Dynamic Simulation and Assessment of Green Infrastructure Systems

As stormwater and its associated nutrients continue to impair our nation’s waterways, green infrastructure systems (GIs) are increasingly applied in urban and suburban communities as a sustainable remedy to combined sewer system overflows and controlling stormwater related pollutants from changing land uses and precipitation patterns. Although GIs have been widely studied for their life cycle impacts and benefits, most of these studies adopt a static approach which prevents that information from being scaled or transferred to different spatial and temporal settings. To overcome this limitation, this research combines system dynamics modeling with life cycle assessment to evaluate seven different GIs through both economic and environmental lenses. Evaluated impacts include cumulative energy demand, global warming potential, marine and freshwater eutrophication potentials, and life cycle costs. The base model was then expanded to assess different scenarios in terms of geographic locations, land uses, GI design sizes, and climate changes. Our results show these aforementioned factors have significant influences on GIs’ life cycle performances. 

Relevant Publications

• TS Bixler, J Houle, T Ballestero, W Mo*, “A spatial life cycle cost assessment of stormwater management systems,” Science of the Total Environment, 728, 138787, 2020.

• TS Bixler, J Houle, T Ballestero, W Mo*, “A Dynamic Life Cycle Economic and Environmental Assessment of Green Infrastructures,” Science of the Total Environment, 692, 1146-1154, 2019.