34 Middle East J. Management, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2018
Copyright © 2018 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Impact of weather conditions on construction labour
productivity in Qatar
Ahmed Senouci*
Department of Construction Management,
University of Houston,
Houston, Texas 77204-4020, USA
Email: asenouci@uh.edu
*Corresponding author
Mohammed Al-Abbasi
Supreme Education Council,
Qatar Building,
Corniche Street, Al Dafna Area,
Doha, 35111, Qatar
Email: abbasi2211@hotmail.com
Neil N. Eldin
College of Technology,
University of Houston,
Houston, Texas 77204-4020, USA
Email: neldin@uh.edu
Abstract: Qatari construction projects frequently encounter significant delays.
One of the major causes of these delays is ignoring Qatar’s extreme weather
conditions on labour productivity. This paper studies the impact of temperature,
humidity, and wind on labour productivity in Qatar for four construction trades,
namely, formwork, masonry, plaster, and ceramic tiles. These trades were
chosen because they are time-consuming and commonly found in most
construction projects. Weather and trade labour productivity data were recorded
between July 2013 and February 2014. The results showed that weather
conditions have a high impact on trade labour productivity. They also showed
that the labour productivity in the summer can be as low as half of that in the
winter. Linear regression models were developed to predict trade productivity
on a given day of the year.
Keywords: extreme weather; weather impact; labour productivity; linear
regression; construction delays.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Senouci, A., Al-Abbasi, M.
and Eldin, N.N. (2018) ‘Impact of weather conditions on construction labour
productivity in Qatar’, Middle East J. Management, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp.34–49.
Biographical notes: Ahmed Senouci earned a PhD in Civil Engineering in
December 1991 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has over
25 years of professional experience in the area of civil engineering and
obtained over $4.7 million of funded research and published over