Climate Change, Energy, Sustainability and Pavements; Chapter 2 Application of LCA Results to Network- Level Highway Pavement Management

Abstract

Environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) is a method developed in the 1960s for identifying environmental objectives, defining the system to be analyzed, quantifying environmentally important inputs and outputs to the system over a life cycle, and assessing the impacts. The application of LCA to pavements is a rela- tively new development. Pavement management systems (PMS) have been developed and implemented since the 1970s to manage pavement network asset inventories, collect condition data, predict performance for various management decisions and report the results to support decision-making needed to meet per- formance and cost objectives. This chapter discusses the relationship between LCA and PMS and benefits of integrating LCA into PMS. An example is provided for the objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions on a state highway network. Gaps in implementation are identified, and recommendations are made for future work.