​There are many great civil engineering projects over the world which transcend time and continue to inspire awe generation after generation. Engineering may be considered as an art, a skill, or just a regular profession, but history has shown that through engineering, mankind is continuously surpassing expectations.
 The following are the Top 10 most impressive Civil Engineering Projects ever undertaken by humanity. 

Quingdao Haiwan Bridge
The Quingdao Haiwan Bridge (also known as Jiaozuo Bay Bridge) is a 16.6 mile long roadway bridge in eastern China’s Shandong province. As of December 2012, Guinness World Records lists the Bridge as the world’s longest bridge over water (aggregate length) at 25.84 miles.
 
The bridge was designed by the Shandong Gaosu Group and took 4 years to complete, employing more than 10 000 people. The bridge is designed to withstand earthquakes up to 8.0, typhoons and impacts of 300,000 ton ships. It was constructed with 450,000 tons of steel and 2.3 million cubic meters of concrete and is supported by more than 5000 pillars with a width of 35 meters and 6 lanes and two shoulders.
 
The costs of constructing the bridge vary; the official state-run television company reported the total cost to be £900 million, while other sources reported costs as high as £5.5 billion.

​Burj Khalifa
The Burj Khalifa is a mega tall skyscraper in Dubai with a total height of 2,722 ft including the antenna. Built on the Dubai government’s decision to diversify from an oil-based economy and also to gain international recognition, it is currently the tallest structure in the world.
 
The building was named in honour of the ruler of Dubai and president of the United States Arab Emirates. The tower was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and uses a bundled tube design. The primary structure is made up of 330,000 m3 of concrete and 55,000 tonnes of steel. Construction took 22 million man-hours. The structure cost $1.5 billion to build.
 
At the time of its opening in 2010, it had the highest observational deck in the world. The building has been featured in the 2016 film, ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’.
 
Burj Khalifa has broken numerous other records, including building with most floors at 211. The windows are made of 1,290,000 sq ft of glass and it takes 36 workers three to four months to clean the entire exterior façade.

Channel Tunnel
The Channel Tunnel is a 31.35 mile rail tunnel linking Folkestone, Kent, in the UK, with Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais in northern France, beneath the English Channel. At its lowest point, the channel is 75m deep below the sea bed, and 115m below sea level.  The tunnel has the longest undersea portion of any tunnel in the world.
 
The tunnel carries high-speed Eurostar passenger trains, the Eurotunnel Shuttle for road vehicles, the largest such transport in the world and international goods trains.
 
Tunnelling commenced in 1988, and when it opened in 1994, the final cost was an astounding £9 billion, making it the most expensive construction project ever at the time. At the peak of construction 15,000 people were employed. Working from both the English side and the French side of the Channel, eleven tunnel boring machines cut through chalk marl to construct two rail tunnels and a service tunnel. On 1 December 1990, Englishman Graham Fagg and Frenchman Phillippe Cozette broke through the service tunnel with the media watching.

​Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge is often considered one of the most beautiful bridges in the world. The suspended bridge spans the Golden Gate, the one-mile- strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The bridge links the American city of San Francisco, California to Marin County. It opened in 1937 and was until 1964, the longest suspension bridge in the world with a span of 4,200 feet. The bridge is one of the most recognised and influential symbols of the United States.
 
Each of the bridges two main cables is made of 27,572 strands of wire and together the wire is roughly 80,000 miles long. Over 600,000 rivets were required to build the bridge which cost more than $35 million, completing ahead of schedule and $1.3 million under budget.

​Hoover Dam
Constructed during the Great Depression, the Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River. The design was overseen by the Bureau’s chief design engineer John L. Savage.
 
Six companies formed a joint venture to bid for the project and construction began in early 1931.
The construction of the Hoover Dam claimed hundreds of workers’ lives, and impounds Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States. The dam is named after President Herbert Hoover, and it took five years to build and cost around $49 million. The consortium turned over the concrete arch-gravity dam to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years ahead of schedule.

Panama Canal
Panama Canal is an artificial 48-mile waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean. The canal consists of several artificial lakes and channels, and two locks at either end to lift ships up to Gatun Lake, (an artificial lake created to reduce the amount of excavation work required for the canal) 26 meters above sea level, and then lower the ships at the other end. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is crucial for international maritime trade.
 
France began work on the canal in 1881 but stopped due to engineering problems. The United States took over the project in 1904 and opened the canal on August 15, 1914. The construction of a canal with locks was one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken and required the excavation of more than 170,000,000 cu yd of material over and above the 30,000,000 cu yd excavated by the French. When the canal was finally opened it cost the Americans $375 million.
 
Completion of the Panama Canal shortcut greatly reduced the time for ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, enabling them to avoid the lengthy, hazardous Cape Horn route around the southernmost tip of South America.

​Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest bridges in the United States, and is both a suspension and cable-stayed bridge. Completed in 1883, the bridge connects the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River. With a main span of 1,595.5 feet, it was the first steel-wire suspension bridge constructed.
 
The bridge was initially designed by German engineer, John August Roebling, but he was replaced by his son Washington Roebling who took charge of the project after his death. Started in 1869 and completed fourteen years later it cost $15.5 million to build. Since it opened, it has become a historic icon of New York City, and was designated a historic landmark in 1964.

​Aqueduct of Segovia
More precisely known as the aqueduct bridge, this Roman aqueduct is one of the most significant and best-preserved ancient monuments left on the Iberian Peninsula. It is located in Spain and is the symbol of Segovia.
 
The date of the Aqueduct’s construction is a mystery although it was thought to have been during the 1st century AD. It once transported water from the Rio Frio river which is situated in mountains 17 km from the city in the La Acebeda region. It runs 15 km before arriving in the city.
 
The bridge consists of 24,000 granite blocks made without the use of mortar. The first section of the aqueduct contains 36 semi-circular arches which provide support to the structure. On the upper level, the arches are 5.1 meters wide. The top of the structure contains the channel through which water travels, through a U-shaped hollow measuring 0.55 tall by 0.46-meter diameter.
 
The aqueduct is the city’s most important architectural landmark. It had been kept functioning throughout the centuries and preserved in excellent condition. It provided water to Segovia until the mid 19th century.

​Great Wall of China
The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, generally built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern borders of China to protect the Chinese states and empires against the raids and invasions. With a history of more than 2,000 years, many sections of the Great Wall of China are in ruins, but it is still one of the greatest wonders of the world, and an immensely popular tourist attraction.
 
Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century BC and these were later joined together and made bigger and stronger, and are now collectively referred to as the Great Wall, stretching in over 5,500 miles of the country from Dandong in the east to Lop lake in the west. The entire wall with all its different branches, measures out to be 13, 171 miles. Up to 25,000 watchtowers are estimated to have been constructed on the wall.
 
It is not known exactly how much the wall cost to build, but modern calculation estimate it would be somewhere between $13billion and $65 billion.

Great Pyramid
The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza pyramid complex, bordering El Giza, Egypt. It is the only one to remain largely intact. Initially, at 146.5 metres, the Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for more than 3,800 years.
 
It is believed that the pyramid was built as a tomb for the fourth Dynasty Egyptian pharaoh, Khufu and was constructed over a twenty-year period.
 
Experts estimate that it would cost around $5 billion to build a replica today.

​Over the centuries there have been many great civil engineering projects that have become historic landmarks. Engineering has created some of the biggest and most amazing structures in the world. Other engineering projects shows the ability of engineers to create unique visions that have impressed mankind such as the Millau viaduct, which is the tallest cable-stayed road bridge in the world and as recently as 2015, the Shanghai Tower skyscraper in China, which is now the second-tallest building in the world. As advanced technology continues to pave the way for more engineering creations, there is a bright future ahead for engineering.

​The future of professional surveying and geo-mapping is no longer fixed and static, but dynamic and flexible. Aerial mapping drones might be changing how land surveyors conduct surveys from the sky instead of by land. Instead of theodolites, infrared reflectors, and GPS, land surveyors are now able to use drones that autonomously pilot with the push of a button and are capable of producing equivalent results as the former tools but without all of the heavy-lifting and exhaustion.
 
Aerial surveying and geo-mapping is now done with an UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). Aerial surveys can provide information on many things not visible from the ground and data captured via drone mapping perfectly complements what engineers can see from the ground.
 
Autonomous drones have become the leading technology for creating topographic surveys. In construction, drones can be used to survey building sites to help monitor and report progress, spot errors early on and avoid rework.

The point clouds and digital terrain models generated by drones are exactly the same as those generated by traditional surveys, but are significantly easier and cheaper to collect and provide much more detail. Data collected from drones can still be used to perform cut/fill analysis, calculate volumes, build design surfaces, and verify earthworks. The drone will calculate the optimal flight path, fly automatically, capture all the photos needed for a high quality drone map, and return to home when the mission is over.
 
Because UAVs are relatively inexpensive, it is feasible for companies to have their own fleet, and that allows for rapid surveys over large land areas to be completed quickly. With GPS equipped drones, digital cameras and powerful computers, surveys with an accuracy down to 1 to 2 cm is very possible.
 
Drones can provide Geo-Referenced High Altitude Aerial Photography and Videography Site Inspections with Full 3D Terrain Mapping.

​Surveying and mapping services include:
Geo-referenced Ortho-mosaics
Photogrammetric Applications
Multispectral imagery
Point Cloud Generation
DTMs
Volumetric calculations
Contour maps

Flood Studies are required in order to provide solutions to existing flood problems in developed areas as well as ensuring new development is compatible with the flood hazard and does not create additional flooding problems in other areas. Flooding causes more damage in Australia than any other natural disaster; many lives are lost and there is a huge financial burden on communities.
 
A flood study is a technical investigation of flood behavior within the study area which defines the extent, depth and velocity of the flood waters as well as the variation in flood hazard. It defines the nature of potential personal danger and potential damage to property resulting from flooding by providing information on the distribution of flood waters across the section of land that is prone to flooding.
 
The major components of a flood study involve determining discharge (hydrologic aspects) and water levels, velocities, etc (hydraulic aspects) for floods of varying severity.
 
A number of analytical tools can be used in flood studies, depending on the data available, the flow situation, the nature and extent of development, and the level of detail required. Generally detailed studies are required in both urban and rural areas, because knowledge of flood characteristics is required to deal with existing problems, future development and the continuing flood risk.
 
Your local council can advise you if your property is affected by flooding and provide you with relevant information which may include a previous Flood Study undertaken. This flood study would normally include maps which show the various flooding characteristics across the local government area. In addition, Council will provide Flood Certificates on request, for a fee, for individual properties. The certificates provide specific information about the property that can be used to understand the extent of flooding on the property and to assist in preparation of Flood Risk Management Reports which are required in support of development applications for development or redevelopment on flood control lots in accordance with the Development Control Plan.
 
You face real flood risks if your property is identified by Council as being in a flood affected area. Properties that have been identified as being within the flood planning area are classified as a flood control lot. This means that the land will be subject to flood-related development conditions to reduce the impact of flooding. For example, if your property is identified, you may need to put measures in place to manage flood risk, such as raising the floor level of any new building work. It is important that you discuss this with an experienced civil engineer to get an understanding of what options are available for your site. The civil engineer has the ability to undertake flood modelling and will work with you to achieve the best possible outcome whilst also complying with the council’s development control planning controls.
 
Council is already undertaking a Flood Risk Management Study and Plan to identify and
prioritise measures to manage the risks of flooding, such as controls on new development, review of emergency response and mitigation works like a drainage system upgrade.

 On-site detention is a way to deal with all the water that falls on your property when it rains by setting up temporary stormwater storage that will minimise flooding from runoff. This reduces the impact on both downstream properties and the existing stormwater drainage system. In order to provide relief to the downstream drainage infrastructure, Councils require that the runoff is stored temporarily on site and released at a controlled rate which the downstream stormwater system can adequately handle. This is called on-site detention.
The existing stormwater system was constructed decades ago and therefore was not designed to cater for the amount of runoff generated from increased recent development. As a result, the existing drainage infrastructure cannot cater for the increase in flows from development which can cause local flooding issues for downstream properties.
On-site detention is an effective method of minimising the impact of stormwater runoff on the existing drainage system which may be caused by re-development of your site. An experienced engineer can implement on-site detention into your development using different systems that can control the runoff from your property.

How would I know if on-site detention is required for my development?
Many Councils are requiring on-site detention to be included as part of the stormwater management for redevelopments and on-site detention requirements are generally determined and enforced by your local council who have specific development controls that apply to the on-site detention design and guidelines that determine the types of development that do and do not require on-site detention.
As a general rule of thumb, all new developments require on-site detention. Exceptions to this general rule may be (but not limited to):

• Minor alterations and additions
• Flood affected sites
• Sites where drainage is near significant water body; example creek, channel, harbour, river.

 
How is on-site detention sized and what options are available?
Various methods and analysis can be undertaken to determine the on-site detention design. The objective is to limit the discharge (controlled) to a minor storm event such as the 1 in 5 year storm and store the volume for the 1 in 20 year or 1 in 100 year storm depending on the specific council guidelines for your area.
Analysis of the design can be undertaken through modelling software and/or hydraulic calculations of rainfall runoff methods. It is advised that you engage an experienced engineer to model the most cost-effective solution for your development.
There are different on-site detention system options available which are dependent on the council. Each on-site detention system has their own advantages and cost implications for your development. These options are:

• Below ground
• Concrete pit/tank
• Rainwater tank
• Above ground
• Basin
• Rainwater tank

If I require on-site detention, what are the next steps?
It is important that you engage a suitably qualified civil/stormwater engineer who can explain the various options that are available for your development. The civil engineer will be able to prepare a Stormwater Concept Plan/Report which would need to be submitted with any Development Application or Complying Development Submission.
Donovan Associates have suitably qualified engineers with 40 years of experience in civil/stormwater design and on-site detention design. Our engineers will communicate with council and will liaise with the property owner, architects, developers and other stakeholders in the early stages of the development to ensure that the requirements and potential on-site detention design is addressed and optimised for your development.