Life Cycle Carbon Emission Accounting of an Old Residential Community Based on Digital Technologies: A Case Study of Nanyuan Xincun, Hefei

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Demonstrates a novel combination of LCA, BIM, and ecological assessment for community-scale carbon accounting, useful for method development.

🏢実務担当者:Provides a practical workflow for assessing carbon emissions and sinks in old residential communities, aiding renovation and sustainability planning.

🏛政策担当者:Highlights the significant operational emissions in existing communities and the potential of green infrastructure, supporting low-carbon urban renewal policies.

Global urbanization is shifting from incremental expansion to stock optimization, and old residential communities have become important spatial units for low-carbon transition. However, in existing built environments, traditional process-based inventory methods face practical constraints, including missing original drawings, complex site conditions, and severe vegetation obstruction. As a result, systematic accounting of buildings, landscapes, and natural carbon sinks remains difficult. This study integrates life cycle assessment (LCA), BIM reverse modeling, 3D point clouds, DesignBuilder simulation, inventory-based accounting, and i-Tree Eco to construct a life cycle carbon emission accounting framework for old residential communities. The framework links current-condition data reconstruction, quantity take-off, operational energy simulation, landscape inventory accounting, and vegetation carbon sequestration assessment. It is applied to Nanyuan Xincun in Hefei to quantify the community-scale carbon source–sink structure. The results show that Nanyuan Xincun presents a clear operation-led emission pattern, with the operation and maintenance phase accounting for 82.52% of total positive emissions. Within architectural engineering, operation and maintenance accounts for 82.91%, while material production accounts for 13.28%. Landscape engineering shows a more mixed structure, with operation and maintenance accounting for 52.95% and material production accounting for 36.49%. Vegetation carbon sequestration analysis shows that mature trees and shrubs are the main ecological carbon assets. Annual sequestration reaches 16.95 t-CO2e/a, and trees and shrubs contribute 92.85% of total vegetation carbon storage. Under current vegetation conditions, annual sequestration is equivalent to 32.99% of annual landscape operation emissions, indicating considerable ecological compensation potential. Based on these findings, this study proposes four optimization pathways: operational energy reduction, low-carbon material substitution, construction and demolition waste recycling, and mature tree protection. These pathways provide data support for refined carbon management and low-carbon renewal in existing communities.

• openalex https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings16101988first seen 2026-05-20 05:17:25