Estimating the Material Stock of Roads: The Vietnamese Case Study

Abstract

Summary This study is a pioneering effort to quantify the materials stocked in the road network of a developing country, Vietnam, and analyze its relationships to the country's recent economic development. National road networks function as capital and infrastructure investments that are necessary catalysts for countries’ development, while requiring the extraction of vast amounts of construction materials for expansion and maintenance causing environmental impacts. However, there has so far been little research on the subject, especially in developing countries. We compile material stock and flow accounts for Vietnam's roads from 2003 to 2013 on the national and provincial levels, finding that approximately 40% of the domestic consumption of construction materials is for expanding and maintaining the road network, and the materials stocked in the road network doubled from 1,321 million metric tons in 2003 to 2,660 million metric tons in 2012. Material stock growth rates closely resembled those of gross domestic product (GDP) in this period, suggesting a codependency of physical infrastructure development and economic development. On the provincial level, our results show local disparities in the stock and its capacity to support the transportation of passengers and freight, especially considering the surging growth of vehicles in urban centers. By showcasing the challenges of conducting a material flow and stock analysis in a developing country, this study not only sheds light on Vietnam's transportation material stock and its policy implications, but also serves as a case study for further work in similar countries.

A hybrid material flow analysis for quantifying multilevel anthropogenic resources

“…() measured six kinds of MS in buildings in Taipei with an average figure of 68 t per capita from 1965 to 2014 using a bottom‐up approach. Nguyen, Fishman, Miatto, and Tanikawa () and Schiller et al. () are that few that used a bottom‐up approach at the macro‐level.…”

“…Nguyen et al. () adopted a bottom‐up approach in estimating four kinds of MS in road infrastructure in Vietnam from 2003 to 2012 with per capita MS of 29 t (United Nations, ). Schiller et al.…”

“…The quantity of MS in a system boundary can be calculated by multiplying all objects in the district with the material intensity (MI). This approach is widely used in MS evaluation at the micro‐level, providing information about a specific MS at high spatial resolution (Cheng et al., ; Kleemann, Lederer et al., ; Tanikawa et al., ), and even consolidating micro‐level MS to obtain the total amount of MS at macro‐level (Nguyen et al., ; Schiller et al., ). Nonetheless, the information needed for the bottom‐up approach would increase as the scale of investigation expands.…”

“…Cheng et al (2018) measured six kinds of MS in buildings in Taipei with an average figure of 68 t per capita from 1965 to 2014 using a bottom-up approach. Nguyen, Fishman, Miatto, and Tanikawa (2018) and Schiller et al (2017) are that few that used a bottom-up approach at the macro-level. Nguyen et al (2018) adopted a bottom-up approach in estimating four kinds of MS in road infrastructure in Vietnam from 2003 to 2012 with per capita MS of 29 t (United Nations, 2017).…”

Spatial analysis of urban material stock with clustering algorithms: A Northern European case study

“…In previous research, MS has been estimated for single or multiple components of the built environment. For instance, Guo, Hu, Zhang, Huang, and Xiao (2014), in the case of Beijing, and Nguyen, Fishman, Miatto, and Tanikawa (2018), in the case of Vietnam, have investigated road networks only, and Kleemann, Lederer, Rechberger, and Fellner (2016), in the case of Vienna, and Ortlepp, Gruhler, and Schiller (2015), in the case of Germany, have investigated buildings only. The studies that have examined multiple components of the built environment (Han & Xiang, 2013;Huang, Han, & Chen, 2016;Tanikawa & Hashimoto, 2009;Tanikawa et al, 2015;Wiedenhofer et al, 2015) have indicated that the largest stock is accumulated in buildings that takes between 43 and 90% of the total MS depending on which and how many of the built environment components are analyzed.…”