Modelling the response of terrestrial ecosystems to acidification and desiccation scenarios

J of Industrial Ecology

Schöpp

Verkuijlen

et al. 2000

Simple models are often used to assess the potential impact of acidifying and eutrophying substances released during the life cycle of products. As fate, background depositions, and ecosystem sensitivity are not included in these models, environmental life‐cycle assessment of products (LCA) may produce incorrect results for these impact categories. This paper outlines the spatially explicit regional air pollution information and simulation model (RAINSLCA), which was developed for the calculation of acidification and terrestrial eutrophication potentials of ammonia (NH3) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) air emissions and acidification potentials for sulfur dioxide (SO2) air emissions for Europe and a number of European regions, taking fate,

Section: Uncertaintymentioning

confidence: 90%

Spatially Explicit Characterization of Acidifying and Eutrophying Air Pollution in Life‐Cycle Assessment

J of Industrial Ecology

Schöpp

Verkuijlen

et al. 2000

“…Applied emissions are listed in the Supporting Information. The simulation model for acidification's regional trends, version 2 (SMART2, ( − )) was used to numerically determine ΔBS j /ΔDEP j . Emission increments of 1, 5, and 10% from the reference year 2000 were used to check for linearity in this range.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time Horizon Dependent Characterization Factors for Acidification in Life-Cycle Assessment Based on Forest Plant Species Occurrence in Europe

Zelm

Jaarsveld

et al. 2007

Environ. Sci. Technol.

This paper describes a new approach in life-cycle impact assessment to derive characterization factors for acidification in European forests. Time horizon dependent characterization factors for acidification were calculated, whereas before only steady-state factors were available. The characterization factors indicate the change in the potential occurrence of plant species due to a change in emission, and they consist of a fate and an effect factor. The fate factor combines the results of an atmospheric deposition model and a dynamic soil acidification model. The change in base saturation in soil due to an atmospheric emission change was derived for 20, 50, 100, and 500 year time horizons. The effect factor was based on a dose-response curve of the potential occurrence of plant species, derived from multiple regression equations per plant species. The results showed that characterization factors for acidification increase up to a factor of 13 from a 20 years to a 500 years time horizon. Characterization factors for ammonia are 4.0-4.3 times greater than those for nitrogen oxides (NO(x)), and characterization factors for sulfur dioxide are 1.4-2.0 times greater than those for NO(x). Aggregation of damage due to acidification with other impact categories on the European scale becomes feasible with the applied approach.

“…Another important limition of RAINS-LCA is that critical loads are used to construct the relationship between emissions and damages which goes far beyond the current critical load concept. A more suitable indicator may be based on the probability of species occurrence as a function of pH and nitrogen (N) availibility (Kros et al, 1995;Latour et al, 1994). Unfortunately, this information is currently only available for the Netherlands which makes it unsuitable for application in RAINS-LCA.…”

Section: Uncertaintymentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncertainty and variability in environmental life-cycle assessment

2002

Int J LCA

General introductionIncreased rates of resource depletion, land use, solid waste generation and emissions of pollutants became issues of broad public concern in the beginning of the seventies (Meadows et al., 1972). Unfortunately, most of these problems are still with us today, and some of them have increased substantially (World Resources Institute, 1996). One way to decrease the environmental pressure of human activities is the environmentally improvement of production processes (Reijnders, 1996). In this respect, an important question to be answered is 'how exactly can we measure the environmentally improvement of production processes?' Environmental life-cycle assessment (LCA) aims to answer that question. The first section of this chapter provides an overview of the LCA framework. Although the framework itself is well-established, the application of the framework is in many aspects problematic. A brief overview of the problems associated with the actual implementation of the framework is described in second paragraph. Finally, the aim and the structure of the present thesis is outlined in the third paragraph. § 1.1 Environmental life cycle assessment Environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool for the assessment of the environmental impact of product systems (Heijungs et al. 1992). It considers the full life cycle of a product from resource extraction to waste disposal. LCA is generally divided into four phases: goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation (Figure 1.1; ISO, 1997a).In the goal and scope definition, the aim and the subject of an LCA study are determined and a 'functional unit' is defined. An example of a functional unit is 'the consumption of 100 kg apples' with, for instance, the aim to compare the environmental impacts of different agricultural production processes of apples. In the inventory analysis, for each of the product systems considered data are gathered for all the relevant processes involved in the life cycle. A product system can be considered as a combination of processes needed for the functioning of a product or service. The outcome of the inventory analysis is a list of all extractions of resources and emissions of substances caused by the functional unit for every product system considered, generally disregarding place and time of the extractions and releases. The matrix method can be used to perform the inventory analysis (Heijungs, 1996(Heijungs, , 1997 where i is the vector of environmental interventions, H is the environmental intervention matrix, representing the extractions of resources and emissions of substances per unit process, G is the technology matrix representing the inter-process flows needed for the functioning of the product system, and u is the external supply vector, related to the functional unit. Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) aims to improve the understanding of the inventory result. Firstly, it is determined which extractions and emissions contribute to which impact categories. An impact category can...