Site‐Dependent Life‐Cycle Impact Assessment of Acidification

Potting, José; Schöpp, Wolfgang; Blok, Kornelis; Hauschild, Michael Zwicky

doi:10.1162/jiec.1998.2.2.63

Cited by 132 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…For instance, the fate of substances and the sensitivity of the receiving environment are not taken into account in the computation of acidification and nutrification factors (Nichols et al, 1996). With the help of multi media modelling, fate of substances and the sensitivity of the environment could be taken into account in the computation of acidification and nutrification factors (Wegener Sleeswijk and Heijungs, 1996;Potting et al, 1997), reducing model uncertainty in the impact assessment. When a model suffers from large model uncertainties, the results of a parameter uncertainty analysis may be misleading.…”

Section: Model Uncertaintymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, detailed environmental information, such as physico-chemical properties, ecological properties and background concentrations is needed to compute site-dependent classification factors. Although this kind of information is available to compute country-specific acidification, eutrophication and photochemical ozone creation factors in Europe (Potting et al, 1997), such detailed information may be lacking for other continents. In addition, detailed information relevant for other impact categories, such as human toxicity and ecotoxocity, may not be available.…”

Section: Spatial Variabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These models introduce major uncertainty in LCAs due to the fact that fate, background depositions, and ecosystem sensitivity are not included in the computation of the impact factors. Recently, Potting et al (1998) incorporated fate, background depositions and ecosystem senstivity in the computation of acidification potentials by using the RAINS (Regional Air pollution INformation and Simulation) model ). The marginal change in the area…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to the above-mentioned analysis of uncertainty and variability in product assessments, other structural developments are necessary. The following developments focus on more general aspects in LCAs, such as (1) the reduction of model uncertainties in the inventory analysis through use of non-linear, suggested by Wrisberg et al (1997); (2) the reduction of model uncertainty in the characterisation phase, through use of multi-media modelling (Guinée et al, 1996a;Wegener Sleeswijk and Heijungs, 1996); (3) the operationalisation of parameter uncertainty and, if applicable, variability between objects in the environmental models which are used to compute characterisation factors; (4) the standardisation of the weighting procedure to guide uncertainty due to choices (Lindeijer, 1996); and (5) the operationalisation of spatial variability in inventories and characterisation factors (Potting et al, 1997). Co-operation with specialists of other scientific disciplines will facilitate the implementation of these improvement options.…”

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Uncertainty and variability in environmental life-cycle assessment

Huijbregts

2002

Int J LCA

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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...

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Section: Model Uncertaintymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Spatial Variabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Uncertainty and variability in environmental life-cycle assessment

Huijbregts

2002

Int J LCA

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“…Exposure modeling can thus be differentiated at this level by developing site-dependent characterization factors that are based on the country or region of emission and on the substance's properties. For example, variations in acidification impact can be as high as three orders of magnitude among different European countries (27), so even spatial differentiation at the level of countries represents a real improvement. Several groups have developed site-dependent characterization for LCIA (28,29).…”

Section: Impact Profiles For Two Refrigerator Designsmentioning

confidence: 99%