Towards a general framework for including noise impacts in LCA

Environmental trade-offs for using low-noise pavements: Life cycle assessment with noise considerations

Noise mitigation is the main advantage of semi-dense asphalt (SDA) pavements compared to traditional pavements such as stone-mastic asphalt (SMA), but noise is not quantitatively considered in traditional life cycle assessment (LCA). This article performs a comprehensive LCA for SMA and SDA including noise considerations. State-of-the-art sound emission and acoustical ageing models were used to determine the road traffic noise. The latest Swiss dose-response curves and current noise exposure data were used to evaluate health impacts due to noise. Additionally, traditional LCA is also included for assessing the greenhouse gas emissions, non-renewable cumulative energy demand and health impacts of non-noise processes. The results show that SDA causes around 70 % higher greenhouse gases and energy demand than SMA, primarily due to its shorter service life. However, the noise impacts in disability adjusted life years (DALYs) are higher by two to three orders of magnitude than non-noise processes, and the use of SDA can reduce 40 % of the total DALYs. It is shown that road traffic noise plays a significant role in the LCA of pavements. The trade-off between greenhouse gas and energy related impacts, on the one hand, and health effects, on the other hand, requires critical consideration by decision makers when promoting low-noise pavements.

Noise footprint from personal land-based mobility

A large part of the world population is exposed to noise levels that are unhealthy. Yet noise is often neglected when impact assessment studies are conducted and when policy interventions are designed. In this study, we provide a way to calculate the noise footprint of citizens directly determined by their use of private and public transport on land. The study combines the results of the large transport simulation model MATSim applied to Switzerland, with a noise characterization model, N-LCA, developed in the context of life cycle assessment. MATSim results allow tracking the use of private and public transportation by agents in the model. The results after characterization provide a consumption-based noise footprint, thus the total noise and impacts that are caused by the private mobility demand of the citizens of Switzerland. Our results confirm that road transportation is the largest contributor to the total noise footprint of land-based mobility. We also included a scenario with a full transition to an electrified car fleet, which showed the potential for the reduction of impacts, particularly in urban areas, by about 55% as compared to the modeled regime with combustion engines.

Temporalis, a generic method and tool for dynamic Life Cycle Assessment

The limitations of the static nature of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) are well known. To overcome the loss of temporal information due to the aggregation of flows in the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI), several dynamic LCA methodologies have been proposed. In this paper we present a new generic and operational methodology for dynamic LCA that allows for the introduction of temporal information in both in the inventory and the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) phases. The method makes use of graph traversal and convolution to calculate the temporally differentiated inventory, and makes it possible to use several types of dynamic impact assessment. We describe our method and apply it to a cradle-to-grave dynamic LCA of a glued laminated timber (glulam) product. We also test the sensitivity of the global warming results to temporal explicit LCI data. There is a considerable difference in outcome between the static and dynamic approaches. We have implemented our framework in the free and open source software Temporalis that is fully operational and can be used with existing LCA databases.

Toward a holistic environmental impact assessment of marble quarrying and processing: proposal of a novel easy-to-use IPAT-based method

Marble is a natural dimension stone that is widely used in building due to its resistance and esthetic qualities. Unfortunately, some concerns have arisen regarding its production process because quarrying and processing activities demand significant amounts of energy and greatly affect the environment. Further, performing an environmental analysis of a production process such as that of marble requires the consideration of many environmental aspects (e.g., noise, vibrations, dust and waste production, energy consumption). Unfortunately, the current impact accounting tools do not seem to be capable of considering all of the major aspects of the (marble) production process that may affect the environment and thus cannot provide a comprehensive and concise assessment of all environmental aspects associated with the marble production process. Therefore, innovative, easy, and reliable methods for evaluating its environmental impact are necessary, and they must be accessible for the non-technician. The present study intends to provide a contribution in this sense by proposing a reliable and easy-to-use evaluation method to assess the significance of the environmental impacts associated with the marble production process. In addition, an application of the method to an actual marble-producing company is presented to demonstrate its practicability. Because of its relative ease of use, the method presented here can also be used as a "self-assessment" tool for pursuing a virtuous environmental policy because it enables company owners to easily identify the segments of their production chain that most require environmental enhancement.

A Protocol for the Global Sensitivity Analysis of Impact Assessment Models in Life Cycle Assessment

The life cycle assessment (LCA) framework has established itself as the leading tool for the assessment of the environmental impact of products. Several works have established the need of integrating the LCA and risk analysis methodologies, due to the several common aspects. One of the ways to reach such integration is through guaranteeing that uncertainties in LCA modeling are carefully treated. It has been claimed that more attention should be paid to quantifying the uncertainties present in the various phases of LCA. Though the topic has been attracting increasing attention of practitioners and experts in LCA, there is still a lack of understanding and a limited use of the available statistical tools. In this work, we introduce a protocol to conduct global sensitivity analysis in LCA. The article focuses on the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), and particularly on the relevance of global techniques for the development of trustable impact assessment models. We use a novel characterization model developed for the quantification of the impacts of noise on humans as a test case. We show that global SA is fundamental to guarantee that the modeler has a complete understanding of: (i) the structure of the model and (ii) the importance of uncertain model inputs and the interaction among them.

Metrics in Urban Health: Current Developments and Future Prospects

The research community has shown increasing interest in developing and using metrics to determine the relationships between urban living and health. In particular, we have seen a recent exponential increase in efforts aiming to investigate and apply metrics for urban health, especially the health impacts of the social and built environments as well as air pollution. A greater recognition of the need to investigate the impacts and trends of health inequities is also evident through more recent literature. Data availability and accuracy have improved through new affordable technologies for mapping, geographic information systems (GIS), and remote sensing. However, less research has been conducted in low- and middle-income countries where quality data are not always available, and capacity for analyzing available data may be limited. For this increased interest in research and development of metrics to be meaningful, the best available evidence must be accessible to decision makers to improve health impacts through urban policies.

Emerging approaches, challenges and opportunities in life cycle assessment

In the modern economy, international value chains--production, use, and disposal of goods--have global environmental impacts. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) aims to track these impacts and assess them from a systems perspective, identifying strategies for improvement without burden shifting. We review recent developments in LCA, including existing and emerging applications aimed at supporting environmentally informed decisions in policy-making, product development and procurement, and consumer choices. LCA constitutes a viable screening tool that can pinpoint environmental hotspots in complex value chains, but we also caution that completeness in scope comes at the price of simplifications and uncertainties. Future advances of LCA in enhancing regional detail and accuracy as well as broadening the assessment to economic and social aspects will make it more relevant for producers and consumers alike.

Characterisation factors for life cycle impact assessment of sound emissions

Noise is a serious stressor affecting the health of millions of citizens. It has been suggested that disturbance by noise is responsible for a substantial part of the damage to human health. However, no recommended approach to address noise impacts was proposed by the handbook for life cycle assessment (LCA) of the European Commission, nor are characterisation factors (CFs) and appropriate inventory data available in commonly used databases. This contribution provides CFs to allow for the quantification of noise impacts on human health in the LCA framework. Noise propagation standards and international reports on acoustics and noise impacts were used to define the model parameters. Spatial data was used to calculate spatially-defined CFs in the form of 10-by-10-km maps. The results of this analysis were combined with data from the literature to select input data for representative archetypal situations of emission (e.g. urban day with a frequency of 63 Hz, rural night at 8000 Hz, etc.). A total of 32 spatial and 216 archetypal CFs were produced to evaluate noise impacts at a European level (i.e. EU27). The possibility of a user-defined characterisation factor was added to support the possibility of portraying the situation of full availability of information, as well as a highly-localised impact analysis. A Monte Carlo-based quantitative global sensitivity analysis method was applied to evaluate the importance of the input factors in determining the variance of the output. The factors produced are ready to be implemented in the available LCA databases and software. The spatial approach and archetypal approach may be combined and selected according to the amount of information available and the life cycle under study. The framework proposed and used for calculations is flexible enough to be expanded to account for impacts on target subjects other than humans and to continents other than Europe.