Life Cycle Assessment of Asphalt Pavements Through Environmental Impact and Performance

Abstract: This research highlights the need for sustainable pavement alternatives in Brazil and in most of the countries around the World, considering the environmental impact of road infrastructure. It integrates environmental and performance assessments of asphalt pavements using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method and International Roughness Index (IRI) as the performance measure. The study evaluates five asphalt pavement scenarios with different surface layer thicknesses and base layer materials. The LCA encompasses material extraction, production, transportation, road construction and rehabilitation stages. Data from GaBi and local literature were analyzed with the CML 2001 method to measure emissions. The environmental impact analysis indicates that material exploration and transportation phases are major contributors, while construction operations are less significant. The study highlights the role of the rehabilitation phase in long-term environmental impacts. Pavements with better performance, despite initially higher emissions, ultimately presented lower overall environmental impacts due to fewer rehabilitations and reduced material consumption. The research concludes that the most sustainable pavements are those most resilient to traffic and climate, as they exhibit extended durability without needing frequent interventions. Future work should focus on updating databases, adding environmental impact categories, and exploring alternative materials and maintenance strategies to improve sustainable infrastructure guidelines and transportation policy.