Visualizing Green House Gas Emissions during the Construction Phase of Infrastructure Projects Using Geo-Spatial Information Systems

Sustainability and environmental protection are among the emerging policies within construction industry. Technologies that facilitate assessment, modeling and communication of sustainability metrics are promising to help managers understand the dynamics of the driving factors affecting the environment. These technologies also can facilitate decision making in order to minimize impacts of those processes. However, the accuracy and efficiency of the models that are used still need significant improvements. In infrastructure projects, transportation has a major role in the impact to the environment, specifically air quality. Current technologies that are used to model transportation are inherently spatially dependent, and since such information could be used to analyze air quality and gas emissions, these technologies could act as proper baselines for visualizing sustainable construction. Among these technologies, Geo-spatial Information Systems (GIS) have shown their efficiencies in visualizing, manipulating, and analyzing such spatial data. In this research, we present a GIS-based model that helps visualize the distribution and dynamic variations of green house gas emissions during the construction phase of an infrastructure project.