A spatially explicit life cycle assessment midpoint indicator for soil quality in the European Union using soil organic carbon

Morais, Tiago G.; Domingos, Tiago; Teixeira, Ricardo F. M.

doi:10.1007/s11367-016-1077-x

Cited by 19 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…For agri-food products, impact indicators related with land use are especially relevant [78]. Several regionalized impact models are now available and widely recommended for biodiversity [79,80], biotic production potential [81,82] and other ecosystem services [83]. Freshwater eutrophication should be a priority as well, as fertilizer application is crucial in theses pastures and nitrogen leaching is a pressing environmental issue in Azores, negatively affecting water quality [84,85].…”

Section: Indirect Sources Of Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon Footprint of Milk from Pasture-Based Dairy Farms in Azores, Portugal

Morais

Teixeira

Rodrigues³

et al. 2018

Sustainability

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The dairy sector is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Pasture-based dairy production is sometimes credited as environmentally friendlier but is less studied than more intensive production systems. Here we characterize and calculate the carbon footprint (CF), using life cycle assessment, of the “Vacas Felizes” pasture-based milk production system, in the Azores archipelago. Impacts were determined for multiple functional units: mass, energy and nutritional content, farm, area and animal. We performed multivariate analysis to assess the contribution of production parameters to the CF. Finally, we performed a literature review to compare these results with other production systems. Results show that emissions from enteric fermentation, concentrated feed production and (organic and mineral) fertilizer application are the three main sources of impact. Milk yield is a key production feature for the determination of emissions. The average CF is 0.83 kg CO2/kg raw milk. At each milk yield level, the farms are approximately homogeneous. Compared with other studies, “Vacas Felizes” milk has a lower CF than 80 (out of 84) published CFs and on average it is approximately 32% lower.

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Section: Indirect Sources Of Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon Footprint of Milk from Pasture-Based Dairy Farms in Azores, Portugal

Morais

Teixeira

Rodrigues³

et al. 2018

Sustainability

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“…For example, Morais et al (2016) used the LUCASOIL database and this model to calculate land use CFs for the European Union. Regarding the other models, they did not always stand out in terms of environmental relevance and comprehensiveness.…”

Section: Comprehensiveness Specificity In Covering Key Impacts On Somentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil quality, properties, and functions in life cycle assessment: an evaluation of models

Legaz

Souza

Teixeira

et al. 2017

Journal of Cleaner Production

101

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Soils provide essential ecosystem services for supporting both human and ecosystem needs and has been under pressures resulting from the intensification and expansion of human activities. In the last 15 years, substantial efforts have been made to quantify the impacts on soils derived from production systems and their related supply chains. In this study, a systematic, qualitative evaluation of up-to-date models connecting land occupation and land transformation to soil impact indicators (e.g., soil properties, functions, and threats) is performed. The focus is on models that may be applied for assessing supply chains, namely in the context of life cycle assessment (LCA). A range of eleven soil-related models was selected and evaluated against different criteria, including scientific soundness, stakeholders' acceptance, reproducibility, and the applicability of models from the perspective of LCA practitioners. Additionally, this study proposes a new land use cause-effect chain to qualify the impacts of land use on soils. None of the models is fulfilling all the criteria and includes comprehensively the cause-effect impact pathways. Notably, trade-offs were most frequent between the relevance of the modeled impact processes and the models' applicability. On the one hand, models proposing multi-indicators cover several drivers of impacts and have a broader scope. On the other hand, several models just focus on one driver of impact, but may provide more relevant impact characterization. Our results provide common ground for the development and identification of models that provide a comprehensive and robust assessment of land use change and land use impacts on soils. Indeed, to ensure both a comprehensive and relevant characterization of impacts, the study identifies several research needs for further models' developments, namely: 1) adopting a common land use cause-effect chain and land use classification; 2) accounting for different land management and land use intensities; 3) expanding the inventory data beyond the accounting of the area related to a certain land use; 4) assessing the added value of multi-indicators compared to single indicators, including the reduction of possible redundancies in the impact evaluation; 5) improving consistency from midpoint to endpoint characterisation, especially the link with biodiversity; 6) guiding the calculation of normalization factors; and 7) assessing systematically model's uncertainty.

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“…Besides placing more emphasis on the regionalization of the inventories and activity data, these additional impact categories should also be assessed using regionalized life cycle impact assessment methods [31]. There are now multiple highly regionalized methods available, mainly focusing on land use [61,62] and biodiversity impacts [63,64].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects on Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Ecological Intensification of Meat Production with Rainfed Sown Biodiverse Pastures

2018

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Feed production is an important contributor to the environmental impacts caused by livestock production. In Portugal, non-dairy cattle are commonly fed with a mixture of grazing and forages/concentrate feed. Sown biodiverse permanent pastures rich in legumes (SBP) were introduced to provide quality animal feed and offset concentrate consumption. SBP also sequester large amounts of carbon in soils. Here, we used a comparative life cycle assessment approach to test the substitution of concentrate through installation of high-yield SBP. Using field data for the Alentejo region in Portugal, we compare the global warming potential of a baseline scenario where cattle is fed in low-yield, semi-natural pastures supplemented with feeds that vary in the ratio of silage to concentrate, and a second scenario where the feed is substituted with high-yield SBP. Although SBP use more fertilizers and machinery, this replacement avoids the emission of about 3 t CO 2 eq/ha even after SBP stop sequestering carbon. Using crude fiber to establish the equivalence between scenarios leads to higher avoided impact, owing to the fact that the fiber content of SBP is also higher. SBP can avoid 25% emissions from beef production per kg of live animal weight.Sustainability 2018, 10, 4184 2 of 23 supported by the Portuguese Government through the Portuguese Carbon Fund (PCF), to assist the country in keeping with Portuguese goals for the Kyoto Protocol under the Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Uses activities of Article 3.4. The PCF supported the installation and maintenance of SBP using a system of service payments for carbon sequestration. As a consequence, 1095 farmers installed SBP in an area of more than 4% of the country's agricultural land [10]. The majority of the area of SBP (over 90%) was installed in the agricultural region of Alentejo; namely in highly important "Montado" areas, an agro-forestry landscape of high biodiversity value [15].The high yields of SBP are achieved because of (a) the biodiversity effect on productivity, (b) the selection of high-yield and locally adapted grass and legume species, and (c) technical support for precision management that often involves phosphate fertilization and pH correction using limestone [10]. To farmers, the costs with management are counter-weighed by a decrease or elimination of the need for commercial concentrate feeds for ruminants, because SBP increased productivity when compared with their most common alternative land use system observed in farms before sowing-semi-natural pastures (SNP). Savings in concentrate feeds are an additional ecological and economic benefit for the country [9].Despite the savings in feed consumption, SBP require more agricultural operations and inputs for production, such as seeds production and machinery for installation, and regular applications of phosphate fertilizer and limestone for maintenance. So far, a plot-level assessment of GHG emissions has been carried out [16], but no life cycle assessment (LCA) study has ever been carried out to also a...

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A spatially explicit life cycle assessment midpoint indicator for soil quality in the European Union using soil organic carbon

Cited by 19 publications

References 25 publications

Carbon Footprint of Milk from Pasture-Based Dairy Farms in Azores, Portugal

Carbon Footprint of Milk from Pasture-Based Dairy Farms in Azores, Portugal

Soil quality, properties, and functions in life cycle assessment: an evaluation of models

The Effects on Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Ecological Intensification of Meat Production with Rainfed Sown Biodiverse Pastures

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