Abstract
This study used a cradle-to-cradle Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach to evaluate the environmental potentials of urban pavements. For this purpose, the urban road network of the City of Münster (Germany) was selected as the case study, and comprehensive data for several phases were collected. The entire road network is composed of flexible pavements designed according to specific traffic loads and consists of main roads (MRs), main access roads (MARs), and residential roads (RSDTs). Asphalt materials, pavement structures, and maintenance strategies are predefined for each type of road and are referred to as “traditional” herein. Some pavement structures have two possible maintenance strategies, denoted by “A” and “B”, with distinguished periods of intervention. To evaluate the impact of using recycled materials, we considered alternative pavement structures composed of asphalt materials containing a greater amount of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP). The study was carried out considering analysis periods of 20, 50, 80, and 100 years and using two indicators: non-renewable cumulative energy demand (nr-CED) and global warming potential (GWP). The results show that the use of higher amounts of RAP can mitigate negative environmental impacts and that certain structures and maintenance strategies potentially enhance the environmental performance of road pavements. This article suggests initiatives that will facilitate the decision-making process of city administrators to achieve more sustainable road pavement constructions and provides an essential dataset inventory to support future environmental assessment studies, particularly for European cities.
Highlights
The main goal of this study was to assess the environmental impacts of the asphalt materials, pavement structures, and road maintenance strategies adopted in Münster considering lifetimes of 20, 50, 80, and 100 years
The primary data associated with the road network and the production of asphalt mixtures, such as raw material suppliers, recipes, and amounts of energy and water consumption, were collected through questionnaires answered by the asphalt producers and the road department of Münster
The environmental impacts in terms of global warming potential (GWP) and non-renewable cumulative energy demand (nr-CED) per square meter of road pavement are shown in absolute numbers in the supplementary material (Table S11)
Summary
The climate change and the current environmental crises have intensified the global pursuit for sustainability, pressuring governments and city administrators to promote more sustainable practices [1], and to seek solutions for the most relevant areas of concern such as the transportation sector, which is responsible for approximately 25% of Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions and 15% of the global share [2,3]. The environmental impacts caused by the transportation sector come from distinct sources: road construction, maintenance and rehabilitation procedures, vehicles and userrelated emissions, end-of-life of the structure [4], etc. Particularities such as the pavement conditions and the deterioration over time directly influences the rolling resistance of the pavement, affecting the safety, noise level, CO2 emissions, and fuel consumption of vehicles [5,6,7,8,9]. Civil Engineering of the City of Münster aims to improve the sustainability of its urban roads by using LCA to evaluate existing asphalt materials, pavement structures, and maintenance strategies.
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