Abstract

With the increasing population and their housing demand,there has been tremendous use of energy and resources in several forms like during extraction of raw materials,manufacturing of building material,construction,operations and deconstruction of building due to which the level of greenhouse gases is increasing in earth's atmosphere causing the climate change.Buildings alone account for onesixth of the world's freshwater withdrawals,one-quarter of its wood harvest,and two-fifths of its material and energy flows[1]resulting in massive sideeffects in the form of global pollution,i.e.air pollution 23%,climate change gas 50%,drinking water pollution 40%,landfill waste 50% and ozone depletion 50%[2].We need to be aware that our planet cannot always support the current level of resource consumption and global pollution associated with the building construction.

This miserable scenario shows the necessity of inventing new sustainable alternative materials and successfully implement it in modern building construction.In order to fulfill these necessities,this paper introduced soil(earth)in the form of rammed earth.Soil has been adopted and tested as a natural construction material for thousands of years,and in association with modern techniques(mainly stabilization),it can be easily used for modern ecological buildings.In the last decades,it has been found that many published papers are focused on earth construction(rammed earth),which shows that more and more research efforts are being dedicated to transform current building construction sector into a more sustainable one[3].The majority of earth construction are seen in developing countries like Nepal,but currently,it has also increased substantially in developed countries like Australia,US,New Zealand,and UK due to global sustainable construction agenda.In order to match the present requirements(control quality,strength,mix proportion,etc.)for structurally stable sustainable housing,various countries like New Zealand,Australia,New Mexico,Zimbabwe,etc.have developed standards,national reference documents or guidelines like Standard Australia 2002,NZS 4297:1998[4],NZS 4298:1998[4],etc.for earthen construction.Inspite of being useful housing material and technique,rammed earth is still not familiar among local people,which has further made the housing sector more deviated towards environmental deterioration.So,to reveal environmental impacts of building,promote rammed earth construction as an affordable alternative eco-friendly sustainable housing(both in terms of environmental and structural stability),this paper is written.