scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment of Variable Rate Fertilizer Application in a Pear Orchard

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (17) ◽  
pp. 6893
Author(s):  
Anna Vatsanidou ◽  
Spyros Fountas ◽  
Vasileios Liakos ◽  
George Nanos ◽  
Nikolaos Katsoulas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Precision Agriculture ◽  
Management System ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Variable Rate ◽  
Impact Reduction ◽  
Pear Orchard

Precision Agriculture (PA) is a crop site-specific management system that aims for sustainability, adopting agricultural practices more friendly to the environment, like the variable rate application (VRA) technique. Many studies have dealt with the effectiveness of VRA to reduce nitrogen (N) fertilizer, while achieving increased profit and productivity. However, only limited attention was given to VRA’s environmental impact. In this study an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) based Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) performed to identify the environmental effects of N VRA on a small pear orchard, compared to the conventional uniform application. A Cradle to Gate system with a functional unit (FU) of 1 kg of pears was analyzed including high quality primary data of two productive years, including also the non-productive years, as well as all the emissions during pear growing and the supply chains of all inputs, projecting them to the lifespan of the orchard. A methodology was adopted, modelling individual years and averaging over the orchard’s lifetime. Results showed that Climate change, Water scarcity, Fossil fuels and Particulate formation were the most contributing impact categories to the overall environmental impact of the pear orchard lifespan, where climate change and particulates were largely determined by CO2, N2O, and NH3 emissions to the air from fertilizer production and application, and as CO2 from tractor use. Concerning fertilization practice, when VRA was combined with a high yield year, this resulted in significantly reduced environmental impact. LCA evaluating an alternative fertilizer management system in a Greek pear orchard revealed the environmental impact reduction potential of that system.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment of Environmental Impact of Steelmaking Process

Complexity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huimin Liu ◽  
Qiqiang Li ◽  
Guanguan Li ◽  
Ran Ding
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Molten Iron ◽  
Utilization Efficiency ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
High Resource ◽  
The Impact

The steel industry is facing problems such as serious environmental pollution and high resource consumption. At the same time, it lacks effective methods to quantify potential environmental impacts. The purpose of this work is to conduct a specific environmental analysis of steelmaking production in steel plants. The ultimate goal is to discover the main pollution of steelmaking and identify potential options for improving the environment. This paper uses life cycle assessment method to carry out inventory and quantitative analysis on the environmental impact of steelmaking system. Through analysis, the hazards are divided into four major categories, which are human health, climate change, ecosystem quality, and resources. The results show that molten iron has the greatest impact on human health, followed by the greatest impact on resources. The impact of scrap steel on human health ranks third. Molten iron is a key process that affects human health, climate change, ecosystems quality, and resources. In addition, processes such as fuels, working fluids, and auxiliary materials also cause certain environmental damage, accounting for a relatively small proportion. Optimizing the utilization of scrap steel and molten iron resources and improving the utilization efficiency of resources and energy are helpful to reduce the environmental hazards of steelmaking system.

scholarly journals The impact of the consumer’s decision on the life cycle assessment of organic pasta

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Elisabeth Gnielka ◽  
Christof Menzel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Grocery Store ◽  
Impact Categories ◽  
Freshwater Ecotoxicity ◽  
Last Mile ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Freshwater Eutrophication

AbstractEvery consumer’s decision has an impact on the environment, and even basic food products such as pasta have an impact due to their high consumption rates. Factors that can be influenced by the consumer include the preparation (cooking), last mile and packaging phases. The last mile has not been considered in most studies but contributes considerably to the environmental impact of pasta. The three phases and their environmental impact on the life cycle of pasta are analyzed in this cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment. The focus of the study lies on the impact categories climate change, agricultural land occupation, fossil depletion, water depletion, freshwater eutrophication and freshwater ecotoxicity. Inventory data were taken from other studies, were collected in cooperation with a zero-packaging organic grocery store in Germany or were gained in test series. Our results show that the preparation of pasta has the greatest environmental impact (over 40% in the impact categories climate change and fossil depletion and over 50% in the impact category freshwater eutrophication), followed by the last mile (over 20% in the impact categories climate change and fossil depletion) and lastly the packaging (nearly 9% in the impact categories freshwater eutrophication and freshwater ecotoxicity). Based on our study´s results, we provide some recommendations for minimizing the environmental impacts of pasta.

scholarly journals Effect of Climate Change and Occupant Behaviour on the Environmental Impact of the Heating and Cooling Systems of a Real Apartment. A Parametric Study through Life Cycle Assessment

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (24) ◽  
pp. 8356
Author(s):  
Gianmarco Fajilla ◽  
Emiliano Borri ◽  
Marilena De Simone ◽  
Luisa F. Cabeza ◽  
Luís Bragança
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Occupant Behaviour ◽  
Cooling Systems ◽  
Heating And Cooling ◽  
The Impact

Climate change has a strong influence on the energy consumption of buildings, affecting both the heating and cooling demand in the actual and future scenario. In this paper, a life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed to evaluate the influence of both the occupant behaviour and the climate change on the environmental impact of the heating and cooling systems of an apartment located in southern Italy. The analysis was conducted using IPCC GWP and ReCiPe indicators as well as the Ecoinvent database. The influence of occupant behaviour was included in the analysis considering different usage profiles during the operational phase, while the effect of climate change was considered by varying the weather file every thirty years. The adoption of the real usage profiles showed that the impact of the systems was highly influenced by the occupant behaviour. In particular, the environmental impact of the heating system appeared more influenced by the operation hours, while that of the cooling system was more affected by the natural ventilation schedules. Furthermore, the influence of climate change demonstrated that more attention has to be dedicated to the cooling demand that in the future years will play an ever-greater role in the energy consumption of buildings.

scholarly journals ANALISIS POTENSI DAMPAK LINGKUNGAN DARI BUDIDAYA TEBU MENGGUNAKAN PENDEKATAN LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT (LCA)

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-64
Author(s):  
Arieyanti Dwi Astuti
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Photochemical Oxidation ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Human Toxicity

ENGLISHMinimizing the adverse impact of sugarcane plantation can be carried out through many ways including increasing the efficiency of energy and natural resources consumption as well as improving the management of waste and emissions. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was applied to assess the environmental impact of sugarcane plantation without considering sugarcane usage as a raw material in the sugar industry (gate to gate). CML (baseline) was used as Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) method. This study aimed to: 1) examine the natural resources and energy consumption; 2) analyze and identify potential environmental impacts; and 3) recommend alternative improvements to reduce environmental impacts. It used primary data and secondary data. The results showed that: 1) natural resources were used to produce 16,097 ton of sugarcane or 1 ton of sugar, were land requirement (0.233 ha), water consumption (2,223.117 m3), and energy consumption (19,234.254 MJ); 2) there are five most potential environmental impacts which are analyzed by using openLCA including climate change (134,275.23 kg CO2 eq), eutrophication (120.24 kg PO4 eq), acidification (1.54 kg SO2 eq), photochemical oxidation (0.36 kg ethylene eq), and human toxicity (0.15 kg 1.4-dichlorobenzene eq); 3) alternative recommendation could be conducted by reducing the usage of inorganic fertilizer, and utilizing cane trash (dry leaves, green leaves, and tops) as boiler fuel for production process in sugar factory. INDONESIABudidaya tebu menimbulkan dampak negatif terhadap lingkungan sehingga diperlukan upaya untuk meminimalisir dampak negatif tersebut melalui efisiensi konsumsi energi, konsumsi sumber daya alam (SDA), serta pengelolaan limbah dan emisi. LCA merupakan salah satu metode untuk menganalisis dampak lingkungan dari budidaya tebu tanpa mempertimbangkan penggunaan tebu panen sebagai bahan baku industri gula (gate to gate). Metode yang digunakan untuk LCIA adalah CML (baseline). Penelitian ini  bertujuan untuk: 1) menghitung penggunaan SDA dan energy, 2) menganalisis dan mengidentifikasi potensi dampak lingkungan, dan 3) menyajikan rekomendasi perbaikan untuk menurunkan dampak lingkungan. Data penelitian berupa data primer dan data sekunder. Unit fungsional pada penelitian ini adalah produksi 1 ton gula untuk satu tahun. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa: 1) konsumsi SDA berupa lahan tebu seluas 0,233 ha, air sebanyak 2.223,117 m3 dan energi sebesar 19.234,254 MJ; 2) potensi dampak lingkungan yang dianalisis menggunakan OpenLCA menghasilkan 5 dampak lingkungan tertinggi, yaitu climate change (134.275,23 kg CO2 eq), eutrophication (120,24 kg PO4 eq), acidification (1,54 kg SO2 eq), photochemical oxidation (0,36 kg ethylene eq), and human toxicity (0,15 kg 1,4-dichlorobenzene eq); 3) alternatif perbaikan yang direkomendasikan berupa penggunaan pupuk anorganik dengan dosis yang tepat dan memanfaatkan limbah pasca pane n (daun kering, serasah) sebagai bahan bakar boiler untuk proses produksi industri gula.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment of Solid Recovered Fuel Gasification in the State of Qatar

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Ahmad Mohamed S. H. Al-Moftah ◽  
Richard Marsh ◽  
Julian Steer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Natural Gas ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Electricity Generation ◽  
Resource Depletion ◽  
Impact Categories ◽  
Fossil Resource ◽  
Environmental Impact Categories

Gas products from gasified solid recovered fuel (SRF) have been proposed as a replacement for natural gas to produce electricity in future power generation systems. In this work, the life cycle assessment (LCA) of SRF air gasification to energy was conducted using the Recipe2016 model considering five environmental impact categories and four scenarios in Qatar. The current situation of municipal solid waste (MSW) handling in Qatar is landfill with composting. The results show that using SRF gasification can reduce the environmental impact of MSW landfills and reliance on natural gas in electricity generation. Using SRF gasification on the selected five environmental impact categories—climate change, terrestrial acidification, marine ecotoxicity, water depletion and fossil resource depletion—returned significant reductions in environmental degradation. The LCA of the SRF gasification for the main four categories in the four scenarios gave varying results. The introduction of the SRF gasification reduced climate change-causing emissions by 41.3% because of production of renewable electricity. A reduction in water depletion and fossil resource depletion of 100 times were achieved. However, the use of solar technology and SRF gasification to generate electricity reduced the impact of climate change to almost zero emissions. Terrestrial acidification showed little to no change in all three scenarios investigated. This study was compared with the previous work from the literature and showed that on a nominal 10 kg MSW processing basis, 5 kg CO2 equivalent emissions were produced for the landfilling scenarios. While the previous studies reported that 8 kg CO2 produced per 10 kg MSW is processed for the same scenario. The findings indicate that introducing SRF gasification in solid waste management and electricity generation in Qatar has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emission load and related social, economic, political and environmental costs. In addition, the adoption of the SRF gasification in the country will contribute to Qatar’s national vision 2030 by reducing landfills and produce sustainable energy.

scholarly journals Quantifying Total Environmental Impact of the Power Sector Using Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment: a case study for Thailand

2019 ◽  
Vol 122 ◽  
pp. 05003
Author(s):  
Isara Muangthai ◽  
Sue J. Lin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Input Output ◽  
Power Sector ◽  
Ecosystem Quality ◽  
Indirect Impacts

The electricity generation is vital to industries and economic development in Thailand. In this study, the input-output life cycle assessment (IO-LCA) is applied to estimate the direct and indirect impacts from the power generation sector for the years 2005 and 2010. Based on the input-output analysis, more than 90% of the total environmental impact of Thailandʼs power sector involves ten relevant sectors. Results reveal that the most significant environmental damage was on natural resources followed by human health, climate change, and ecosystem quality. The most dominant environmental impacts were non-renewable energy, global warming and respiratory inorganic effects. Furthermore, the power sector, which accounts for 80% and 61% of total each impact in 2010 respectively, had a large direct impact on climate change and human health. On the contrary, the coal and lignite, and metal ore sectors contributed significantly to indirect impacts on ecosystem quality and resources. Regarding the results, some additional suggestions can be made to improve current policies in Thailand, including the implementation of green manufacturing in the iron and steel production, and installing control devices in all power plant units. Consequently, IO-LCA can be applied to other industries for assessing their total environmental impacts, and planning CO2 mitigation strategies.

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