this research is justified as it could prove helpful in establishing guidelines for hydrological designers, the planning and management of water, hydropower engineering projects, as an indicator for weather prediction, and for the people who are greatly dependent on the Kabul River for their survival.

Construction industry started to incorporate the idea of energy efficiency in infrastructure and design a few decades ago. This review paper specifically deals with one of such energy efficient masonry technique called Rat-trap bond. For this purpose, body of knowledge is explored high and low and only those articles are selected that deal particularly with Rat-trap bond. The thorough study of this selected literature shows that the bond is not only energy proficient but also cost saving. With the ability to reduce cooling and thermal load, the bond is structurally stable as well. The compressive strength test of rat-trap bond with C.M. 1:5 is 49% (0.87 MPa) stronger than C.M 1:4 (1.30 MPa) with and without roof slab respectively. The review is an attempt to suggest future recommendations by finding the research gap in this field of knowledge. It has been found that although the bond has a promising ability to be practically adopted yet it has not enjoyed the eminence it deserves. Only a limited number of case studies are present for realization of this technique. It is recommended that this masonry technique, owing to its less construction cost and excellent energy efficiency, can be primarily utilized by low income groups and in residential constructions.

In the construction industry, the policymakers tend toward economic sustainability. Whereas in the construction industry the associated future cost inflicts barriers on project sustainability. Therefore, Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) approach, which acts as an economic indicator has been considered for predicting the associated cost. While predicting the Life Cycle Cost (LCC), there exists inconsistency in the future data, thus an automation approach is required to minimize the variability in the cost prediction and analyse the LCC. The purpose of this systematic review is to spotlight on the implications of Building Information Modelling (BIM) which is an automated approach in performing LCCA. The relevant literature was extracted from the Scopus database. A total of 39 articles were extracted, afterward, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology is applied, and 24 articles are left for further interpretation. In the reviewed articles, the importance of BIM in measuring LCCA is highlighted. The BIM approach can help in quantity estimation and analyzing the future operation and maintenance cost for LCCA with accuracy. Whereas still, data acquisition is a barrier in performing LCCA. There is a need for a BIM library that consists of the required data parameter to perform LCCA, also an LCC schema is required such as IFC and COBie to assist in data exchange for LCCA.

Management and behavioural practices of an organization highlight the importance of human resource management (HRM) to its performance. The objective of this review is to identify the HRM practices of construction industry acknowledged by researchers from the year 2007 to 2019. Databases related to human resource (HR) in the construction industry were referred, where 125 papers were selected, out of which 79 papers were found relevant. The decade has been observed having a proper flow of the research and the sequence of which undergoes as it starts from leadership styles and attitudes then considers the employee-related dimensions. Onwards the research steered its direction towards linking the practices that are mutually beneficial for organizations and employees. Towards the end of the decade, the competitive success factors and organizational norms and practices were engrossed. With this knowledge, a framework has been introduced showing how different HRM practices associate with each other.