Optimize digital information on material flows and rock and soil management

The purpose of the project is to reduce the environmental and climate impact as well as costs for mass management in construction projects by enabling strategic decisions within the municipalities´ areas of responsibility.Excavated rock and soil and rock material from quarries are resources that, in terms of volume, account for the largest material flow in construction projects.

In Sweden, just over 100 million tonnes of ballast were delivered from quarries in 2019.

Rock and soil management costs account for 3–8% of the production costs for housing construction, and 50% of the production cost for road construction.

Transport of soil and rock material generates significant carbon dioxide emissions, and the handling and transport of the material also generates dust, noise and traffic congestion, which can delay construction projects and disturb nearby residents.By working strategically with rock and soil management from the planning process to construction, it can be made more environmentally, climate and cost effective; for example through construction methods that require less excavation and less quarry material, and through increased reuse and recycling of excavated material.

Disruptions from the handling of soil and rock materials can be reduced by locating, planning and following up logistics sites.Municipal decisions affect the conditions for both the municipality´s own administrations and the construction industry to work strategically with rock and soil management.

It can be about the possibility of locating logistics sites at advantageous distances from construction projects, about the development of transport routes, loading infrastructure and transhipment sites, about the development of ports and quays, about environmental supervision of rock and soil handling sites, about permitting the use of excavated masses for construction purposes, and about the municipality´s attitude to referrals regarding extraction and landfill permits and other activities, and more.The municipal decisions that affect mass management are made by politicians and by officials with different professional roles and in different administrations within the municipality.

For them to be able to make well-founded decisions that contribute to resource-efficient rock and soil management, they need access to current information about soil and rock flows and their qualities, as well as about transport, environmental impact and more that the soil and rock flows give rise to.

Strategic decisions, such as the development of transhipment sites, can take several years to implement.

If politicians and officials have access to forecasts of land and mountain flows in good time, their abilities to make those decisions increase.The Swedish Planning and Building Act was amended on 1 April 2021.

The purpose of the amendment is that the comprehensive planning shall be conducted continuously, be forward-looking and that the comprehensive plan shall be kept up to date. In this, the planning strategy becomes the central, new tool. The planning strategy will continue to be developed during the first half of the period between two ordinary elections.

This means that the municipalities have greater expectations and requirements for digital data that is maintained and updated continuously, and that the municipality can access in a cost-effective way.

The development is thus moving towards digital planning documents that can be kept up to date on an ongoing basis.The project partners will:Identify development opportunities and make suggestions for role distribution within the municipality that improves information sharing and raises awareness of how rock and soil management data can be used to plan strategic measures for resource-efficient rock and soil management.Provide proposals for business and management models for the provision of planning documents regarding rock and soil management that enable long-term operation and maintenance as well as ongoing updating.