Quantifying carbon footprint for ecological river restoration

Yiwen Chiu (), Yi Yang () and Cody Morse ()
Additional contact information
Yiwen Chiu: California Polytechnic State University
Yi Yang: Ministry of Education, Chongqing University
Cody Morse: California Polytechnic State University

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2022, vol. 24, issue 1, No 38, 952-970

Abstract: Abstract RIVER restoration is a popular technique to rehabilitate degraded river habitat. Given the nature of these types of engineering projects, using ecological indicators to monitor the restoration effectiveness has been a traditional approach. However, as this approach emphasizes the post-project performance, environmental impact attributed to a project’s construction phase has received little attention directly or indirectly. This study quantified the carbon footprint of ecological river restoration, using a project in California as a case study. A topographic diversity index (TDI) was developed as a functional unit of the river restoration project, indicating how a restoration project can increase the variation of habitat topography. The results show that river restoration can lead to greenhouse gas emissions ranging from 288 to 336 kg CO2 equivalent (kg CO2e) for every 1% of TDI improvement, or 9–14 kg CO2e per meter stream restored. This study identified that improving raw material acquisition plans and heavy-duty equipment rental decision can be feasible strategies leading to the reduction of carbon footprint.

Keywords: Life-cycle assessment; Environmental impact; Carbon footprint; Topographic diversity index; River restoration; Habitat improvement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-021-01477-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:endesu:v:24:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s10668-021-01477-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10668

DOI: 10.1007/s10668-021-01477-y

Access Statistics for this article

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development is currently edited by Luc Hens

More articles in Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().