Quantifying Environmental Costs for Sustainable Pavement Management

Abstract

We quantify the effect of Ontario's provincial transportation infrastructure decisions on multipollutant exposures, impacts, and life-cycle costs. A variety of evidence shows that roadway construction and maintenance affect human health and climate change via emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases. With recent policy shifts, provincial transportation decision-makers are focused on the role of roadway design and maintenance on these environmental exposures; however, they lack appropriate tools to incorporate them into decisions. Here, we present a decision-making tool that quantifies the health, environmental, and economic impacts of construction, maintenance, and rehabilitation of roads and highways. We examine various pavement design and management approaches, including standard practices, and innovations to processes and materials. We estimate multipollutant emissions, including (CO2, NOx, SO2, PM2.5, CO). We review literature that connects these exposures to health and economic impacts directly through marginal damage estimates. Current literature estimates for the cost of emitting a single metric tonne of fine particulate matter range between $600 and $50,000 (2010 CAD) depending on the impacts considered and the cost measures used. Preliminary findings for environmental costs of emissions from new-construction of a double-lane, one-kilometre road range between $300 to $50,00 for asphalt roads and $3000 to $400,00 (2010 CAD) for concrete roads. In this research, we expand on these findings and quantify contributions of uncertainty from exposures, exposure-response, and economic impacts. These findings allow infrastructure managers to account for health-related impacts of environmental exposures, including air pollutants and greenhouse gases, and thus to design more sustainable solutions.