A Proposition to Extend CityGML and ADE Energy Standards for Exchanging Information for LCA Simulation at Urban Scale

Abstract

Environmental performances assessment of urban projects is essential to meet the current challenges of urban sustainable development. In recent years, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been applied to urban scale to assess complex systems such as districts, urban facilities and territories. Yet, application of LCA to large scale is challenging in terms of data modelling. To overcome this challenge, integration of Building Information Model (BIM) to LCA could reduce efforts during the data acquisition, as well as allowing the feedback of LCA results into BIM. To ensure interoperability e.g. with energy simulation tools, digital mock-up using an open information standard must be preferred. To answer this need, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) developed the open standard CityGML which is an XML-based data model that defines classes and relations for 3D object in cities (e.g. buildings, roads, water bodies etc.). This format also provides for domain-specific extension to other objects or attributes using Application Domain Extensions (ADE). To date, LCA data requirements have not been fully integrated into the CityGML format nor its ADE. The aim of this paper is to propose extension of CityGML and Energy-ADE standards for exchanging information for LCA simulation at urban scale. The scope of the study is limited to the integration of information necessary for LCA of buildings' construction and renovation. First, data requirements are listed and then compared to CityGML and Energy-ADE

On the Potential of District-Scale Life Cycle Assessments of Buildings

“…Previous research has attempted to further extend the Energy ADE with a generic description of utilities, a reduced-order representation of energy networks, and differentiated information about LCA-related parameters. This includes renewable and non-renewable energy consumption for heating and electricity, as well as environmental impact categories [43,44]. The interest in the GIS-based district-scale LCA of buildings has been increasing [32,45].…”

Building/city information model for simulation and data management

“…Regarding environmental simulations, propositions have been made to extend CityGML and ADE Energy standards for exchanging information for LCA simulation at urban scale. Detailed information is given in (Mailhac et al 2017).…”