1 research outputs found
Evaluation of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for Roadway Drainage Systems
Roadway drainage design has traditionally
focused on cost-effectively
managing water quantity; however, runoff carries pollutants, posing
risks to the local environment and public health. Additionally, construction
and maintenance incur costs and contribute to global environmental
impacts. While life cycle assessment (LCA) can potentially capture
local and global environmental impacts of roadway drainage and other
stormwater systems, LCA methodology must be evaluated because stormwater
systems differ from wastewater and drinking water systems to which
LCA is more frequently applied. To this end, this research developed
a comprehensive model linking roadway drainage design parameters to
LCA and life cycle costing (LCC) under uncertainty. This framework
was applied to 10 highway drainage projects to evaluate LCA methodological
choices by characterizing environmental and economic impacts of drainage
projects and individual components (basin, bioswale, culvert, grass
swale, storm sewer, and pipe underdrain). The relative impacts of
drainage components varied based on functional unit choice. LCA inventory
cutoff criteria evaluation showed the potential for cost-based criteria,
which performed better than mass-based criteria. Finally, the local
aquatic benefits of grass swales and bioswales offset global environmental
impacts for four impact categories, highlighting the need to explicitly
consider local impacts (i.e., direct emissions) when evaluating drainage
technologies