Towards the development of a life-cycle assessment framework for bridge management : a literature survey

The world is driven towards sustainable construction and there is increasing need for incorporating environmental considerations into asset management tools, models and frameworks. Structures such as bridges are subjected to deterioration due to increasingly demanding environmental conditions. In order to minimise deterioration and enable the selection of sustainable actions numerous maintenance and management approaches have been developed. However, there is limited consideration of environmental impact in Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) during the decision making process. A life-cycle assessment can provide a detailed evaluation of environmental impacts of various maintenance options to allow the most sustainable method to be selected. The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of up-to-date literature on the implementation of LCA for bridge assessment. The review focuses on the LCA approach and methods adopted, life-cycle inventories considered for analysis, implemented framework developed and conclusions. Findings reveal that LCA for bridge infrastructure has concentrated on life cycle phases of the structure alone, without paying much attention to the available maintenance options. Literature has also revealed that most LCA studies have not clearly identified whether they have taken attributional or consequential approaches to LCA. Finally, considerations of benefits and barriers are also proposed for newly developed LCA frameworks before implementation