LCA for open systems: a review of the influence of natural and anthropogenic factors on aquaculture systems

Pahri, Siti Dina Razman; Mohamed, Ahmad Fariz; Samat, Alim

doi:10.1007/s11367-015-0929-0

Cited by 17 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 44 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…While there were strong indications that EP impacts correlate with the open and closed characteristics of productions systems, this was not strictly demonstrated since EP impacts of clusters 1-3 have equal means and the results of the two-group LCIA C-D analysis were rejected due to skewness. These results were also coherent with the scientific literature since open systems have no waste collection, and therefore emit more nutrients into the environment than their closed counterparts [42].…”

Section: Cross-study Statistical Comparisonsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Following the accumulation of aquaculture LCA studies, several reviews recently analyzed this section of the literature, focusing on the application of the LCA methodology [37][38][39] and comparing production systems [40][41][42][43]. In the latter ones, attempts to compare results focused primarily on the comparison of the system's intensities (intensive, semi-intensive, and extensive) and culture types (polyculture vs. monoculture).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Comparing Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Salmonid Aquaculture Production Systems: Status and Perspectives

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Aquaculture is the fastest growing food sector worldwide, mostly driven by a steadily increasing protein demand. In response to growing ecological concerns, life cycle assessment (LCA) emerged as a key environmental tool to measure the impacts of various production systems, including aquaculture. In this review, we focused on farmed salmonids to perform an in-depth analysis, investigating methodologies and comparing results of LCA studies of this finfish family in relation to species and production technologies. Identifying the environmental strengths and weaknesses of salmonid production technologies is central to ensure that industrial actors and policymakers make informed choices to take the production of this important marine livestock to a more sustainable path. Three critical aspects of salmonid LCAs were studied based on 24 articles and reports: (1) Methodological application, (2) construction of inventories, and (3) comparison of production technologies across studies. Our first assessment provides an overview and compares important methodological choices. The second analysis maps the main foreground and background data sources, as well as the state of process inclusion and exclusion. In the third section, a first attempt to compare life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) data across production technologies was conducted using a single factor statistical protocol. Overall, findings suggested a lack of methodological completeness and reporting in the literature and demonstrated that inventories suffered from incomplete description and partial disclosure. Our attempt to compare LCA results across studies was challenging due to confounding factors and poor data availability, but useful as a first step in highlighting the importance of production technology for salmonids. In groups where the data was robust enough for statistical comparison, both differences and mean equalities were identified, allowing ranking of technology clusters based on their average scores. We statistically demonstrated that sea-based systems outperform land-based technology in terms of energy demand and that sea-based systems have a generally higher FCR than land-based ones. Cross-study analytics also strongly suggest that open systems generate on average more eutrophying emissions than closed designs. We further discuss how to overcome bottlenecks currently hampering such LCA meta-analysis. Arguments are made in favor of further developing cross-study LCA analysis, particularly by increasing the number of salmonid LCA available (to improve sample sizes) and by reforming in-depth LCA practices to enable full reproducibility and greater access to inventory data.

show abstract

Section: Cross-study Statistical Comparisonsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Salmonid Aquaculture Production Systems: Status and Perspectives

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The highest impact value from infrastructure at this study area was from MET because of the phosphorus and nitrogen released to the water [11]. These findings were in line with a previous study by Ayer and Tyedmers [35], where a high reading of MET was caused by netting.…”

Section: Infrastructuresupporting

confidence: 92%

“…The values in Column 4 were obtained from data collection in Column 3 and calculated based on the functional unit of 1 tonne of Nile tilapia fish harvested per year. The elements were determined based on the CML-IA method by the Centre of Environmental Science of Leiden University [11,21,29,30]. The value of nitrous oxide (N 2 O) in Column 2 of Table 3 was calculated using Tier 1-Equation 4.10, sub section 4.3.2.1 of 2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Wetlands [31].…”

Section: Life Cycle Inventory (Lci)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Life Cycle Assessment of Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) Farming in Kenyir Lake, Terengganu

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study presents results from a life cycle assessment (LCA) conducted following the CML-IA method on caged aquaculture of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) species at Como River, Kenyir Lake, Terengganu, Malaysia. In this study, the greenhouse gas (GHG) estimation, calculated based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2006 Guidelines, showed that 245.27 C eq (1.69 Kg) of nitrate oxide (N 2 O) was emitted from the lake. The determination of LCA was conducted using several inputs, namely N 2 O, compositions of fish feed, materials used to build fish cages (infrastructure), main materials used during operation and several databases, namely Agri-footprint, Ecoinvent 3, European Reference Life-Cycle Database (ELCD), and Industry Data 2.0. The results show that feed formulation is the major contributor to potential environmental impact in aquaculture farming, at 55%, followed by infrastructure at 33% and operation at 12%. The feed formulation consisting of 53% broken rice contributed to marine ecotoxicity (MET), while those consisting of 44% fish meal and 33% soybean meal contributed to abiotic depletion (ABD) and global warming (GW), respectively. It is recommended that the percentage of ingredients used in feed formulation in fish farming are further studied to reduce its impacts to the environment.

show abstract

“…; Pahri et al . ; Soliman & Yacout ; Cashion et al . ) or, when of a broader scope, have only considered a limited number of LCA studies, and/or only studies published until 2013 (Henriksson et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle assessments of aquaculture systems: a critical review of reported findings with recommendations for policy and system development

Bohnes

Hauschild

Schlundt

2018

Reviews in Aquaculture

127

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The aquaculture sector is anticipated to be a keystone in food production systems in the coming decades. However, it is associated with potentially important environmental damages caused by its contribution to eutrophication or climate change, for example. To comprehensively quantify those impacts, life cycle assessment (LCA) studies have been conducted on several seafood farming systems for the past 15 years. But, what major findings and common trends can we draw from this pool of studies? What can we learn to provide recommendations to decision and policymakers in the aquaculture sector? To address these questions, we performed a critical review of 65 LCA studies of aquaculture systems from the open literature. We conducted quantitative analyses to explore which impacts can be identified as dominating and to compare different types of aquaculture systems. Our results evidenced that the feed production is a key driver for climate change, acidification, cumulative energy use and net primary production use, while the farming process is a key driver for eutrophication. We also found that different aquaculture systems and technology components may exert considerably different environmental impacts. Based on identified patterns and comparisons, we therefore provided specific recommendations to aquaculture stakeholders for future policy and system development. Overall, the analysis of existing studies demonstrates that important insights can be gained by applying LCA to aquaculture systems, and, to move towards an environmentally sustainable aquaculture sector, we recommend its systematic use in the design of new aquaculture systems or policies, and/or in the evaluation and optimization of existing ones.

show abstract

LCA for open systems: a review of the influence of natural and anthropogenic factors on aquaculture systems

Cited by 17 publications

References 44 publications

Comparing Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Salmonid Aquaculture Production Systems: Status and Perspectives

Comparing Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Salmonid Aquaculture Production Systems: Status and Perspectives

Life Cycle Assessment of Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) Farming in Kenyir Lake, Terengganu

Life cycle assessments of aquaculture systems: a critical review of reported findings with recommendations for policy and system development

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About