Abstract
Surplus resources such as earth and rocks are wasted at many construction sites by not being reused at other sites, which increases costs and creates environmental problems. This material could be reused if information on the surplus resources and needs of each construction site were shared. A Web–based earth information system (EIS) has been developed in Korea with the aim of reducing the cost of public work projects to enable real–time sharing of the required resource information among construction sites. This study evaluated the effectiveness of EIS by analyzing whether it could support resource–sharing activities among construction projects and whether these activities could reduce both the waste of resources and the cost of construction. The viability in EIS was examined from a high level system perspective. EIS was reported to cut costs by disposing of surplus resources to other sites through resource transactions. However, an analysis of the actual shared volume of earth and rocks showed that the registered volume was not updated in real time. The problems identified are compared to the conceptual model of EIS, and some improvements are suggested.
