Investigating Circularity in the Construction and Demolition Sector Through Remote Sensing: a Case Study for the City of Bolzano/Bozen, Italy

Resource depletion and waste generation are among the global challenges modern society must face. The built environment in urban areas is responsible for a significant share of global waste through construction and demolition (CND) activities. For this reason, the integration of Circular Economy strategies is crucial to ensure sustainable development and good quality of life. The application of digital technologies, such as remote sensing, can be a fast and reliable way to track material flows and improve resource efficiency. The thesis project aims to investigate the potential of utilizing satellite data for locating and quantifying material stocks within the construction sector of Bolzano, Italy. The novel approach, tested in the project, suggests gathering the data from Open Street Map (OSM) combined with Urban Atlas for the land use identification. The material stock map is generated with the application of machine learning models to derive spatial characteristics of buildings, and the material intensities (MI) data to evaluate the mass of materials in buildings. When applied to the case study of Bolzano/Bozen, Italy, it indicated 130 tonnes/capita of building stocks accumulated in the city, which is within the average values compared to other studies, and 40 tonnes/capita of material stocks in networks. With the GIS, the hot spots of materials were pinpointed. This remote sensing approach could provide detailed information about the quantity and distribution of materials in buildings and infrastructure. The openness and availability of OSM data for any location, as well as its independence from cadasters, make this approach advantageous for obtaining input data for the life-cycle-assessment of buildings and developing CND waste management strategies.