EMBODIED CARBON ASSESSMENT OF URBAN RAILWAY SYSTEMS IN TURKEY BASED ON MATERIAL QUANTIFICATION

2021-12-13
Yüksel, Müge
Due to global sustainability movements, environmental impact assessments are steadily accelerating in the Architecture – Engineering – Construction (AEC) sector. In order to achieve the 2030 and 2050 carbon targets, laws and regulations are published by governments and decision makers to reduce carbon emissions. Nowadays, transportation is the second-largest contributor to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union, including Turkey. As a developing country, Turkey strives to catch not only the level of wellbeing level of the EU but also to follow up the targeted carbon levels, so for this reason, advancements in infrastructure systems are accelerating in Turkey. Another significant point to take into consideration is that each project brings its own carbon footprint which requires to be controlled to be able to generate a healthy carbon circle of the whole picture. In other words, the benefits of infrastructure projects are indisputable, but the exponential increase in the number of projects causes the increase of the value of the carbon burden so their assessments become more and more important. The aim of this study is to create a reference study for carbon footprint assessments of infrastructure systems in Turkey. Accordingly, the embodied carbon of urban railway systems (metro lines) were calculated based on material quantifications. Specifically, four urban railway lines, including 18 metro stations in Istanbul, Turkey were examined. With these assessments, a reference carbon footprint value of the urban railway systems was provided. The findings indicate that the total carbon footprint (CFP) of the subterranean railway metro stations ranged between 36,734.47 tCO2-eq and 89,551.80 tCO2-eq with the average of 58,557.58 tCO2-eq. The CFP per m2 of the stations ranged between 2,39 tCO2-eq/m2 and 11,04 tCO2-eq/m2 with the average of 6,8 tCO2-eq/m2. At the line level, the total CFP of all the lines ranged between 336,897.58 tCO2-eq and 1,630,278.09 tCO2-eq with the average of 705,261 tCO2-eq. The CFP per construction length (km) of the lines ranged between 52,152 tCO2-eq/km and 88,634 tCO2-eq/km with the average of 75,991 tCO2-eq/km.

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Citation Formats
M. Yüksel, “EMBODIED CARBON ASSESSMENT OF URBAN RAILWAY SYSTEMS IN TURKEY BASED ON MATERIAL QUANTIFICATION,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2021.