Abstract Aggregates are major constituents in construction, the global demand for which approaches some 22 billion tonnes per year. Some major challenges follow: firstly, the dependency on geological conditions and the availability of resources; secondly, the traffic, emissions and energy use connected with transportation; thirdly, the technology of utilizing resources with a variety of properties to meet user requirements; and finally, the need for increased awareness, particularly over issues like land-use conflicts, environmental impact of the aggregate and quarrying industry, and the need to make these activities sustainable. Aggregate standards have primarily been written by engineers, and engineers are first of all concerned with technical requirements. However, in the future, there will be a greater focus on environmental impact and sustainability. Geological resources are non-renewable, which, for example, can be seen in the rapid depletion of natural sand/gravel deposits. This causes increasing awareness along with environmental impact, conflicts of interest concerning land use, sustainability in mass balance and – not least – increasing transport distances required to get the materials to the places of use. The principle of a Best Available Concept (BAC) for aggregate production and use is introduced, working with four essential phases: inventory and planning; quarrying and production; use of aggregates; and reclamation of mined-out areas. In order to compare alternatives and calculate environmental and economic consequences of decisions, it is recommended that new LCC (Life Cycle Cost) and LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) tools are worked with, which have been recently developed in two EU (European Union) funded research projects.

Abstract Alluvial fans, valley fills and debris cones represent economically significant, natural aggregate resources in the alpine regions of Austria. Due to continual erosion they constitute renewable sources of sand and gravel. However, knowledge of their petrographic properties and resulting aggregate quality is scant. An automated evaluation method was developed to estimate petrographic characteristics and predict resource suitability. This method makes use of the fact that the properties of a gravel deposit depend on the morphology and geology of the provenance area. Area percentages of geological units in the source area were expected to mirror the litho-spectrum of the gravel resource. Petrographic analysis of 13 field samples shows that this is indeed the case. Discrepancies amount to 0–10%; larger deviations occur for grain size fractions <2 mm in the presence of soft rock types such as mica-schist or paragneiss. Forecasts of aggregate quality on the basis of lithological composition and grain size characteristics were compared to operational data of five gravel pits. The actual usage of the material agrees with predictions in four out of the five cases.