Environmental Impact Assessment Review 91 (2021) 106644

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Environmental Impact Assessment Review

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/eiar

Environmental impact analysis for the construction of subway stations:

Comparison between open-excavation and underground-excavation scheme
Minghui Liu, Siyi Jia *, Xueyan Wang
School of Civil Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, NO. 3 Shang Yuan Cun, Hai Dian District, Beijing 100044, PR China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The excessive environmental impacts from the construction of subway infrastructure have become a concern for
Subway station operators who are keen on continuing to lower the environmental footprint, but the factors affecting the impacts
Environmental Impact Assessment are yet to be fully identified. Excavation scheme is the governing factor in subway construction, not only because
Construction
it prescribes the ensuing construction procedures, but it also epitomizes the design philosophy towards the
Excavation method
GHG emissions
interaction between the subway structure and city environment. In this paper, a comparative assessment is made
among the fifteen mid-point environmental impacts from the two major excavation schemes in subway con­
struction, i.e. the open-excavation (OE) and underground-excavation (UE) scheme. The case station provides a
perfect example for such a comparison as it consists of both OE and UE section at the same buried depth. GHG
emissions are identified as the largest contributor after normalization. However, GHG emissions are not repre­
sentative for the overall impacts. The UE section is responsible for more impacts per area than that of OE section
in all the investigated categories. The gap between the two sections is attributable to the extra reinforcement
procedures that protect the surrounding infrastructure from adverse settlement. Though the underground
environment limits the use of construction machines, the UE construction involves more on-site impacts because
it requires 11.79 times the labor used in the OE section. Based on the results, the adaptability of the two methods
was discussed, considering the life-cycle performance and their interaction with the city environment.

1. Introduction
Railway transport is among the most energy efficient modes of mass
transportation, owing to the high share of electrification (International
Union of Railways, 2016). However, the introduction of rail transport
does not necessarily promise environmental benefits because of the
trade-off effects might offset the mitigated impacts from railway oper­
ation (D' Alfonso et al., 2016). Arguably, the environmental impacts (EI)
from the construction of the rail infrastructure is the most prominent
contributor to this trade-off effect, which is getting highlighted by a
growing body of literature (Pons et al., 2020; De Bortoli et al., 2020; Lee
et al., 2020; Chang et al., 2019; Olugbenga et al., 2019; Jones et al.,
2016; Yue et al., 2015; Chester and Horvath, 2010).
The last two decade has seen the rapid expansion of urban rail transit
(URT) network in many major cities of China. The operating mileage
nationwide approaches 6000 km by the end of 2019, in which the
subway lines account for a major percentage (China Association of
Metros, 2020). While URT promises a safer and cleaner alternative to
automobile travel, the environmental footprint from its underground
infrastructure is extensive (Liu et al., 2019; Saxe et al., 2017; Li et al.,
2016; Lederer et al., 2016; Crossrail, 2014; MTR, 2013; Chester and
Horvath, 2009). The GHG emissions from 1-km open-excavated (OE)
subway construction range between 39,000 and 84,000 t CO2 eq., which
is equivalent 45.59 km highway construction or 24.83 km urban bridge
construction, and the GHG emissions from the construction of a typical
OE subway station could exceed 50,000 t CO2 eq. (Liu et al., 2020; Mao,
2017). Such extensive pre-occupational impacts threaten to postpone
the balance point beyond which URT operation starts to gain environ­
mental benefits. As concluded by relevant researches, the pay-back pe­
riods range from 9 years to 28 years for subway lines (Li et al., 2016;
Saxe et al., 2017). For stations with low service level or excessive con­
struction scale, the pay-back period could exceed 50 years, which is a
notable offset considering a typical service life of 100 years (Liu et al.,
2020). Although the the excessive pre-occupational impacts of URT
infrastructure have become a concern for operators who are keen on
minimizing the life-cycle environmental footprints (EFP), there are still
some knowledge gaps that hinder the assessment of the impacts.

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: mhl@bjtu.edu.cn (M. Liu), 17115287@bjtu.edu.cn (S. Jia), 16231047@bjtu.edu.cn (X. Wang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2021.106644
Received 4 February 2021; Received in revised form 9 July 2021; Accepted 9 July 2021
Available online 18 July 2021
0195-9255/© 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
M. Liu et al.
1.1. Knowledge gap I: influencing factors of the EI from URT construction
The previous work on the EIs of subway construction presents case
studies, and the impacts vary greatly among the cases. For example, the
GHG emissions from 1-km URT line could range between 4900 t CO2 eq.
to 84,000 t CO2 eq. according to the type of the line (Li et al., 2016; Saxe
et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2020). The factors that affects the environment
impacts of subway construction are yet to be fully identified.
Excavation method is the governing factor in subway construction,
as it prescribes the ensuing procedures. The two primary approaches, i.e.
the open-excavation (OE) and underground excavation (UE), adopt
different strategies to adapt to the city environment. Specifically, the UE
method involves extra reinforcement actions beyond those necessary to
ensure the safety of its own structure. These extra reinforcement actions
are taken to minimize the adverse settlement on the adjacent environ­
ment and vice versa. To the contrary, the OE scheme provides little
resistance to the deformation beyond its safety and serviceability re­
quirements. Although the OE method facilitate fast construction and
costs less than the UE method, it would also introduce the need of
reinforcement for surrounding infrastructure. What also differentiates
the OE and UE scheme is the level of mechanization. The top-down
excavation from the ground renders the OE scheme highly mecha­
nized, while the underground construction in the UE scheme limits the
use of mass construction equipment, and the use of labor is considerably
higher than the OE scheme.
As different procedures and resources are involved in the two exca­
vation schemes, the environment output is likely to be different.
Therefore, a comparative analysis is needed to quantify the EI from the
two excavation in both short term and long term.
1.2. Knowledge gap II: environmental impact analysis of URT
infrastructure beyond GHG emissions
GHG emissions from URT infrastructure are the impacts that have
been of most concern to date, while coverage on other impact categories
has rare report. However, researches on the building environment
impact analysis (EIA) revealed that GHG emissions may not be the most
significant impact indicator in all cases, nor could it be utilized as a
global indicator that represents all other impact categories (Heinonen
et al., 2015). Specifically, weak correlations exist between GHG emis­
sions and other impacts in products that characterize high intensity of
eco-toxicity (Laurent et al., 2012). For rail infrastructure, the railway
life-cycle assessment (LCA) conducted by De Bortoli et al. (2020) also
indicates the inconsistent contributions among the sub-projects between
the climate change and other impact categories.
In a mass integrated production system, the process-specific emis­
sions of some procedures might cause the poor performance of GHG
emissions as a global indicator (Laurent et al., 2012; Laurent et al.,
2010). As a result, a comparison between two or more alternative design
schemes (products) might be biased when using the GHG emissions as a
comprehensive indicator, and the focus on mitigating GHG emissions
might shift the impacts to other impact categories (Heinonen et al.,
2015). The EIA of URT projects, which involve multiple sub-procedures,
should be conducted on multiple impact dimensions besides GHG
emissions to avoid the potential biased conclusions.
This paper presents a cradle-to-gate LCA of subway construction, in
which fifteen problem-oriented mid-point impact categories are
involved. A comparative study is made between the environmental
footprints under the OE and UE scheme. The case station provides a
perfect sample for this comparison as it includes both OE and UE section
at the same buried depth. The impacts are broken into sub-projects to
explain what differentiates the impacts between the two sections, and
the crucial element processes for each impact category are identified.
Furthermore, the environmental implication of the two section is dis­
cussed considering their interactions with the urban environment. In
addition, the reliability of GHG emissions as a comprehensive indicator
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Environmental Impact Assessment Review 91 (2021) 106644
is investigated by checking its correlation with other indicators in the
element processes level.
2. Materials and method
2.1. Case description
2.1.1. General information
The case station is an intermediate station of Beijing Subway Line 14.
A hybrid construction scheme was adopted, which consisted of a 55-m
OE section and a 197-m UE section of the same buried depth. Major
geometry parameters of the case station are present in Table 1.
2.1.2. OE section
OE is the best option when the environment poses little restriction on
the construction. The case OE section adopts a stepwise excavation
method from the ground. Temporary steel supports are installed after
each excavation step, and concrete caisson piles are cast to provide
lateral resistance against soil pressure (see Fig. 1a). The underground
reinforced concrete structures were constructed in a bottom-up
sequence together with the removal of steel support (see Fig. 1b and c).
2.1.3. UE section
UE is widely adopted for subway lines that stretch across the core
area of cities, when OE faces practical barriers induced by existing lines
and ground traffic. UE is characterized by strict deformation-control
measures, including the advanced grouting before the excavation and
prompt installation of support structures after the excavation. The case
station adopts a ‘Pile-Beam-Arch’ (PBA) method, in which the columns,
beams and arch of the underground structure bear the soil pressure
jointly. To minimize the settlement induced by the excavation, the arch-
type grouting are performed through the pipe-roof prior to the excava­
tion of the eight pilot tunnels (Fig. 2a). Then columns and lateral caisson
piles are cast through the pilot tunnels, and the top arch is constructed
beneath the pipe roof (Fig. 2b). The rest reinforced concrete components
are cast upon the completion of the excavation (Fig. 2c).
2.1.4. Break-down of the construction
According to the above-mentioned procedures, the construction of
both OE and UE section could be broken into three sub-projects, i.e. the
excavation, support and station structure. As illustrated in Fig. 3, the
most noticeable difference between the two section lies in the support
construction. The support of the UE section includes two parts, i.e. 1)
element process that ensure the structural safety, usually in the form of
caisson piles and diaphragm wall and 2) the measures to limit the
deformation during the excavation, such as advance grouting and per­
manent steel support. To the contrary, a typical OE station (tunnel
section) only includes the former part.
2.2. Method
The EIA of the case station is conducted within the frame of LCA
method, which is able to provide a comprehensive view of the EIs from
the construction of civil infrastructures (Anand and Amor, 2017). The
analysis is proceeded according to the major steps of a standard LCA,
including the goal and scope definition, inventory analysis and life cycle
Table 1
Major parameters of the case station.
Site area (m2) Building area Total length (m) Buried depth (m)
(m2)
26,916 16,240 252 8.3
Station width Platform width Length of OE section Length of UE section
(m) (m) (m) (m)
23.3 14.4 55 197
M. Liu et al. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 91 (2021) 106644

Fig. 1. Construction procedures of the OE section. a. The stepwise excavation in the OE section. b. Bottom-up construction of the structures. c. Complete sta­
tion structures.

impact assessment (LCIA). 2.2.1. Goal and scope

Environmental impacts from subway construction have a significant
contribution to the life-cycle totality, yet the mitigation potential is yet

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M. Liu et al. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 91 (2021) 106644

Fig. 1. (continued).

Fig. 2. Construction procedures of the UE section. a. Excavation of pilot tunnel and advance grouting. b. Construction of arch and piles. c. Complete sta­
tion structures.

4
M. Liu et al.
Fig. 2. (continued).
to be fully exploited compared with the mitigation practice from oper­
ation. Therefore, the goal of this study is to assess the EI from the con­
struction of subway stations with different excavation methods, and a
partial LCA is performed in which the quantification scope is defined to
only include the impacts from the construction of subway station. A
cradle-to-gate analysis of the construction stage is essential to aware
owners/engineers the environmental implications of their schemes, and
provide reference to the decision-making.
The comparative study necessitates a consistent function unit, which
is chosen to be the gross building area (square meter) in this case. To
quantify the pre-operational impacts of the subway station, the bound­
ary of this analysis is defined to include the impacts from 1) the pro­
duction and use of building materials and 2) operation of the
construction machines and 3) workers' on-site activities.
2.2.2. Inventory analysis
The construction of URT infrastructure is an integration of various
procedures, therefore a process-based approach is the best option for the
inventory analysis. While a process-based approach can yield the best
accuracy and facilitate the identification of procedures with intensive
impacts, its accuracy relies on the completeness and quality of inventory
data. In fact, data collection is a challenging task for researchers who
want to perform a process-based LCA due to confidentiality or incom­
plete data (Silvestre et al., 2015; Abd Rashid and Yusoff, 2015).
For most projects, the quantity bill only includes quantities of some
element processes, such as the manufacture and installation of some
structural components. This is because exact material and machine
usage data is only available upon the completion of the construction, by
when the calculation serves merely as a post-assessment and provides no
guidance to the design process.
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Environmental Impact Assessment Review 91 (2021) 106644
A Chinese national quota is utilized in this study to solve the lack of
consumption data in the pre-construction stage. The quota for material
consumption is adopted here to convert the quantity of element pro­
cesses into consumption data. A baseline for the material and machine
usage of each element process is prescribed in the quota. This baseline is
obtained through substantial surveys conducted by national or regional
administrative agencies on numerous constructors, and is therefore
capable of representing the average consumption level. Actual con­
sumption would not significantly deviate from this baseline because 1)
these element processes are mature techniques with specific work con­
tent and 2) the prescribed consumption is used for calculating cost
baseline at the bidding of the project, and bids that are significantly over
the baseline would lose competitiveness. As a result, the quota-based
approach could guarantee sufficient accuracy (Liu et al., 2018).
For multiple impact categories to be evaluated, the j-th impact
category from the quantity of element process i is derived as the sum­
mation of all impact sources involved in the process, including the
embodied impacts from building materials and the fuel-related impacts
from the construction machines
Eij = qmat,ki .emat,kj + qmach,li .emach,lj (1)
The EI from the production and use of building material k can be
calculated using its inventory data in the i-th element process qmat, kiand
its impact intensity factor for the j-th impact category emat, kj，in which
qmat, kiand emat, kj are respectively obtained from a regional consumption
quota for subway construction (Liu et al., 2018) and a localized database
of the intensity factors- Chinese Life Cycle Database developed by
Sichuan University (IKE Environmental Technology Ltd, 2018).
Similarly, qmach, li denotes the consumption data of the l-th con­
struction machine in the i-th element process, which is also prescribed in
M. Liu et al. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 91 (2021) 106644

Fig. 2. (continued).

Case Station

OE Section UE Section

Station Station
Excavation Support Excavation Support
Structure structure

Small-duct
Mechinised- Caisson Piles Beams Inner Lining
Advance Grouting
Excavation Grouting
Manual Pipe Beams
Shotconrete Colunms Roofing
Excavation
Waste Soil
Colunms
Transport Concrete Grouting
Slabs
Reintaing Wall Primary
Shotconcrete Slabs
Steel Support Waste Soil Support
Steel
Platform Transport Steel
Reinforcement Platform
Reinforcement
Backfill
Concrete Loop
Walls Caisson Piles Walls
Beam

Fig. 3. Break-down of the construction procedures in the case station.

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M. Liu et al. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 91 (2021) 106644

the quota in the unit of number of shifts (one shift refers to eight hours of the break-down presented in Fig. 3.
usage of one single machine). emach, ljrepresents the intensity factor of
the l-th construction on the j-th impact category, which is the summation 3. Results
of all the impacts from the on-site energy consumption
3.1. General results
emach,lj = qfuel,m .efuel,mi (2)

Intensity factors of the fuels efuel, mican be obtained from the above-
mentioned database, and the fuel consumption data of the construction
machines can be found in another quota (Ministry of Housing and Rural-
Urban Development of P.R. China, 2012).
2.2.3. Environmental Impact Assessment
Referring to the mid-point EIA models in the ReCiPe and CML
method (Goedkoop et al., 2009; Guinee, 2002), 15 impact categories are
selected in this study (see Table 2). Selecting one single characterization
unit for each impact category brings about uncertainties in the assess­
ment, owing to the insufficient knowledge level of some impact cate­
gories (Dahlbo et al., 2015), as well as the region-specific assumption.
For example, the characterization units of freshwater and marine
eutrophication are P and N respectively for the case of Europe, (Crouzet
et al., 1999). However, the characterization units are nevertheless useful
for the comparative study in this manuscript, and it also helps the
comparison with the results in the previous studies, such as the EIA for
residential buildings based on the same impact categories (Heinonen
et al., 2015; Dong and Ng, 2015).
The impact intensity of unit quantity material/fuel is calculated as
emat,kj = ckji qkji
where ckji and qkji are respectively the characterization factor and
quantity of impact source i on impact category j in the materialization of
unit quantity material (fuel) k.
Then normalization is carried out to convert the impacts into
dimensionless indicators, so as to make it easier to compare between
impact scores of different impact categories (Norris,2001). The
normalization of the impacts is performed by denominating the
normalization factors
EI i
EI norm,i =
EI norm,i
where EInorm denotes the normalization factor that represent the refer­
ence information of the concerned system. In this manuscript, the EInorm
refers to the aggregate impacts of a specific region over a certain period
of time, and the factors recommended by Sleeswijk et al. (2007) and
Guinee (2002) are adopted. The normalized impact potentials of the sub-
projects are then derived by integrating the element processes following
Presented in Fig. 4 is the the normalized impact potentials for 1-m2
UE and OE construction. For both sections, the impacts of eight cate­
gories are more prominent than the others. These include the Global
warming potential (GWP), Particulate matter formation potential
(PMFP), Photochemical oxidant formation potential (POFP), Terrestrial
acidification potential (TAP), Freshwater eutrophication potential
(FEP), Abiotic depletion potential (ADP), Freshwater eco-toxicity (FET)
and Terrestrial eco-toxicity (TET), and further analysis would focus on
the eight categories.
Comparison between the two sections reveals that the impact in­
tensities of the UE section are noticeably greater than those of the OE
section in all categories. Compared with the OE section, the impact in­
tensity of the UE respectively increase by 56% (GWP), 55% (TAP), 616%
(FEP), 99%(PMFP), 4% (POFP), 21% (ADP), 28% (FET) and 28% (TET)
compared to the OE section.
Climate change is found to be the most prominent impact category
after normalization. GHG emissions are of particular interests in the LCA
of URT because it is one of the URT's major objectives to mitigate the
GHG emissions from urban passenger transportation. The overall GHG
emissions from the construction of the case station amount to 77,976.60
t CO2 eq., equivalent to 5.84 t CO2 eq. for 1-m2 station area. For the UE
(3)
section, 1-m2 construction is responsible for 6.27 t CO2 eq., which is
55.97% larger than the OE section (4.02 t CO2 eq./m2).
3.2. Breaking the impacts into sub-projects
As stated above, both UE and OE section could be broken into three
sub-projects, i.e. excavation, support and station structure. Table 3
presents the impact potentials among the sub-projects. For the OE sec­
tion, it is suggested that the construction of station structure is the pri­
mary contributor in seven of the eight impact categories, and the station
(4) structure respectively accounts for 57%, 49%, 26%, 46%, 54%, 63%,
60% and 60% of the total impacts of GWP, PMFP, POFP, TAP, FEP, TET,
FET and ADP, while the construction of support in the OE section is

Table 2
Impact categories and characterization unit.
Impact category Characterization unit

Ozone depletion potential (ODP) kg CFC-11 eq.

Global warming potential (GWP) kg CO2 eq.
Terrestrial acidification potential (TAP) kg SO2 eq.
Freshwater eutrophication potential (FEP) kg P eq.
Marine eutrophication potential (SEP) kg N eq.
Particulate matter formation potential kg PM 10 eq.
(PMFP)
Photochemical oxidant formation kg NMVOC
potential (POFP)
Terrestrial eco-toxicity (TET) kg 1,4 Dichlorobenzene equivalent
(1,4 dB eq)
Marine eco-toxicity (MET) kg 1,4 dB eq
Freshwater eco-toxicity (FET) kg 1,4 dB eq
Human toxicity (HT) kg 1,4 dB eq
Ionization radiation (IR) kg U235 eq
Agricultural land occupation (ALO) m2.a
Urban land occupation (ULO) m2.a
Abiotic depletion potential (ADP) MJ
Fig. 4. Normalized impacts for 1-m2 UE and OE section.

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M. Liu et al. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 91 (2021) 106644

Table 3
Normalized impact potentials of the sub-procedures (unit:E-12).
Impact category OE section UE section

Excavation Support Structure Total Excavation Support Structure Total

Global warming potential (GWP) 9.10 32.40 54.20 95.80 7.47 88.20 54.40 150.00
Particulate matter formation potential (PMFP) 1.84 4.92 6.53 13.30 1.78 17.60 7.12 26.50
Photochemical oxidant formation potential (POFP) 2.02 10.70 4.43 17.10 0.03 12.90 4.89 17.80
Terrestrial acidification potential (TAP) 2.73 17.20 17.00 36.90 2.95 36.70 17.50 57.10
Freshwater eutrophication potential (FEP) 0.44 3.87 5.03E 9.33 0.01 59.80 7.05 66.80
Freshwater eco-toxicity (FET) 1.19E-3 18.60 31.30 49.90 5.68E-5 33.70 30.10 63.80
Terrestrial eco-toxicity (TET) 1.43E-3 22.40 34.20 5.65 6.81E-5 40.40 36.10 76.50
Abiotic depletion potential (ADP) 1.00E-6 5.15 7.79 12.90 0.13 11.80 7.04 19.00

responsible for 34%, 37.00%, 62%, 47%, 41%, 37%, 40% and 40% of
these impact potentials. The excavation creates the minimum impacts
because little construction material is used during the process under the
assumption that steel support in excavation is treated as recyclable and
creates limited impacts.
As for the UE section, the support construction becomes the most
prominent contributor for all impact categories, which accounts for
59%, 6%, 72%, 64%, 89%, 53%, 52% and 62% of the impact potential of
GWP, PMFP, POFP, TAP, FEP, TET, FET and ADP, respectively.
Comparison between the impacts from station structure in the two
sections found comparable impact potentials in all categories (see
Fig. 5a). This is understandable because the station structures in OE and
UE section are subject to comparable loads, which mainly consist of the
1) dead loads from vertical and lateral soil pressure, and 2) the live load
from ground traffic and passenger/facility loads in the station (Admin­
istration of Quality Supervision and Inspection and Quarantine of P.R.
China, 2013). The dead loads exerted on the structures are correlated
with the buried depth and soil layer, and they therefore have little site-
specific variation for the case OE and UE sections. Similarly, the live
loads are commonly assigned a uniform value for the whole station.

Fig. 5. Comparison between the normalized impact potentials for the station structures and support. a. Station structure. b. Support.

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M. Liu et al. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 91 (2021) 106644

Fig. 6. Critical element processes for each impact category in the UE construction. a. Global warming potential. b. Particulate matter formation potentia. c.
Photochemical oxidant formation potential. d. Terrestrial acidification potential. e. Freshwater eutrophication potential. f. Freshwater eco-toxicity. g. Terrestrial eco-
toxicity. h. Depletion of abiotic resources.

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M. Liu et al. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 91 (2021) 106644

Fig. 6. (continued).

Consequently, the reinforced concrete frame structure in both sections On the other hand, the support of the UE section creates noticeably
would generate comparable environment output, given the fact that the greater impacts, which are respectively 172%, 258%, 21%, 113%,
variation in design parameters such as column spacing has little effects 1445%, 81%, 80% and 129% higher than the OE section in GWP, PMFP,
under certain external loads (Liu et al., 2020). POFP, TAP, FEP, FET, TET and ADP (see Fig. 5b). The gap is obviously

10
M. Liu et al.
Fig. 6. (continued).
attributable to the reinforcement measures in the UE excavation, that
are taken to meet the strict deformation limits. UE requires advance
reinforcement in the soil before excavation and prompt support with
sufficient stiffness after excavation to guarantee safe construction. Be­
sides, for the construction of shallowly-buried tunnel in urban areas,
supports structures are commonly designed to be sufficiently stiff so that
minimum deformation is allowed, which protects the surrounding
buildings from hazardous settlement. In the presence of groundwater,
the deformation control is even more strict to avoid potential leakage. As
a result, extra procedures are required in the support construction of the
UE section, which is responsible for the excessive impacts.
3.3. Identifying critical element procedures
Fig. 6 presents the most prominent element processes for the eight
impact categories of the UE section. The element procedures involved in
the support construction of UE section, i.e. the construction of primary
support and advance grouting, rank among the top-five contributors in
most categories. The two element procedures combined respectively
accounts for 50%, 58%, 48%, 52%, 84%, 44%, 42% and 53% for the
total impacts of Global warming potential (GWP), Particulate matter
formation potential (PMFP), Photochemical oxidant formation potential
(POFP), Terrestrial acidification potential (TAP), Freshwater
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Environmental Impact Assessment Review 91 (2021) 106644
eutrophication potential (FEP), Abiotic depletion potential (ADP),
Freshwater eco-toxicity (FET) and Terrestrial eco-toxicity (TET).
Steel grating (reinforcement) is the major load-bearing component in
the primary support, and it is designed to be installed immediately after
excavation. Steel grating is supposed to provide sufficient stiffness for
the primary support, so the steel usage is conceivably high, and aver­
agely 18.41 t steel (including steel reinforcement) was used for 1-m UE
construction.
It is noteworthy that the conservative design approach of the primary
support also contributes to the excessive impacts. Current design code
prescribes that the resistance provided by the primary support is treated
as redundancy in the design of the inner lining (Ministry of Housing and
Rural-Urban Development of the P.R. China, 2013). Consequently,
significantly larger resistance is required in the inner lining than that in
the scenario that considers the combined resistance of primary support
and inner lining. As a result, on average 21.75 t steel reinforcement was
used in 1-m construction of concrete lining, which is greater than the
steel usage in the primary support. Such a conservative approach is
justified by the need to minimize deformation in the UE section, yet
considerable EI are created in categories of Global warming potential,
Terrestrial acidification potential, Freshwater eco-toxicity, Terrestrial
eco-toxicity and Abiotic depletion potential owing to the intense energy
input and polluting output involved in the materialization of steel
M. Liu et al.
reinforcement.
On the other hand, the binder used in advance grouting was added
with large quantities of sodium silicate, so as to achieve fast setting and
provide resistance to the settlement of newly-excavated section. This
contributes to the high impact intensity in Particulate matter formation
potential, Photochemical oxidant formation potential, Terrestrial acid­
ification potential and Freshwater eutrophication potential of advance
grouting because the use of sodium silicate involves considerable sulfur
oxide, nitrogen oxide and phosphorus output.
3.4. Impacts from on-site activities
EIs from the on-site activities refer to the impacts from the operation
of construction machines involved in the construction processes. As
shown in Fig. 7, the normalized on-site impacts of 1-m OE section exceed
those of the UE section in all categories, which is ascribed to the different
energy consumption structures of the two sections. The diesel-based
impacts mainly originate from the diesel-powered bulldozers and ex­
cavators, accounting for a major portion of the impacts in the OE section.
By contrast, the diesel-based impacts in the UE section are rather small,
because the diesel-powered excavation machines are excluded by the
limited operating space, and the on-site impacts of the UE section is
dominated by the electricity-powered machines. As a result, the impact
potentials of unit length OE section is significantly larger, especially in
categories of TAP and FET, due to the high intensity of particulates and
phosphorus output in the diesel combustion.
Though responsible for less on-site impacts from construction ma­
chinery, the UE section requires extensive labor for manual excavation.
The labor required in the UE section and OE section respectively amount
to 424,227 and 35,989 workdays (referring to eight hours' work of an
average worker), that means on average 0.041 extra regular worker is
required in the unit area UE construction per day than the OE during the
610-day construction period.
Indirect impacts from the living facilities of such large number of on-
site workers are non-negligible. According to the work of Liu et al.
(2019), workers' on-site impacts originate from three sources, i.e. the
construction of workers' dormitories, water consumption and electricity
consumption. Using the inventory data of a standardized dormitories,
along with the consumption quota of water and electricity presented by
Liu et al. (2019), the impacts from workers' on-site activities in the case
station can be estimated. Fig. 8 demonstrates the non-negligible
contribution of the workers' impacts against those from the construc­
tion machines, the combined on-site impacts from workers and con­
struction machine in the UE section would exceed those of the OE
section.
Fig. 7. On-site normalized impacts from the OE and UE section and distribution among sources.
12
Environmental Impact Assessment Review 91 (2021) 106644
4. Discussion
4.1. GHG emissions as a comprehensive indicator?
GHG emissions are currently the most-investigated and sometimes
the only investigated impact category in LCA researches on civil and
transport infrastructure (Heinonen et al., 2015), including rail infra­
structure. Nor has any research carried out a comprehensive test of
whether GHG emissions could serve as a representative indicator for
other impacts.
Heinonen et al. (2015) has tested the representativeness of GHG
emissions in the EIA of a multi-storey residential building, who
concluded that impacts of Ozone depletion, Terrestrial acidification,
Marine eutrophication, Photochemical oxidant formation, Particulate
matter formation, Ionizing radiation, Water depletion have similar
accumulation curves with GHG emissions over the sub-projects of the
building, while the correlation between GHG emissions and other im­
pacts is relatively weak. However, the conclusion is case-specific and
dependent on the type of infrastructure and construction procedures. As
for the subway structures, the correlation might differ from buildings
since the underground construction involves different procedures.
An element process is the minimum inseparable element that con­
stitutes the whole project, and the correlation between GHG emissions
and other impacts in the element processes can essentially reflect the
correlations at higher levels. Therefore, impacts in all the element pro­
cesses were analyzed for their correlations with GHG emissions. As
shown in Figs. 9 and 10, good linear correlations with GHG emissions
were identified for the impacts of Particulate matter formation potential
(PMFP), Photochemical oxidant formation potential (POFP), Terrestrial
acidification potential (TAP) and Abiotic depletion potential (ADP),
with the adjusted R2 to be 0.782, 0.758, 0.913 and 0.950 respectively.
The dependence of these impacts on GHG emissions is weaker than those
suggested by Heinonen et al. (2015), who concluded the GHG emissions
work as a proxy for these impacts, with correlations between 98%–100%
in the sub-project level. For the PMFP and POFP, the deviation from the
linearity is mainly ascribed to the extensive contribution from the
advance grouting. In addition, the deviation could also be explained by
the fact that the heterogeneity in the element processes would be
partially offset when they add up.
The impacts of Freshwater eco-toxicity (FET) and Terrestrial eco-
toxicity (TET) are found to have relatively weaker corrections with
GHG emissions, for which the linear estimations produce adjusted R2 of
0.507 and 0.485 respectively. This is consistent with the conclusions
from several investigations (Heinonen et al., 2015; Laurent et al., 2010;
Laurent et al., 2012). As shown in Fig. 11, the deviation mainly arises
M. Liu et al. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 91 (2021) 106644

Fig. 8. On-site normalized impacts considering workers' on-site activities.

8 40

Steel reinforcement- Station structure

PMFP Advance Grouting
Normalized Impact Potential(10-12) FET
Normalized Impact Potential (10-12)

30
6 POFP TET
Fitted PMFP FET-fitted
Fitted POFP TET-fitted
20 Steel grating and reinforcement
4
-Primary support

10
2

Concrete lining
Shot-concrete

0
0 0 10 20 30
0 10 20 30
Normalized GWP (10-12)
Normalized GWP (10-12)
Fig. 11. Dependence of FET and TET on GHG emissions.
Fig. 9. Dependence of PMFP and POFP on GHG emissions.
from the concrete structure and its steel reinforcement. While the pro­
duction of the steel reinforcement is associated with high toxicity in­
15 tensity, the production of concrete is more energy-intensive and involves

TAP
ADP
12
60
Normalized Impact Potential (10-12)

TAP-fitted
ADP-fitted

9 50
Normalized Impact Potential (10-12)

Advance Grouting
40
6
FEP
30
FEP-fitted
3
20

0
0 10 20 30 10
Normalized GWP (10-12)
0
Fig. 10. Dependence of TAP and ADP on GHG emissions.
0 10 20 30
Normalized GWP (10-12)

Fig. 12. Dependence of FEP on GHG emissions.

13
M. Liu et al.
relatively less output of toxic pollutants (Laurent et al., 2012). However,
the deviation might be offset in a reinforced concrete structures under
certain reinforcement ratio.
Poor dependence is found between Freshwater eutrophication po­
tential (FEP) and GHG emissions (Fig. 12), where the adjusted R2 equals
0.168 for a linear estimation. The most prominent source of this devi­
ation is the advance grouting, which involves large quantities of sodium
silicate that generates considerable phosphorus output.
To conclude, GHG emissions were found to be not a good proxy for
all categories in the element process level, where large deviations exist
due to the characteristic procedures.
4.2. UE versus OE- from the perspective of life cycle performance
In light of the analysis above, the construction of UE section creates
significantly greater impacts than the OE section in all investigated
categories, and the construction of UE support is identified as the major
contributor to this discrepancy. The support of the UE section is
designed with extra stiffness as an approach to prevent excessive
deformation, which would lead to unfavorable settlement of surround­
ing infrastructure. For subway lines stretching across the core area of
city, UE is the better choice considering the high density of surrounding
buildings, as well as the indirect cost from the traffic congestion caused
by open excavation. In this sense, open excavation should be prioritized
for locations where the environment poses little restriction on traffic and
settlement issues.
However, this might only be pertinent when the assessment scope is
confined within the subway infrastructure during its construction stage.
The construction of subway lines are supposed to trigger the traffic-
oriented development (TOD) of the line-side areas. As a result, inter­
action between the subway line and the line-side infrastructure (e.g.
building and pipeline) are inevitable, which causes damage to subway
structure and threatens the operation (Mai, 2019). Consequently, con­
servation zones for subway lines have been established as a major effort
to ensure safe operation. For example, the regulation of Beijing subway
defines the conservation zone as the area within 100 m from the outline
of the subway structures on both sides. Nonetheless, new construction in
the conservation zone is inevitable as the subway network expands. In
the case of Beijing Subway, 982.6 km subway lines are either operating
or under construction by the end of 2019, which corresponds to
approximately 100 km2 conservation zone in the near future. The newly-
built projects that intrude the conservation zone should be subject to
additional assessment. Additional reinforcement measures, such as
caisson piles and diaphragm wall, are required when the excavation-
induced deformation poses a threaten to the subway structures.
The balance between the impacts from UE and OE construction
might vary under a life-cycle perspective, together with an expanded
system boundary that includes the environmental footprints of the sur­
rounding infrastructure. Although the conservative design approach in
the UE scheme results in extra impacts, it produces a stiff support
structure that would potentially reduce the reinforcement actions of the
surrounding infrastructure. By contrast, an intruding project into the OE
section requires more reinforcement measures to limit the adverse
deformation on the subway structure and vice versa. In fact, annually
more than one billion RMB is spent on these reinforcement measures in
Beijing subway, which indicates the extra impacts from the reinforce­
ment actions are also remarkable. Considering the expanding network
and the construction intensity within the conservation zone, this effect is
becoming ever more prominent in the future.
Therefore, the choice between UE and OE method in terms of their
life-cycle impacts should account for the extra impacts from reinforce­
ment actions in the conservation zone, and an investigation is necessary
to identify the link between the extra impacts and the design parameters
of both subway and surrounding structures.
14
Environmental Impact Assessment Review 91 (2021) 106644
5. Conclusion
In this paper, a mid-point EIA was carried out on the URT infra­
structure with different construction schemes. The EIs from the con­
struction of the OE section and UE section in the same case station were
evaluated on multiple impact categories. Major conclusions include:
1. Normalized impact potentials of unit area UE section are larger than
those of the OE section in all categories, and eight categories are
found to have more prominent impact potentials than others, in
which GWP is identified as the most prominent impact
Unit area construction of the UE is responsible for 6.27 t CO2 eq.,
which is significantly larger than that from the OE construction in the
case (4.02 t CO2 eq./m2), This is consistent with data in a previous study,
in which most of the investigated OE stations have a GHG intensity
between 3.5 and 4.5 CO2 eq./m2 (Liu et al., 2020).
2. By breaking of the impacts into the sub-projects, it is concluded that
the gap between the impacts in the two sections mainly arises from
the high impact intensity in the support construction of the UE sec­
tion. Specifically, the combined impact of the two deformation-
control element procedure, i.e. the advance grouting and primary
support construction, accounts approximately for 50%, 58%, 48%,
52%, 84%, 44%, 42% and 53% for the total impacts of Global
warming potential (GWP), Particulate matter formation potential
(PMFP), Photochemical oxidant formation potential (POFP),
Terrestrial acidification potential (TAP), Freshwater eutrophication
potential (FEP), Abiotic depletion potential (ADP), Freshwater eco-
toxicity (FET) and Terrestrial eco-toxicity (TET), respectively
The current conclusion is generally applicable to the comparison
under various buried depth, owing to the fact the EIs from subway
construction grow linearly with buried depth (Liu et al., 2018). It can be
thus inferred that the ratios between the impacts from the two con­
struction methods would be comparable in different buried depth. On
the other hand, the conclusion might be affected by the geological
conditions. As presented in Fig. 5, the difference between the impacts of
the two methods origins from the construction of support. In the pres­
ence of unfavorable geographical conditions, the underground excava­
tion adopts more conservative measures than the open-excavation,
which increases the gap between the impacts from the two.
Although the strict deformation control in UE construction results in
extra impacts during the construction stage, it is still the better choice
for subway lines that cross city's core areas, owing to the less impacts it
create on surrounding infrastructure and ground traffic. Besides, as
discussed in Section 4, the highly stiff support in the UE station (section)
would reduce the potential impacts from the foundation reinforcement
measures of the infrastructure in the conservation zone, which is non-
negligible considering the growing subway network. Therefore, a life-
cycle perspective is necessary in a comprehensive comparison between
the two construction methods. Explicit definition of the system bound­
ary is also important because of the close link between subway and the
surrounding urban environment.
3. As for the on-site EI, the OE section involves more on-site EI from the
fuel consumption of construction machines. However this would be
offset when taking account of the EI from workers' on-site activities,
due to the extensive labor use in the UE construction
4. GHG emissions are found to be a good indicator for the impacts of
PMF, POP, TAP and ADP by checking its correlation with these cat­
egories among the element processes. On the other hand, it has
weaker correlations with the toxic impacts and the freshwater
eutrophication, and the deviation mainly arises from the character­
istic procedures in UE construction such as advance grouting.
M. Liu et al.
Author statement
Should the article be accepted and published by Environmental Impact
Assessment Review, the author hereby grants exclusively to the editorial
department of Environmental Impact Assessment Review the digital
reproduction, distribution, compilation and information network
transmission rights.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
This work is supported by The National Key Research and Develop­
ment Program of China with grant number 2017YFB1201104.
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