Suggested Citation:
Mallarapu, Tanoogna, Iyanuoluwa Filani, Ali A. Butt, John T. Harvey, Navneet Garg (2025)

Demonstration of the Federal Aviation Administration Airfield Pavement Life Cycle Assessment Tool

This paper demonstrates the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) airfield pavement Life Cycle Assessment tool (FAALCAn), developed by the University of California Pavement Research Center. The tool evaluates the life cycle environmental impacts of airfield pavement infrastructure, which includes runways, taxiways, aprons, and blast pads. FAALCAn is capable of assessing all life cycle stages of airfield pavements, except for the use stage, which falls outside its scope. It adheres to established environmental assessment standards by utilizing federal databases like the Federal LCA Commons and the Environmental Protection Agency’s resources. Two case studies are presented: a portland cement concrete taxiway and a hot mix asphalt taxiway. LCA results for the case studies show that the materials contribute the highest impacts to the overall airfield pavement projects, followed by gate-to-site transportation. The implementation of FAALCAn will facilitate consistent environmental reporting across FAA projects while supporting evidence-based sustainability initiatives in aviation infrastructure development.