Assessing the environmental impacts from housing and land-based mobility demand of households on a regional level
Open access
Date
2015-07Type
- Conference Poster
ETH Bibliography
yes
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Abstract
Mobility and housing are key consumption areas from an environmental perspective. Assessing environmental footprints of housing behavior and mobility patterns of households is thus an important first step to identify strategies for a sustainable development of urban settlements and for the abatement of adverse environmental impacts.
In this study, a model for the life cycle assessment of housing and mobility of individual households was applied to a Swiss region. This model consists of two major submodules for mobility and housing, both of which were tested and evaluated in several case studies beforehand. The housing energy module assesses space heating, hot water production and electricity demand using simplified heat balances as a function of time and site, building-specific data as well as climate databases. The mobility module derives land-based mobility demand of households based on simulation results of MATSim, an agent-based personal transportation model. Building upon mostly publicly accessible databases and available model results, this bottom-up model is not reliant on excessive data input. The model can be used to assess a multitude of households and to aggregate them on any desired regional scale.
The model was applied to a case study of a Swiss region and the environmental impacts induced by mobility and dwelling were assessed. This allowed for studying the interrelations of the two consumption areas and to identify the diverse patterns in households’ behavior on a regional scale. Quantifying the environmental impacts at the level of households facilitates the identification and the prioritization of targeted measures aimed at lowering negative effects on the environment, such as regulations for building design, or financial support for purchasing electric vehicles or for private refurbishment initiatives. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000291101Publication status
publishedPublisher
ETH ZurichEvent
Organisational unit
03732 - Hellweg, Stefanie / Hellweg, Stefanie
Notes
Poster presented on 8 July, 2015.More
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ETH Bibliography
yes
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