Water footprint of livestock: comparison of six geographically defined beef production systems

Ridoutt, Bradley G.; Sanguansri, Peerasak; Freer, M.; Harper, Gregory S.

doi:10.1007/s11367-011-0346-y

Cited by 100 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 24 publications

(31 reference statements)

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“…With a similar order to that found in the present study (95 and 217 l/kg LWG), the analysis of six systems for meat production in New South Wales, Australia, by Ridoutt et al (2012) revealed different values of water consumption (3.3e221 l/kg LWG). Thus, these authors state that the meat production in the pasture has no significant impact on water use, suggesting that the supposed contribution of livestock production to the water scarcity worldwide is unfounded.…”

Section: Resource Depletionssupporting

confidence: 85%

Life cycle assessment of beef cattle production in two typical grassland systems of southern Brazil

Dick

Silva

Dewes

2015

Journal of Cleaner Production

118

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a b s t r a c tThe importance of animal production in the overall context of human activity is undisputed and influences food supply, job security, income producing, as well as landscape and local ecosystems conservation. This relevance enhances the charges by society as the environmental impacts of various activities, especially in relation to ruminant production amid the current problems of climate changes. In this context, we analyzed the main environmental impacts of two typical beef cattle production systems from southern Brazil, namely the extensive system (ES) and the improved system (IS), and identified the components that have the greatest environmental impacts using the life cycle assessment method. The basis of the system construction was a cattle herd that originated from 100 weaned heifers, four weaned calves, and the progeny of these cattle during their productive life (12 years), and the land areas, external inputs, and other natural resources and technologies necessary to the operations. The functional unit was the production of 1 kg of live weight. The values of greenhouse gas emissions, land use, and freshwater depletion in the ES were higher compared with those values obtained for the IS (22.52 and 9.16 kg CO 2 equivalents; 234.78 and 21.03 m 2 a; and 0.217 and 0.0949 m 3 , respectively). These variations were attributed to the permanence time of the animals in each system and to the quality and production of the pastures. The ES presented lower potential impacts than the IS on metal depletion and soil acidification (0.000519 and 0.0536 kg Fe equivalents; and 0.0028 and 0.0038 kg SO 2 equivalents, respectively) mainly due to the pasture improvement practices and the salt supply to the animals. Moreover, the values of freshwater eutrophication and fossil depletion were higher in the ES than in the IS (0.00383 and 0.00219 kg P equivalents and 0.0042 and À0.1255 kg oil equivalents, respectively). While the pasture nutrient loss from runoff and leaching defined the values of eutrophication, the introduction of legumes compensates the use of fossil fuels. The diversity of the results provides a better understanding of the environmental impacts of different production systems and of regional singularities.

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Section: Resource Depletionssupporting

confidence: 85%

Life cycle assessment of beef cattle production in two typical grassland systems of southern Brazil

Dick

Silva

Dewes

2015

Journal of Cleaner Production

118

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“…With water footprinting, geographical definition of water use is critical because of the variation in local water stress and therefore variation in the environmental impacts of water use. It was found that the water footprint varied substantially, from 3.3 to 221 L H 2 Oe (equivalent; [18]) per kg live weight at farm gate [16]. These results can be compared to other published results; for example, fresh milk produced in a low water stress region of Victoria, Australia (1.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 69%

“…The agriculture and food sectors are highlighted because they account for around 70% of global freshwater withdrawals [10] and are a major source of emissions responsible for freshwater quality degradation. This has led to the emergence of product water footprints as another stand-alone LCA-based environmental indicator [11], used especially in relation to food products [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19], bio-fuels [20][21][22] and other water-intensive industry sectors such as electricity generation [23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In earlier work we calculated the water footprint for six geographically-defined beef cattle production systems in southern Australia [16] using the Water Stress Index of Pfister et al [24] following the LCA-based water footprint method of Ridoutt and Pfister [18]. With water footprinting, geographical definition of water use is critical because of the variation in local water stress and therefore variation in the environmental impacts of water use.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Comparing Carbon and Water Footprints for Beef Cattle Production in Southern Australia

2011

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Stand-alone environmental indicators based on life cycle assessment (LCA), such as the carbon footprint and water footprint, are becoming increasingly popular as a means of directing sustainable production and consumption. However, individually, these metrics violate the principle of LCA known as comprehensiveness and do not necessarily provide an indication of overall environmental impact. In this study, the carbon footprints for six diverse beef cattle production systems in southern Australia were calculated and found to range from 10.1 to 12.7 kg CO 2 e kg −1 live weight (cradle to farm gate). This compared to water footprints, which ranged from 3.3 to 221 L H 2 Oe kg −1 live weight. For these systems, the life cycle impacts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and water use were subsequently modelled using endpoint indicators and aggregated to enable comparison. In all cases, impacts from GHG emissions were most important, representing 93 to 99% of the combined scores. As such, the industry's existing priority of GHG emissions reduction is affirmed. In an attempt to balance the demands of comprehensiveness and simplicity, to achieve reliable public reporting of the environmental impacts of a large number of products across the economy, a multi-indicator approach based on combined midpoint and endpoint life cycle impact assessment modelling is proposed. For agri-food OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2011, 3 2444 products, impacts from land use should also be included as tradeoffs between GHG emissions, water use and land use are common.

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“…Several studies have calculated the water footprint of a wide variety of agricultural products such as cotton (Chapagain et al, 2006), rice , wheat (Mekonnen & Hoekstra, 2010), mango fruit (Ridoutt et al, 2010), tea and coffee (Chapagain & Hoekstra, 2007), meat and derivates (Ridoutt et al, 2012), olives and olive oil (Salmoral et al, 2011) and fresh tomatoes (Page et al, 2011). Most of these studies have estimated the volume of grey water for fertilizers, especially nitrogen and phosphorus, ignoring the potential contamination by applied pesticides, resulting in an underestimation of the volume of grey water.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A mathematical model to estimate the volume of grey water of pesticide mixtures

Paraíba

Pazianotto

Luiz

et al. 2014

Span. j. agric. res.

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The usual method to calculate grey water footprint does not take into account the volume of water required to dilute concentrations of pesticide mixtures in freshwater and it also depends on maximum concentration limit acceptable in water. We propose a model to estimate the grey water footprint of crops by calculating the volume of water necessary to dilute pesticide mixtures reaching freshwaters. The model requires short-term toxicity data from aquatic organisms based on EC50 values, soil pesticide half-life and soil sorption coefficient values, and does not require maximum concentration limit acceptable in water. The lixiviation rate and runoff rate of each pesticide was estimated by attenuation factor and by Soilfug model, respectively. The usefulness of the proposed model was illustrated by estimating the volume of grey water required to dilute the 17 most widely used herbicides in sugarcane crops of Brazil. The grey water footprint corresponding to the recommended agronomic dose for each herbicide varied between 4.20×106 m3 yr-1 and 1.20×1012 m3 yr-1 and the grey water footprint of the mixture of herbicides was 2.36×1012 m3 yr-1 in a cultivated area of 8.4×106 ha. These results establish the ranking position of each herbicide in the composition of the grey water footprint of mixture of herbicides. The rank of each herbicide could be used to create a label to be placed on the package of the pesticide, thus informing farmers about the volume of grey water per hectare due to the use of this herbicide.

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Water footprint of livestock: comparison of six geographically defined beef production systems

Cited by 100 publications

References 24 publications

Life cycle assessment of beef cattle production in two typical grassland systems of southern Brazil

Life cycle assessment of beef cattle production in two typical grassland systems of southern Brazil

Comparing Carbon and Water Footprints for Beef Cattle Production in Southern Australia

A mathematical model to estimate the volume of grey water of pesticide mixtures

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