Autor(es): Karin Bartl y otros
Global water use is dominated by agriculture and has considerable influence on people’s livelihood and ecosystems, especially in semiarid and arid regions. Methods to address the impacts of water withdrawal and consumption on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems within life cycle assessment are still sparse and very generic. Regionalized characterization factors (CFs) for a groundwater-fed wetland at the arid coast of Peru are developed for groundwater and surface water withdrawal and consumption in order to address the spatial dependency of water use related impacts. Several agricultural scenarios for 2020 were developed in a workshop with local stakeholders and used for calculating total biodiversity impacts. In contrast to assumptions used in top-down approaches (e.g., Pfister et al. Environ. Sci Technol.2009, 43, 4098), irrigation with surface water leads in this specific region to benefits for the groundwater-fed wetland, due to additional groundwater recharge from surplus irrigation water. However, irrigation with groundwater leads to ecological damage to the wetland. The CFs derived from the different scenarios are similar and can thus be used as general CFs for this region, helping local decision-makers to plan future agricultural development, including irrigation technologies, crop choices, and protection of the wetland.
Ir al enlaceAutor(es): Red Peruana Ciclo de Vida y otros
Purpose: The main purpose of this article is to propose specific discard indexes for their development in fisheries life cycle assessment (LCA). The objective of these is to characterize and standardize discards in worldwide fisheries. Methods: The global discard index (GDI) is intended to be an easily understood index whose use is extendible to any fishery in the world. It is presented as a dynamic index that aims to characterize and standardize discard rates between fisheries by direct comparison with the global discard rates reported periodically by FAO. Furthermore, a simplified approach excluding characterization is presented for scenarios in which the data quality linked to discards is poor. Two additional indicators, survival rate of discards and slipping, are proposed to improve the reporting and quantification of biomass waste by fishing vessels. Results: GDI implementation, together with two other fishery-specific impact categories, showed remarkable differences in the environmental impacts of several fishing fleets when compared with the obtained results for conventional impact categories. Results for the conventional categories were strongly influenced by the energy use in the fishery, while results obtained for fishery-specific categories presented variable trends due to the dependence on a wider range of factors. GDI inclusion favored direct comparison with worldwide average discard rates on a time scale basis, from a wet weight or a net primary productivity perspective, depending on the selected approach. Conclusions: Proposed indicators achieved the important objective of integrating discard data as a fishery-specific impact in fishery LCAs, increasing the benefits of implementing LCA in fisheries assessment. Specific advantages of these indicators include assessing changes in capture and landing composition, evaluating the selectivity of the fishing gears, and monitoring the behavior of fisheries in a normalized context respect to other fisheries. GDI was identified as an adequate methodological improvement for regular use in fisheries LCA. Future developments GDI include its harmonization for inclusion in damage assessment.
Ir al enlaceAutor(es): Ian Vázquez Rowe y otros
An important percentage of European wine appellations base their production on a broad number of vine-growers that annually sell their grapes to the wineries under the specific Denomination of Origin. Hence, the use of average values for the environmental evaluation of this type of multiple datasets can create large standard deviations that may impede an adequate interpretation of the results. Combined implementation of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), known as LCA + DEA methodology, has proven to be a suitable tool for assessing multiple input/output data in several agri-food systems, such as aquaculture, farming or fisheries. In the current study, a total of 40 vine-growing exploitations belonging to the Rías Baixas appellation (NW Spain) were analyzed following LCA + DEA methodology in order to determine the level of operational efficiency of each producer. Furthermore, potential reductions in the consumption levels of the material inputs were benchmarked, while calculating the environmental gains linked to these reduction targets, thus verifying eco-efficiency criteria. Results led to average reduction levels of up to 30% per material input, which translated into environmental gains that ranged from 28% to 39% depending on the selected impact category. Additionally, a super-efficiency analysis led to identify the best performing units, which were used as a source of reference values for environmental impacts. Finally, potential economic savings of 0.14 € per functional unit (i.e., 1.1 kg of grapes for the production of a common 750 ml bottle of wine) were estimated on the basis of efficient vine-growing practices.
Ir al enlaceAutor(es): Isabel Quispe Trinidad
The goal of this project was to enhance the use of the life cycle approach within the Latin-American Region. It was focused on capacity building for developing Regional Life Cycle Inventories. The project was developed by researchers belonging to the LCA community in cooperation with UNEP, and Governmental representatives and statistic offices providing the data. More precisely, this project aimed at building home-grown expertise, including capacity for South-South cooperation, environmental leadership, and also at supporting the use of science-based approaches and evidence-based decision-making in mainstreaming environment in government policies in each of the countries participating in the project. The critical review process is still to be done, but it must be accomplished by June of 2011. The project started with the establishment of general rules for harmonization of sound and comprehensive life cycle inventory data and information. These rules were applied to the field of electricity production, transmission and distribution. This productive sector was chosen due to the fact that it is a common and necessary key input to all economic activities. Results: A quality guideline was developed for the project, based on the one used to build the national Brazilian LCI. Four different LCI were built in ecospold format, based on information collected in four different countries, Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Peru, which cover the hydroelectric and thermoelectric generation processes, and the transmission and distribution systems. Lack of LCA acknowledge in the industrial and public sectors, and difficulties to find reliable public data and information, arise as the major problems in most of the participating countries, even though the electric sector is more incline than other sectors in providing the public with more and more information regarding its emissions and compliances. The capacity building process and differences between the countries in terms of structure, technology, environmental regulations, among other factors, made the use of a common and detailed quality guideline very difficult to be applied. Thus, capacity building process on LCA in emerging regions seems better to be conducted on a step-by-step basis, which must consider the development of a simpler approach to build generic prototype models that can undergo later a continuous improving process. Data consistency and harmonization appears to be two of the major issues that must be specifically addressed in a Regional quality guideline.
Ir al enlaceAutor(es): Ian Vázquez Rowe y otros
Mauritania, one of the most dependent fish trade nations in the world, has an important octopus fishery within its EEZ. Fishing treaties between the EU and this Sub-Saharan nation have permitted 24 Spanish cephalopod trawling vessels to target this species for its export as a frozen product, mainly to Spain, Italy and Japan. This article presents Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology in order to assess and compare the environmental impacts related to the capture, processing and exportation of packed frozen octopus from this fishery to the main importing nations. Environmental results show that frozen common octopus presented a remarkable dominance of the fishing vessel activities, due to the high energy intensity of the fishery and to the fact that these activities include harvesting, processing and preliminary packaging. Post-harvesting activities presented low relative contributions in all impact categories, minimizing the food mile effect of exporting to Japan, thanks to the slow transportation through marine freight of frozen octopus. The results for fishery-specific indicators showed regular trends for trawling fleets, with high discard and seafloor impact rates. Therefore, improvement actions focused on the minimization of energy use and fishery-specific impacts and the shift to less ozone layer damaging cooling agents are the main targets in order to improve the sustainability of this product, as long as the slow freighting characteristics of the imported product are maintained.
Ir al enlaceAutor(es): Ian Vázquez Rowe y otros
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the environmental impacts linked to fish extraction on a temporal basis, in order to analyze the effect that stock abundance variations may have on reporting environmental burdens. Inventory data for the North-East Atlantic Mackerel (NEAM) fishing season were collected over an 8-year period and used to carry out a life cycle assessment (LCA). The selected fishery corresponds to the Basque coastal purse seining fleet. Materials and methods :The functional unit (FU) was set as 1 t of landed round fish in a Basque port during the NEAM fishing season for each of the selected years. The selected data for the life cycle inventory were gathered from personal communication from ship owners and from a fish first sale register in the Basque Country. A series of fishery-specific impact categories and indicators were included in the evaluation together with conventional impact categories. Results and discussion: Conventional LCA impact categories showed that the environmental impact is dominated by the energy use in the fishery, despite of the low fuel effort identified with respect to other purse-seining fisheries. Nevertheless, strong differences were identified between annual environmental impacts, attributed mainly to remarkable variations in NEAM stock abundance from 1 year to another, whereas the fishing effort remained relatively stable throughout the assessed years. Fishery-specific categories, such as the discard rate or seafloor impact showed reduced impacts of this fishery respect to other small pelagic fish fisheries. Finally, the fishery in balance (FiB) index identified the evolution of NEAM stock abundance for this particular fishery. Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first fishery LCA study in which there is sufficient inventory data in order to conduct the methodology throughout a wide period of time. The outstanding variance in environmental impacts from one season to another evidences the need to expand fishery LCAs in time, in order to attain a more integrated perspective of the environmental performance of a certain fishery or species. The extension of LCA inventories in the timeline may be an important improvement for activities that rely entirely on the extraction of organisms from wild ecosystems. For instance, future research will have to determine the importance of increasing the timeline in fishery LCAs for species that do not show large stock abundance variations through time, unlike NEAM.
Ir al enlaceAutor(es): Ramzy Kahhat Abedrabbo y otros
Institutions both public and private face a challenge to develop policies to manage purchase, use, and disposal of electronics. Environmental considerations play an increasing role in addition to traditional factors of cost, performance and security. Characterizing current disposition practices for end-of-life electronics is a key step in developing policies that prevent negative environmental and health impacts while maximizing potential for positive social and economic benefits though reuse. To provide a baseline, we develop the first characterization of quantity, value, disposition, and flows of end-of-life electronics at a major U.S. educational institution. Results of the empirical study indicate that most end-of-first-life electronics were resold through public auction to individuals and small companies who refurbish working equipment for resale or sell unusable products for reclamation of scrap metal. Desktop and laptop computers sold for refurbishing and resale averaged U.S. $20–100 per unit, with computers sold directly to individuals for reuse reaching $250–350 per unit. This detailed assessment was coupled with a benchmarking survey of end-of-life electronics management practices at other U.S. universities. Survey results indicate that while auctions are still commonplace, an increasing number of institutions are responding to environmental concerns by creating partnerships with local recycling and resale entities and mandating domestic recycling. We use the analyses of current disposition practices as input to discuss institutional strategies for managing electronics. One key issue is the tension between benefits of used equipment sales, in terms of income for the institution and increased reuse for society, and the environmental risks because of unknown downstream practices.
Ir al enlaceAutor(es): Karin Bartl y otros
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was applied to two smallholder milk production systems in Peru in order to evaluate the environmental burden of milk produced in each. An Andean highland milk production system where livestock feeding is restricted to permanent pastures supplemented with on farm grown ryegrass-clover was opposed to a coastal system with dairy cows fed a diet consisting of fodder maize and purchased concentrate. Milk production levels (kg/cow day) differed considerably with 2.57 for the highland and 19.54 for the coastal system. A Life Cycle Inventory was calculated for the functional unit of 1 kg energy corrected milk (ECM) and the environmental impacts global warming, acidification and eutrophication were estimated for 1 kg ECM, 1 ha and 1 animal, considering the multi-functionality of the system. The highland system was characterized by a high land use (23.1 m2a/kg ECM vs. 1.71 m2a/kg ECM at the coast). Irrigation water and energy were on the other hand used to a much higher amount at the coast (7291 l/kg ECM and 8791 MJ/kg ECM, respectively) than in the highlands (848 l/kg ECM and 0.20 MJ/kg ECM). Global warming potential, acidification and eutrophication were higher for 1 kg ECM produced in the highlands than at the coast by 10.6 kg CO2 equivalents, 6.58 g sulfur dioxide equivalents and 10.63 g phosphate equivalents, respectively. Nevertheless, 5220 kg CO2 equivalents more were emitted per animal at the coast than in the highlands. Also acidification and eutrophication were estimated to be on average 6 and 4 times higher at the coast compared to the highlands when expressed for the functional units of 1 ha and 1 animal. Results Whereas livestock is mainly responsible for impacts on the environment in the highlands, at the coast both livestock related emissions and forage cultivation play an important role. Furthermore CO2 releases from soybean cultivations heavily contribute to total emissions. Sensitivity analysis indicates that for dairy systems relying on crop by-products as feed the choice of the allocation method is a crucial point in a LCA study. Based on the results of this study, strategies in order to reduce the environmental burden of milk production should focus on an increase of production levels and a reduction of methane emissions from enteric fermentation in the highlands and a modification of the concentrate components replacing soya as the protein source at the coast.
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