Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Highway Construction: Case Study in Southwest China

The large-scale transportation infrastructure construction in developing countries such as China requires the empirical emission estimation to better schedule the construct process. This study estimated the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions of four real highway construction projects in Southwest China. The emissions were estimated in three categories (raw materials production, materials transportation and onsite construction) by using empirical equations with data from project budget sheets. In addition, the emissions from bridge and tunnels constructions were also estimated and compared with roadway construction. The results show that over 80 percent of the emissions of four selected projects were generated from raw material production. The onsite construction and raw materials transportation were 10 and 3 percent, respectively. In addition, the constructions of bridges and tunnels generated more emissions than roadways. The emissions of different types of constructions: road is 5229 kg/m, bridge is 35,547 kg/m, and tunnel is 42,302 kg/m. The empirical emission estimations may benefit for highway design and planning to reduce the total emissions.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADC20 Transportation and Air Quality.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Wang, Xianwei
  • Wu, Lingsheng
  • Yang, Dongyuan
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC
  • Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
• Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 16p
• Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Carbon dioxide; Case studies; Infrastructure; Pollutants; Production; Raw materials; Road construction
• Geographic Terms: China
• Subject Areas: Construction; Environment; Highways; I15: Environment; I52: Construction of Pavements and Surfacings;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01515492
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 14-5222
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 24 2014 8:42AM