An Open Access Journal
From: A systematic review of indicators to assess the sustainability of road infrastructure projects
No. | Criteria/aspects | Code | Description/Example of Indicators |
---|---|---|---|
1. | Socio-ecological system integrity | a1 | Build human-ecological relations to establish and maintain the long-term integrity of socio-biophysical systems, e.g., reducing barrier effects of species, avoiding species habitat fragmentation. |
 |  | a2 | Protect irreplaceable human and ecological life support functions upon which human and ecological wellbeing depend, e.g., avoiding land-use change of agriculturally valuable areas, protection of water bodies. |
2. | Livelihood security and opportunity | b | Ensure that everyone and every community has a decent life and that everyone has opportunities to seek improvements in ways that do not compromise future generations’ possibilities for sufficiency and opportunity, e.g., enhancing cost-efficient movement of goods and people, improving access to jobs/employment. |
3. | Intra-generational equity | c | Ensure that sufficiency and effective choices for all are pursued in ways that reduce gaps in sufficiency and opportunity (and health, security, social recognition, political influence, etc.) between the rich and the poor, e.g., providing walking and cycling facilities for vulnerable groups of people, improving affordability of road-based transportation services. |
4. | Intergenerational equity | d | Preserve or enhance the opportunities and capabilities of future generations to live sustainably, e.g., reducing road traffic injuries in children. |
5. | Resource maintenance and efficiency | e1 | Ensure sustainable livelihoods for all, while reducing threats to the long-term integrity of socio-ecological systems by reducing extractive damages, e.g., utilizing locally obtained materials to reduce energy consumption, reduction of water use in construction. |
 |  | e2 | Avoid waste production, e.g., reducing traffic emissions (NOx, CO, and CO2) in construction and operation. |
 |  | e3 | Cut overall material and energy use per unit of benefit, e.g., reusing pavement sections for reconstruction. |
6. | Socio-ecological civility and democratic governance | f1 | Improve the capacity, motivation, and habitual inclination of individuals, communities, and other collective decision-making bodies to apply sustainability requirements through more open and better-informed deliberations, e.g., participating communities in assessments and decision-making, conformance with standards and requirements (e.g., technical, environmental, social). |
 |  | f2 | Foster reciprocal awareness and collective responsibility, e.g., improving trained personnel and awareness of sustainability. |
 |  | f3 | Strive for the more integrated use of administrative, market, customary, and personal collective decision-making practices, e.g., integrating project plans with the spatial plans and environmental management plan. |
7. | Precaution and adaptation | g1 | Respect uncertainty, e.g., providing stormwater treatment with a higher level of output quality. |
 |  | g2 | Avoid even poorly understood risks of severe or irreversible damage to the foundations of sustainability, e.g., avoiding disaster-prone areas (e.g., erosion, landslide, other natural hazards). |
 |  | g3 | Plan to learn, e.g., improving individuals and organizations’ learning capacities to mitigate cross-scale effects. |
 |  | g4 | Manage for adaptation, e.g., reducing run-off from pavement areas, providing tree covers to reduce heat gains of paved areas. |
8. | Complete staging | h | The reviewed papers cover materials, energy, and workflows/processes involved in projects throughout the lifecycle (i.e., design, planning, construction, usage). |
9. | Comprehension of pillars | i | The examined paper covers all sustainability pillars (i.e., social, economic, and environmental). |
10. | Dimension (time, space) | j | The examined paper addresses project-context specificity based on time and space (location). |