Environmental life-cycle assessment of highway construction projects /
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| Format: | Thesis eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
[College Station, Tex.] :
[Texas A&M University],
[2010]
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| Online Access: | Link to OAK Trust copy |
| Abstract: | Life-cycle inventory assessment (LCIA) provides us with quantity estimates of the inputs and outputs from a system. There have been limited applications of life-cycle assessment (LCA) to road construction in the United States. This thesis presents a lifecycle inventory of the environmental emissions to air from the construction of 3.2 miles (four lanes of highway) of a road in Texas. A process-based approach, which is basically a material and energy balance approach, was used and compared with the economic input-output life-cycle assessment (EIOLCA) method. The EIOLCA provides environmental emissions on the basis of a dollar value of a product or service used. A hybrid method was also employed to quantify emissions from the road. This hybrid method is an extension of the EIOLCA and is a recently developed method. Five major airborne emissions such as CO2, CO, NOx, SO2, and PM were quantified but the comparisons with other methods were done using CO2 as it had the highest value in emissions. The results of the process-based approach revealed that 18,590 tons of CO2 were released to the environment, while the EIOLCA approach provided an estimate of 750 tons of CO2 released. This thesis highlights the weak points of both methods and makes suggestions to improve both. Sensitivity analysis provides an estimate of the impact of different input values on the output. The results show that the emission factors utilized for calculating emissions affect the output the most. This research, by conducting an inventory assessment on a case study and comparing it with other methods, has shown that though the EIOLCA is a widely accepted method, the results provided are not always accurate. For individual cases, a combination of a process-based approach and an EIOLCA needs to be adopted. |
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| Item Description: | "Major Subject: Civil Engineering" Title from author supplied metadata (automated record created 2010-03-12 12:08:51). Electronic resource. |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references. |