A new indicator to estimate the efficiency of water and energy use in agro-industries

Carrasquer, Beatriz; Uche, Javier; Martínez-Gracia, Amaya

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.12.088

Cited by 27 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Sundaram et al [15] assessed the energy efficiency of the production of gasoline from biogas and pyrolysis oil using an LCA approach. Regarding the agri-food sector, Carrasquer et al [16] created a new indicator to estimate the water and energy efficiency in agro-industries based on life-cycle thinking methodologies. Skunca et al [17] performed the LCA of the chicken meat chain to estimate the cumulative energy demand (CED), while Pires-Gaspar et al [18] carried out an energy-LCA of Portuguese peach production using energy efficiency indicators.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Energy and Environmental Efficiency of the Spanish Agri-Food System Using the LCA/DEA Methodology

et al. 2018

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Feeding the world’s population sustainably is a major challenge of our society, and was stated as one of the key priorities for development cooperation by the European Union (EU) policy framework on food security. However, with the current trend of natural resource exploitation, food systems consume around 30% of final energy use, generating up to 30% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Given the expected increase of global population (nine billion people by 2050) and the amount of food losses and waste generated (one-third of global food production), improving the efficiency of food systems along the supply chain is essential to ensure food security. This study combines life-cycle assessment (LCA) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) to assess the efficiency of Spanish agri-food system and to propose improvement actions in order to reduce energy usage and GHG emissions. An average energy saving of approximately 70% is estimated for the Spanish agri-food system in order to be efficient. This study highlights the importance of the DEA method as a tool for energy optimization, identifying efficient and inefficient food systems. This approach could be adopted by administrations, policy-makers, and producers as a helpful instrument to support decision-making and improve the sustainability of agri-food systems.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Energy and Environmental Efficiency of the Spanish Agri-Food System Using the LCA/DEA Methodology

et al. 2018

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“…The presented results may also be useful in environmental reviews. The literature data [32][33][34][35][36] show that comprehensive actions in the scope of water consumption rationalization may result in the reduction of water consumption by up to 50-70%. Rationalization of water consumption in fruit and vegetable processing plants is possible only for entities that carry out monitoring within this scope.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of Water Consumption in Fruit and Vegetable Processing Plants with the Use of Artificial Intelligence

2021

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Fruit and vegetable processing has a significant impact on the environment due to its consumption of a significant amount of water. Water consumption mainly depends on the type of production and the technology used. Water in fruit and vegetable processing plants is used as a raw material, an energy carrier, and in hydro transport, as well as for washing raw materials and maintaining production hygiene. The variety of technological operations carried out in the production process and the seasonality of production make it difficult to objectively assess the use of water in fruit and vegetable processing plants. Few available publications in this field provide numerical values of water unit consumption indices, with none entering into the cause-and-effect relationships of water use in plants in this industry. The aim of this study was to analyze the research to date and to verify the following research hypothesis: the structure of processing and the relationship between the weights of individual products have an impact on water consumption in fruit and vegetable processing plants. For this purpose, neural models of water consumption were developed for the largest agri-food processing plants in Poland that use similar technology. Water consumption was then optimized using genetic algorithms for the processing structure. The results confirmed the hypothesis that production structure has a significant impact on the rationalization of water consumption. The optimization results show that the production of concentrates, juices, and drinks has the greatest impact on water consumption. The lowest water consumption will be achieved when the production of concentrates is at a 2 to 1 ratio to the production of juices and drinks.

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“…A well-design index can systematically identify the strengths and weaknesses of policies and help policymakers to justify and improve decisions. Hence, a sustainable WEF index can reduce the excessive abuse of resources and monitor whether the system is sustainable and sufficient enough [40,41,42]. This study employed cross-region data collected over more than a decade to formulate the sustainable WEF model (Figure 4).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical Framework for a Relative Sustainability Evaluation of Urbanization on the Water–Energy–Food Nexus Using Simultaneous Equation Analysis

Fan

Lin

2019

IJERPH

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The water–energy–food (WEF) nexus attracts much attention due to the elevated public concern regarding environmental conservation and sustainability. As we head into a new era of civilization, population increase and modernized lifestyles have led to an increasing need for water, energy, and food. However, severe hydrological precipitation significantly impacts agricultural harvest, and such influence becomes more apparent under the influence of climate change. Meanwhile, the major method of electricity generation (i.e., fossil fuel burning) has a negative impact on the environment. These inevitable threats are crucial and have to be dealt with for a society on the road towards sustainability. In the present study, an integrated evaluation of the WEF nexus was conducted for two areas with different levels of urbanization using empirical multiple linear regression in a simultaneous equation model (SEM). By incorporating the collected data into the SEM, the weighting coefficient of each identified variable was obtained, and the nexus implication was assessed in model simulation at different scenarios considering the population growth, agro-technology advancement, energy structure improvement, and available water resources. In the simulated results, three observations were found: (1) the rural area is more sustainable than the urban one; (2) the sustainability for both the investigated areas is significantly subject to their water supply and demand; and (3) food production was found to have a less important effect on the sustainable development of the urban area. This study identified the key factors in the WEF nexus exploration, which are economically and environmentally important for resource allocation. An empirical model was developed to correlate sustainable achievement with WEF management, as well as strategic policies that should be implemented under the pressure of urbanization.

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A new indicator to estimate the efficiency of water and energy use in agro-industries

Cited by 27 publications

References 42 publications

Assessing Energy and Environmental Efficiency of the Spanish Agri-Food System Using the LCA/DEA Methodology

Assessing Energy and Environmental Efficiency of the Spanish Agri-Food System Using the LCA/DEA Methodology

Analysis of Water Consumption in Fruit and Vegetable Processing Plants with the Use of Artificial Intelligence

Empirical Framework for a Relative Sustainability Evaluation of Urbanization on the Water–Energy–Food Nexus Using Simultaneous Equation Analysis

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