Life-cycle assessment applied to construction of Thames Tideway east tunnel, London, UK

The Thames Tideway tunnel is a large sewer running up to 66 m below the tidal river Thames in London, UK. Its construction, started in 2016, was urgently needed to protect the tidal Thames from pollution due to the combined sewer overflows of untreated sewage that every year are spilled into the riv...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Engineering sustainability 2019-12, Vol.172 (8), p.416-423
Main Author: Arena, Noemi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide emissions
Combined sewer overflows
Construction
Environmental effects
Environmental impact
Environmental performance
Life cycle analysis
Life cycle assessment
Pollution
Rivers
Sewage
Tidal rivers
Tidal waterways
Tunnels
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Summary:The Thames Tideway tunnel is a large sewer running up to 66 m below the tidal river Thames in London, UK. Its construction, started in 2016, was urgently needed to protect the tidal Thames from pollution due to the combined sewer overflows of untreated sewage that every year are spilled into the river. This paper reports on an exercise for evaluating the environmental impact associated with the construction process of the east section of the tunnel quantified by means of a life-cycle assessment, which not only primarily considered carbon dioxide emissions, but also took into account a wider series of impact categories. Operational and decommissioning impacts were not included. The results indicated the processes with the greatest effects on the environmental performance of the east sector construction and hence where alternatives on the design or materials used needed to be considered.
ISSN:1478-4629
1751-7680
DOI:10.1680/jensu.18.00012