Carbon emission management in design-oriented tunnel engineering: current status and emerging trends

Purpose The carbon emission intensity of tunnel projects is highly dependent on design schemes, making carbon management during the design phase a challenge. Although existing research on design-oriented carbon emission management has made notable progress, it remains fragmented and lacks a systematic overview. This article reviews current studies, identifies major research gaps and proposes improvement pathways to support tunnel decarbonization. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a systematic literature review following PRISMA guidelines to analyze 60 core publications on carbon emission management in tunnel design. Findings Current research on carbon emission management in tunnel engineering design focuses on assessment methods, low-carbon design elements, optimization of carbon emissions in design schemes and emission reduction strategies. However, it identifies four major limitations: a lack of uncertainty analysis in assessment methods, insufficient research on the coupling mechanism of low-carbon design elements, absence of dynamic optimization for the entire lifecycle and weak adaptability of emerging technologies. To address these challenges, a new framework for carbon emission management in tunnel engineering design is proposed, based on “intelligent perception-regulation optimization-negative carbon conversion.” Originality/value The study proposes a carbon emission management framework for tunnel engineering design based on “intelligent perception-regulation optimization-negative carbon conversion,” not only fills structural gaps in the theoretical system of low-carbon design for tunnel engineering but also provides practical decision-making tools for engineering practice, enabling a negative growth in total carbon emissions while maintaining engineering efficiency.