Comparative study of retaining walls aiming to optimize carbon footprint

Abstract

Urban areas are commonly developed with inadequate planning, which can lead to communities settling in unstable locations, creating a need to either relocate these settlements to more appropriate places, or to stabilize the terrain. These actions must be combined with practices focused on reduction of environmental impacts, such as CO2 emissions. Therefore, this research aimed to compare the carbon footprint of reinforced soil structures to a conventional method. Two types of retaining wall using geogrid reinforcements were designed as an alternative to a cantilever wall made of reinforced concrete. After the design process, the volume of necessary material was estimated for each structure as well as the amount of CO2 emissions related to their production. The designed reinforced soil structures obtained a much smaller carbon footprint when compared to the reinforced concrete structure. Due to the increasing demand for terrain stabilization in urban areas, structures that are less impactful to the environment should be prioritized especially when they can also be used to promote vegetation growth. Thus, reinforced soil structures are a great alternative to common methods because of their smaller carbon footprint and they can also bring several benefits to the landscape, such as an increase in vegetated area.