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Date: | 2017 |
Abstract: | Stormwater management is essential to reducing the occurrence of flooding events in urban areas and to adapting to climate change. The construction of stormwater Best Management Practices (BMPs) entails a series of life cycle environmental impacts but also implies avoided burdens, such as replacing urban infrastructure after flooding. The aim of this paper is to integrate flood damage prevention into the life cycle assessment (LCA) of BMPs for quantifying their net environmental impact (NEI) and environmental payback (EP) from a consequential LCA standpoint. As a case study, the application of a filter, swale and infiltration trench (FST) in a Brazilian neighborhood was assessed considering a high-intensity rainfall event. The potential avoided impacts were related to cars and sidewalks that were not destroyed due to flooding. In terms of CO2eq. emissions, the environmental investment related to the FST was recovered when the destruction of one car or 84 m2 of sidewalk was prevented. The NEI of the FSTs resulted in significant impact reductions (up to 700%) with respect to not accounting for the avoided products. This approach can be implemented to any type of BMP, and more accurate estimations can be made with data for different events and different types of material damage. |
Grants: | Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad MDM-2015-0552 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2014/SGR-1412 Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte HBP-2012-0216 Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia FPU13/01273 |
Note: | Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552 |
Rights: | Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades. |
Language: | Anglès |
Document: | Article ; recerca ; Versió acceptada per publicar |
Subject: | Flood ; BMP ; CLCA ; Urban infraestructure ; Water ; City |
Published in: | Journal of cleaner production, Vol. 162 (Sep. 2017) , p. 601-608, ISSN 1879-1786 |
Post-print 26 p, 1.4 MB |