Airport Environmental Research Roadmap Narrative Report (2020)

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1 Summary The Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) undertakes high-quality, applied research projects to improve practice in the airport industry. The ACRP relies on input and cooperation from industry stakeholders (such as airports, air carriers, trade associations, consultants, and state and local government officials) to develop research problem statements and serve on project panels to direct the research. While there is no shortage of research needs for the airport industry, there is often a lack of time for practitioners to translate their challenges into research ideas and problem statements. In addition, most practitioners do not have a complete picture of all the existing, ongoing, and planned research from ACRP, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and academia. As a result, the ACRP undertook the development of several research roadmaps to provide a vehicle for industry to collaborate in identifying future research needs and knowledge gaps. The research roadmaps will help ACRP direct research funding towards areas of greatest need and ensure the consistent supply of relevant problem statements. ACRP project 11-02/Task 32, “Airport Environmental Research Roadmap”, outlines the key research gaps and areas of interest for airports in the field environmental management and sustainability over the next five years. The roadmap was developed through a review of relevant research and broad stakeholder engagement with industry practitioners. The research ideas generated as part of this project are organized into eight high-level themes, which represent the main categories of challenges facing airports in this field presently and over the next several years. Based on the result of the outreach and literature review, 55 research ideas were generated and categorized into eight high-level themes. These themes are: The research ideas are further categorized into 16 sub-topics under existing or suggested IdeaHub tags. The ideas contained in the Research Roadmap encompass a wide variety of themes and sub-topics because stakeholders interviewed stressed that the nature of their work requires them to consider each of these topics in developing their approach to conducting their day-to-day duties. Research ideas contained in this roadmap will benefit from the insights of airport professionals in other areas of expertise (e.g., planning, design, construction, operations, management, and human resources) given the multidimensional nature of many of the research ideas presented on the roadmap. The ideas in the roadmap are prioritized according to a set of criteria that mirrors the criteria used by ACRP to rank submitted problem statements. The criteria are described in Section 4 of this report and are as follows: 1) Avoidance of Duplicative Efforts Sustainability Resiliency Noise Monitoring and Reporting Water Quality and Availability Natural Resources Air Quality and Emissions Emerging Technologies

2 2) Applicability 3) Timeliness 4) Understandable and Implementable Based on the prioritization criteria the following ideas received scores in the top 20 percent (the 12 highest ranked ideas): Table 1: Twelve Highest Priority Environmental Research Ideas Idea Rank Research Idea Title High-Level Theme 1 “Advancing Building Automation and Energy Management Systems” Emerging Technology 2 “Environmental Research Roadmap Update” Monitoring & Reporting 3 “Guidebook for Best Practices in Utilizing FAA’s AEDT for Modeling and Reporting Noise and Air Quality Emissions from Aircraft Operations” Air Quality & Emissions 4 “Custom Climate Change Adaptation Tool” Resiliency 5 “Utilizing Smart Buildings and Emerging Technologies to Build a Comprehensive Monitoring and Reporting System for Environmental Management” Emerging Technology 6 “Evaluation of Airport Emissions within State Implementation Plans” Air Quality & Emissions 7 “Evaluation of Wildlife Hazard Management Plan Outcomes” Natural Resources 8 “Integrating Airport and Community Resiliency Planning” Resiliency 9 “Science-Based Targets for Greenhouse Gas Emissions at Airports” Monitoring & Reporting 9 (tie) “Designing Resilient Infrastructure for an Uncertain Future: When the 100 Year Storm Occurs Every 10 Years” Resiliency 11 “Guidebook on Preparing Airport Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Inventories” (update to existing product) Air Quality & Emissions 11 (tie) “Guidebook for Implementing Ground Support Equipment Electrification at Airports” Air Quality & Emissions

3 The goal of this project was to develop a five-year prioritized Research Roadmap that identifies gaps in knowledge and research ideas in the area of airport environmental management. The intent is for the individual research ideas included in on the roadmap to serve as starting points for development into complete problem statements by industry practitioners. Based on this objective, recommendations for this Research Roadmap are as follows: 1) The Research Roadmap should be used to inform the ACRP Oversight Committee (AOC) of industry needs as they consider submitted problem statements for research funding over the next three to five years; and 2) ACRP should consider updating the Research Roadmap periodically. This may include identifying which ideas have been selected for funding, adding new ideas to address new challenges, revise or remove research ideas that are no longer relevant or necessary. The entire roadmap should be updated every 5 years. The completed “Airport Environmental Research Roadmap” consists of the following files: 1) Narrative Research Roadmap report (this document) 2) Research Ideas Database (Separate Excel file labeled Attachment A) 3) Graphical representation of the roadmap (static version in Attachment B, interactive version available on ACRP’s website: http://www.trb.org/ACRP/ACRP.aspx). Organization of the Narrative Research Roadmap report: • Section 1 – Introduction. This section provides an overview of the project and the Interim Deliverables. • Section 2 – Review of Existing Research. This section describes the literature review process and sources. • Section 3 – Research Topics. This section describes the high-level themes identified during the research as well as the more than 50 research ideas developed from stakeholder input and literature review. • Section 4 – Idea Prioritization. This section describes the research prioritization criteria and process, including the Project Panel survey. • Section 5 – Summary of Stakeholder Outreach. This section contains a summary of the stakeholder outreach, the stakeholders included, the number of outreach events and delivery method. This section also includes lessons learned and opportunities for improvement in future road-mapping efforts. • Attachment A – Research Idea Database. Separate Excel file. • Attachment B – Draft Visual Research Roadmap. Separate PDF and Tableau files.