Environmental and Social Impact Assessment of Optimized Post-Tensioned Concrete Road Bridges

Vicent Penadés-Plà, David Martínez-Muñoz, Tatiana García-Segura, Ignacio J. Navarro and Víctor Yepes
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Vicent Penadés-Plà: Institute of Concrete Science and Technology (ICITECH), Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain
David Martínez-Muñoz: Institute of Concrete Science and Technology (ICITECH), Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Tatiana García-Segura: Department of Construction Engineering and Civil Engineering Projects, Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Ignacio J. Navarro: Department of Construction Engineering and Civil Engineering Projects, Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Víctor Yepes: Institute of Concrete Science and Technology (ICITECH), Universitat Politècnica de València, 46022 Valencia, Spain

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 10, 1-18

Abstract: Most of the definitions of sustainability include three basic pillars: economic, environmental, and social. The economic pillar has always been evaluated but not necessarily in the sense of economic sustainability. On the other hand, the environmental pillar is increasingly being considered, while the social pillar is weakly developed. Focusing on the environmental and social pillars, the use of methodologies to allow a wide assessment of these pillars and the integration of the assessment in a few understandable indicators is crucial. This article is structured into two parts. In the first part, a review of life cycle impact assessment methods, which allow a comprehensive assessment of the environmental and social pillars, is carried out. In the second part, a complete environmental and social sustainability assessment is made using the ecoinvent database and ReCiPe method, for the environmental pillar, and SOCA database and simple Social Impact Weighting method, for the social pillar. This methodology was used to compare three optimized bridges: two box-section post-tensioned concrete road bridges with a variety of initial and maintenance characteristics, and a pre-stressed concrete precast bridge. The results show that there is a high interrelation between the environmental and social impact for each life cycle stage.

Keywords: sustainability; LCA; S-LCA; social assessment; ecoinvent; SOCA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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