Environmental impact of brick arch bridge management

Historically the management of infrastructure assets has been governed by social, economic and technical constraints. However, in the latter part of the twentieth century, with the advent and growth of the sustainability agenda, it became increasingly apparent that a fourth issue, environment, must also be included in decision-making. Surrey County Council (SCC), as the principal owner of highway assets within its boundaries, is directly responsible for over 1000 road bridges. To meet the authority's own environmental and sustainability objectives, it is clear that there is a need for knowledge on ways in which the organisation can reduce the environmental impact of its activities. The addressing of this need has called for an entirely new approach to assessing structure management activities. With the adoption of life-cycle thinking, a methodology has been developed to enable environmental comparison of alternative structure management strategies. In the context of brick arch highway bridges, the scope of this paper is to present this method and the findings it can produce. The development of the approach is important for SCC objectives, but also provides insight for the wider civil engineering industry, and gives perspectives on how it may tackle the issue of environment.