Material Flow Analysis and environmental impacts assessment of the construction sector in Brazil
- Autores: Karina de Macedo Soares Pires Condeixa
- Directores de la Tesis: Dieter Boer (dir. tes.), Assed Naked Haddad (codir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Rovira i Virgili ( España ) en 2016
- Idioma: español
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Luisa Fernanda Cabeza Fabra (presid.), Laureano Jiménez Esteller (secret.), Mariana Palumbo (voc.)
- Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Nanociencia, Materiales e Ingeniería Química por la Universidad Rovira i Virgili
- Materias:
- Enlaces
- Tesis en acceso abierto en: hdl.handle.net
- Resumen
The recent discussions and research on climate change created an awareness of the need for balance between urban development and the natural environment. The dematerialization has been considered indispensable to reduce environmental pressures, to avoid scarcity of natural resources and to reduce climate change, but still allowing the development of human activities.
The extensive use of material in buildings stocks contributes to the scarcity of natural resources and waste disposal on the environment. The construction industry and governments are joining efforts to promote sustainability and efficiency in the use of materials through mapping , analysis and improvement of preformance. Material Flow Analysis (MFA) has been used as a tool to achieve dematerialization and sustainability of building stocks.
MFA is a methodology that survey material in stocks and flows of materials. MFA has been used in differents fileds of studies in diferent scales, applications and methods. This large range of approaches on MFA tends to generate bad understanding and therefore hinders the systematic use of this methology.
Brazil has sought to adjust to the global trends of sustainability; Brazilians policies started encouragens the use of material flow analysis and life cycle assessment of products as tools to improve the management of solid waste, sustainable consumption to reduce the impacts from the streams and waste treatments.
This thesis applied MFA to discover the materials into building stock in a Brazilian city and their material and waste flows. MFA cominated to LCA assessed impacts from their waste flows.
The work developed in this PhD research and compilled in this dissertation is presented in three main charpters: chapters 2, 3 and 4. Chapter 2 promotes a literature review and a bibliometric analysis supporting the systematic use of Material Flow Analysis. Chapter 3 proposed a method based on MFA to model the residential building stock in the city of Rio de Janeiro and their material and waste flows, in order to caractherizar the building stock.
Chapter 4 introduces the metodologies MFA and LCA combined to model waste flows from a building stock and its life cycle.
In broad details, chapter 2 aims give a comprehensive understanding to enable a systematic application of the MFA methology through literature review and bibliometric study. The literature review is done from thr creation and development of MFA, as methods, applications, and strategies for sustenability. The bibliometric study analysis trends of publications by expresions, authors, countries, methods and impact factor. Overall, this chapter contextualizes MFA, presents and discusses specificities of methods and goals, identifies partnerships between researchers and trends in publications. This chapter aims to provide a boad understanting of the development and purposes of the MFA and assist in systematic application of this methodology.
Chapter 3 models and assess the residential building stock in the city of Rio de Janeiro, and their waste, between 2010 and the end of its life. It uses a method based on MFA with a "bottom-up" approach. This method surveys the materials intensities in function of models type of residential buildings, typical in Brazil, and extrapolate them to the Total constructed area of the residential building stock. Results show that the amount of material in stock in 2010 is around 78,828,773t with material intensity between 2.58 and 0.74t/m², concrete and aggregates having the higher material intensity. Single-family houses are the most common types of buildings ; however, multi-family buildings accomodate most families. The use phase tends to move at least 9,807,694t until 2090. Bearing in mind the waste generation peaks and demand of materials in the nexts years to the mortality of buildings. Our findings can help decision-makers planning strategies for construction anddemolition waste management focused on the sustainability in the use of materials and treatment of waste.
Chapter 4 models the waste flows considering the new waste policies, as well as, assesses the environmental impact of the life cycle, considering most representative materials in this building stock. MFA is used to analyse the waste flows and LCA is used to assess the impacts of the waste flows. The materials flows are modelled based on waste policies, statistical data and literature. This LCA, especifically in the LCIA phase, identifies the impact of greenhouse gases emissions using IPCC2013 method, and the impacts of ReCiPe2013. Results highlights a high potention of water depletion and human toxicity impacts from waste disposal in landfills, and high potential of global warmining, climate changes and fossil depletion from waste recycling. recycling processes are very pollutant, but we depend on the recycling to achieve the dematerialization of the construction sector and the preservation of natural resources for future generations. Consequently, it is necessary promote a conscious consumption, with an efficient use of materials and management to achieve the balance between nature and development.
In summary, this thesis highkighted on the variantes of MFA to promote a broadly analysis of a building stock. The main objectives are: to discover how MFA is used to inventory buildings stocks; to caracterize the buildings stock and its flows, compared to stocks abroad; and to identifying the impacts of different processes in the waste streams. Finally, we point out alternatives to assist the decision makers in create strategies to the dematerialization of development.
