Assessment of the environmental impact of road construction: modelling and prediction of fine particulate matter emissions

The increasing importance of the environmental and social impacts of air pollution calls for the prediction of the PM10 emissions in construction projects to prevent conflicts with population and workers. The PM10 generated by road constructions produces significant adverse effects on human health and environment. The significance of the concern relies on the great amount of roads that are expected to be built in the near future, especially in developed countries. The reliable estimation of these emissions, the assessment of the admissibility of their concentration, the identification of measures aimed at their lowering, the constant control during the works are indispensable actions in making road construction more sustainable. In this paper a procedure for predicting the PM10 emissions and propagation due to the road construction is presented and applied to a case study of a motorway project. The daily and annual mean PM10 concentration in the area near the worksites have been estimated, based on the gathered data on all the construction sites, the construction processes, the type and operation time of the equipment used in each site and applying the emission factor and the equations proposed by United States Environmental Protection Agency. Simulations showed that daily and annual mean limit are generally verified. The overruns occur, as expected, within the emission sources and are exhausted in few meters. Results allowed recognizing the worksites and the inherent activities characterized by the highest level of the emission toward which to direct the most effective mitigation measures able to reduce the particulate concentration in atmosphere.