In most cases of civil engineering development, a range of
alternative schemes meeting project goals are feasible, so
some form of evaluation must be carried out to select the most
appropriate to take forward. Evaluation criteria usually include
the economic, environmental and social contexts of a project as
well as the engineering challenges, so engineers must be familiar
with the processes and tools used.

The second edition of Engineering Project Appraisal
equips students with the understanding and analytical tools to
carry out effective appraisals of alternative development schemes,
using both economic and non-economic criteria. The building blocks
of economic appraisal are covered early, leading to techniques such
as net present worth, internal rate of return and annual worth.
Cost Benefit Analysis is dealt with in detail, together with
related methods such as Cost Effectiveness and the Goal Achievement
Matrix. The text also details three multi-criteria models which
have proved useful in the evaluation of proposals in the
transportation, solid waste, energy and water resources fields: the
Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) Model, the Analytic Hierarchy
Process (AHP) technique and Concordance Analysis. There is a full
discussion dealing with risk and uncertainty in these
models.

With many worked examples and case studies, Engineering
Project Appraisal is an essential text for both undergraduate
and postgraduate students on professional civil engineering
courses, and it is expected that students on planning and
construction management courses will find it a valuable addition to
their reading.