Environmental impacts of climate change adaptation of road pavements and mitigation options

ABSTRACT

Roads contribute to climate change, mainly due to traffic emissions, but they are also affected by changes in the climate. Climate variations modify pavements’ exposure in a positive or negative way, reducing or increasing degradation. When climate impacts are negative, it is necessary to apply adaptation measures, such as changes in design or maintenance frequency, or traffic management. These adaptation measures may have new environmental impacts, especially an increased use of energy and emissions or acoustic impacts, which require mitigation measures. The environmental impacts of climate change adaptation are currently mostly ignored or undervalued. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to this topic, in order to achieve a proper consideration in adaptation decision-making.

KEYWORDS:

• Road pavements
• climate change adaptation
• road traffic noise
• environmental impacts
• mitigation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Program of Research, Development and Innovation [grant number CTM2014-56668-R], [grant number AGL2015-69151-R].