South African log resource availability and potential environmental impact of timber construction
Date
2020-07-29
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ASSAf
Abstract
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: We investigated the South African log resource availability and the potential global warming impact of an increasing wood-based residential building market. We have shown that, with the use of wood resources currently exported as chips, as well as planting trees in areas that have been earmarked for afforestation, a sustainable residential building market, where all constructions are wood-based, is possible. However, in the short term, imports of wooden building components might be necessary if rapid growth in woodbased building occurs. Basic modelling analyses show that if the market share of wood-based buildings increases to 20% of new constructions, the embodied energy and global warming potential of the residential building sector could decrease by 4.9%. If all new constructions were wood based, the total embodied energy and global warming potential of the residential building sector could decrease by up to 30%.
Description
CITATION: Crafford, P. L. & Wessels, C. B. 2020. South African log resource availability and potential environmental impact of timber construction. South African Journal of Science, 116(7/8):6419, doi:10.17159/sajs.2020/6419.
The original publication is available at https://sajs.co.za
The original publication is available at https://sajs.co.za
Keywords
Wood-based building systems, Global warming, Residential buildings, Global warming -- Environmental aspects
Citation
Crafford, P. L. & Wessels, C. B. 2020. South African log resource availability and potential environmental impact of timber construction. South African Journal of Science, 116(7/8):6419, doi:10.17159/sajs.2020/6419.