Sustainability issues awareness : a case study in Dammam University

الملخص EN

The study was designed to gather basic information about sustainability awareness in the spatial domain of the College of Architecture & Planning, Dammam University.

It is conducted, by the author, through a survey questionnaire to investigate the perception and application of sustainability principles and measures as an approach for achieving sustainability in the educational domain.

It was a questionnaire for determining the limit of simple sustainability issues application in the scope of work of the institution of respondents and in their daily life.

The questionnaire was sent by e-mails and the responses were collected through e-mails as well.

The data provide an investigative look at the views of the respondents in respect to sustainability benefits and major environmental problems. The results of the study show that the respondents have high standard of knowledge of sustainability, as 94% of the participants heard about it, and 74% try to spread the knowledge of sustainability by talking to family and friends.

The respondents show good knowledge of environmental problems, as 79% recognize the threats of global warming, and 60% understand many parts of the Arab world are threatened by the rise of the sea water level. Furthermore, 64% of the respondents consider pollution the most serious problem, while 25% consider the scarcity of water is more serious. The study gives a critical indication that the application of simple sustainability measures in the respondents’ field of work has very limited importance. The respondents show very good attention to recycling and good concern about water and energy savings.

The figures reflect the fact that water is much more important to the participants.

While electricity saving comes in the second place as the government gives incentives to the price of electricity and the oil used for energy