Environmental impact analysis of high-rise buildings for resilient urban development

In recent years, the construction of high-rise buildings as an urban development strategy has been accepted in many megacities. High-rise buildings have positive as well as negative impacts on urban environments. Therefore, the environmental impact assessment of high-rise buildings for establishing strategies to ensure sustainable and resilient urban development is essential. In this study, the environmental impact of high-rise buildings with a resilient development mindset was assessed. Resilience mindset provides an approach for including the uncertainties and interdependence of systems and processes for planning new sustainable developments and assessment methods. The corresponding environmental impact assessment was performed by monitoring the structural changes and their impacts on the function of ecosystem and environmental services. Here, the positive and negative impacts of high-rise buildings were evaluated. Protection of impervious surfaces as a positive impact and changing the natural pattern of urban wind flow as a negative impact were considered. The transparency of the results and the reduction of uncertainty are the advantages of using the resilience mindset in the environmental impact assessment. The results of this study suggest that the resilient development mindset can improve the environmental assessment through the adoption of appropriate indicators on multiple scales and differentiating between the primary and secondary effects. (C) 2020 Sharif University of Technology. All rights reserved.