Mapping and modelling global mobility infrastructure stocks, material flows and their embodied greenhouse gas emissions - Data

Dynamics of societal material stocks such as buildings and infrastructures and their spatial patterns drive surging resource use and emissions. Building up and maintaining stocks requires large amounts of resources; currently stock-building materials amount to almost 60% of all materials used by humanity. Buildings, infrastructures and machinery shape social practices of production and consumption, thereby creating path dependencies for future resource use. They constitute the physical basis of the spatial organization of most socio-economic activities, for example as mobility networks, urbanization and settlement patterns and various other infrastructures. 

The data in this repository show the material stocks contained in global mobility infrastructure networks at the country-level and mapped at 5arcmins, as well as country-level estimates of material flows for maintenance, replacement and expansion of those infrastructures, and the associated GHG emissions from materials production. This repository contains all data as shown in figures of the article, including the GeoTIFF files for figure 3, and the supplementary data file containing full country-level results.

Data
This dataset includes the following data:

• Global maps of material stocks in mobility infrastructure networks at 5 arcmins, separate for all roads, all rail-based infrastructure, as well as in total and per capita
• Global country-level material stock estimates for mobility infrastructures
• Global country-level estimates of material flows and associated GHG emissions for materials production
• Material intensity in mass per area of road (kg/m²) per road type
• Material intensity in mass per area of railway track (kg/m²) per railway type
• Material intensity in mass per area (kg/m²) per bridges and tunnels

Material intensity factors are available for iron and steel, concrete, asphalt, aggregate (sand & gravel), timber, and other.

Further information
This dataset complements the following scientific article:

Wiedenhofer, Dominik, André Baumgart, Sarah Matej, Doris Virág, Gerald Kalt, Maud Lanau, Danielle Densley Tingley, u. a. "Mapping and Modelling Global Mobility Infrastructure Stocks, Material Flows and Their Embodied Greenhouse Gas Emissions". Journal of Cleaner Production, November 2023, 139742. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.139742.

For further information please see the publication. You can also contact Dominik Wiedenhofer dominik.wiedenhofer(a)boku.ac.at and visit our website to learn more about our project: MAT_STOCKS - Understanding the Role of Material Stock Patterns for the Transformation to a Sustainable Society.

Funding
This research was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (MAT_STOCKS, grant agreement No 741950).