Carbon and water footprint analysis of pig farm buildings in Northeast China using building-information-modeling enabled assessment

Abstract

Environmental impact evaluation of buildings is critical for further analysis and optimization of pig farms for sustainable pork production. This study is the first attempt to quantify the carbon and water footprints of a standard intensive pig farm building using building information modeling (BIM) and operation simulation model. The model was constructed with carbon emission and water consumption coefficients, and a database was built. The results showed that the operational stage of pig farm accounted for most of the carbon footprint (49.3–84.9 %) and water footprint (65.5–92.5 %). Building materials production ranked second in carbon (12.0–42.5 %) and water footprints (4.4–24.9 %), and pig farm maintenance ranked third in carbon (1.7–5.7 %) and water footprints (0.7–3.6 %). Notably, the mining and production stages of building materials contributed the largest carbon and water footprints of pig farm construction. Masonry materials have a significant impact on the overall carbon and water footprints of the pig farm. Pig farm using aerated concrete could reduce 41.1 % of the total carbon footprint and 58.9 % of the total water footprint compared to that using coal gangue sintered brick and autoclaved fly ash brick. This study presented a BIM-enabled method for carbon and water footprint analysis of pig farms and illustrated how the model can be used to facilitate the low carbon design of agricultural buildings.