The Economics of Fruit and Vegetable Production Irrigated with Reclaimed Water Incorporating the Hidden Costs of Life Cycle Environmental Impacts

Abstract

The estimation and quantification of external environmental costs (hidden costs) are crucial to sustainability assessments of treated wastewater reuse projects. These costs, however, are rarely considered in economic analysis studies. In this work, monetized life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) were combined into a hybrid model to calculate cradle-to-farm gate external environmental costs (EEC) and internal costs (IC) of producing 1 t of plant-based product irrigated with reclaimed water in a Mediterranean context. The total cost was calculated by combining monetized LCA and LCC results. The results for the crops under consideration were 119.4 €/t for tomatoes, 344.4 €/t for table grapes, and 557 €/t for artichokes. Our findings show that there are significant hidden costs at the farm level, with EEC accounting for 57%, 23%, and 38% of the total cost of tomatoes, table grapes, and artichokes, respectively. Electricity use for water treatment and fertilization generated most of the EEC driven by the global warming, particulate matter, acidification, and fossil resource scarcity impact categories. When compared to groundwater, the higher internal costs of reclaimed water were offset by lower external costs, particularly when supported by low-energy wastewater treatment. This demonstrates that incorporating EEC into economic analyses might generate a better understanding of the profitability of treated wastewater reuse in crop production. In Italy and the Mediterranean region, research on the sustainability of water reuse in irrigation through life cycle thinking is still limited. Using a multi-metric approach, our analysis brought new insights into both economic and environmental performance – and their tradeoff relationships in wastewater reuse for irrigation of agricultural crops. In future research, it would be of interest to use different monetization methods as well as to investigate social externalities to explore their size and role in the total external costs.

Eco-Environmental Analysis of Different Routes for the Synthesis of MIL-53(Fe): An Integrated Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Cost Approaches

“…It is imperative to determine the external environmental costs (sometimes referred to as “hidden costs”) of MIL-53­(Fe) synthesis as part of economic feasibility studies. Despite the fact that internal impacts can be easily translated into monetary units, external effects must be quantified using economic valuation methods since the market does not take these effects into account . To calculate the external cost, the LCA indicators were monetized using LCA-based conversion factors from Ponsioen et al…”

“…Despite the fact that internal impacts can be easily translated into monetary units, external effects must be quantified using economic valuation methods since the market does not take these effects into account. 62 To calculate the external cost, the LCA indicators were monetized using LCA-based conversion factors from Ponsioen et al 63 For the purposes of this study, the data is analyzed and calculated using an Excel 2019 spreadsheet. Moreover, the LCA study was performed using SimaPro 9.4.0 software.…”

Can Precise Irrigation Support the Sustainability of Protected Cultivation? A Life-Cycle Assessment and Life-Cycle Cost Analysis

“…The consideration of external costs is one way of addressing trade-offs between environmental dimensions with purely economic ones. The ReCiPe 2016 was monetized using LCA-based conversion factors used previously by Canaj et al [33]. The net present value of costs for DSS and sensor were calculated over a 5-year lifetime considering an internal rate of return of about 10%.…”

Environmental and Economic Performance of Greenhouse Cropping in the Mediterranean Basin: Lessons Learnt from a Cross-Country Comparison

“…LCA and LCC (ISO 15686-5:2017) are widely used in the scientific literature, individually or together, to assess the overall sustainability of an agricultural practice or product. The two methods have been used together in different situations, such as evaluating the profitability of a bell pepper greenhouse using desalinized water for irrigation and nematode-resistant plants in Spain [10], evaluating the impacts of two different smart irrigation systems versus traditional irrigation in zucchini cultivation [11], and comparing the performance of five different crops raised in northern Italy [12]. This combination of LCA and LCC is also used for comparing different production systems [13] or systems under different climatic conditions [14].…”