Estimation of Gas and Dust Emissions in Construction Sites of a Motorway Project

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Presented article concerns estimation of gas and dust emissions in construction area of motorway project (A category of Italian road standards.)
The article contains interesting and helpful information and results presented in the paper are valuable from environmental point of view. The topic addresses in this paper is of great interest, nevertheless the manuscript should be corrected , especially regards literature review based on similar cases in Europe and/or other places around the World. In my opinion there is no sufficient information about different models.
The current introduction is not sufficient and didn't clearly explain the problem. The author should give the aim of the study , not organization and information what was done.
Result and discussion should be more informative and  more advanced and scientific soundness, but I find this research important since there are still insufficient studies carried out on such problems.

Author Response

Presented article concerns estimation of gas and dust emissions in construction area of motorway project (A category of Italian road standards.)
The article contains interesting and helpful information and results presented in the paper are valuable from environmental point of view. The topic addresses in this paper is of great interest, nevertheless the manuscript should be corrected , especially regards literature review based on similar cases in Europe and/or other places around the World. In my opinion there is no sufficient information about different models. 

Thank you for the appreciation of the work and for the suggestions. References which provide information about similar case and models unfortunately they are very poor. This circumstance open wide space on research on the topic. Authors are working on this.

“In literature few studies deal with the real-world emissions from construction sites or with extensive evaluation on the emissions produced during the whole period of construction [26]. Some studies focused on data of exhaust emissions of the construction machineries [1, 5, 7, 8]. Others investigated the influence of construction site emissions on local air quality [4, 27, 28] or calculated emission factors to assess emission inventories for all construction activities [21].

Comprehensive studies that take into account all these objectives and that consider various construction activities and processes and their duration are scarce [1, 6, 29]. Therefore, construction site emissions are poorly quantified and very uncertain [4]”.

 

The current introduction is not sufficient and didn't clearly explain the problem. The author should give the aim of the study , not organization and information what was done. 

Aim of the study is explained at the point:

"The objectives of this work are as follows:

i) to estimate the dust and gases arising from the whole construction process and identify, the most critical pollutants in terms of emitted quantity; ii) to investigate on the worksites, activities and processes most impacting from the emissive standpoint; ii) to propose of a rational approach for designing and putting in place effective mitigation measures, in terms of type and location, which allow to give a greater environmental sustainability to the construction process."

 

Result and discussion should be more informative and  more advanced and scientific soundness, but I find this research important since there are still insufficient studies carried out on such problems.

Results and discussion have been extended in the revised version

Reviewer 2 Report

Interesting article.   I don't know if it is intentional or a typographic error indicate CO emissions instead of CO2. In my opinion, the proportion of CO with respect to that of CO2 in emissions is much lower and implies incomplete combustion that, although they may occur, is not the general tone in energy-intensive consumption machinery. In my opinion, the results section and, above all, conclusions can be extended to clarify the interpretation of the data obtained.

Author Response

Interesting article.   

Thank you for the review and the appreciation of the paper.

I don't know if it is intentional or a typographic error indicate CO emissions instead of CO2. In my opinion, the proportion of CO with respect to that of CO2 in emissions is much lower and implies incomplete combustion that, although they may occur, is not the general tone in energy-intensive consumption machinery.

CO is not a typographic error. The paper focuses on the analysis of the emission of CO, NOx and PM10. I agree with the reviewer on the higher emission factor for CO₂, but in this study, we focus the attention on CO.

In my opinion, the results section and, above all, conclusions can be extended to clarify the interpretation of the data obtained. 

In the revised version the conclusions have been extended.

Reviewer 3 Report

General Comments:

The paper presents a very interesting study regarding the level of emissions of CO, NOx and particulate matter PM10 emitted during the construction of a road in Italy, by taking into account numerous construction and manufacturing activities. The resulted values are clearly describing the negative environmental impact resulted at the construction site by considering an important volume of input data. The methodology is pretty clear and the authors are using well the considered calculations models.

At the same time, the paper has various minor setbacks that will be explained below.

 

Specific Comments:

the English can be improved; the order of the keywords should follow the order of their appearance in the abstract, and also the keywords should appear in the abstract; in the Abstract, it is specified that a part of the paper will “propose of a rational approach for designing and putting in place effective mitigation measures”, but the manuscript contains a low number of solutions on reducing the level of emissions; 1/row 32 – “not renewable” should be replaced with “non-renewable”; as a suggestion, the authors should also have tried to assess the considered environmental issues by using an LCA based software.

Author Response

The paper presents a very interesting study regarding the level of emissions of CO, NOx and particulate matter PM10 emitted during the construction of a road in Italy, by taking into account numerous construction and manufacturing activities. The resulted values are clearly describing the negative environmental impact resulted at the construction site by considering an important volume of input data. The methodology is pretty clear and the authors are using well the considered calculations models.

Thank you

At the same time, the paper has various minor setbacks that will be explained below.

Specific Comments:

the English can be improved.

Paper has been re-read carefully.

the order of the keywords should follow the order of their appearance in the abstract, and also the keywords should appear in the abstract;

The order of keywords in the revised version of the paper follows the order of appearance in the abstract

in the Abstract, it is specified that a part of the paper will “propose of a rational approach for designing and putting in place effective mitigation measures”, but the manuscript contains a low number of solutions on reducing the level of emissions;

Objective of the paper is not to provide a list of mitigation measures. On the contrary, the results of the application allow identifying the activities/sites more impacting. In this sense the paper proposed an approach for the rational design of the mitigation measures. i.e. the results permit to monitor the emissions and to provide the mitigation measures in the site/moment of construction more appropriate.

1/row 32 – “not renewable” should be replaced with “non-renewable”;

Not-renewable is now replaced with non-renewable.

as a suggestion, the authors should also have tried to assess the considered environmental issues by using an LCA based software.

I thank the reviewer for the suggestion. LCA is a suitable approach that we will consider in the future development of the research topic.