Development of Crop.LCA, an adaptable screening life cycle assessment tool for agricultural systems: a Canadian scenario assessment

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dc.contributor.authorGoglio, Pietro
dc.contributor.authorSmith, Ward N.
dc.contributor.authorWorth, Devon E.
dc.contributor.authorGrant, Brian B.
dc.contributor.authorDesjardins, Raymond L.
dc.contributor.authorChen, Wen
dc.contributor.authorTenuta, Mario
dc.contributor.authorMcConkey, Brian G.
dc.contributor.authorWilliams, Adrian
dc.contributor.authorBurgess, Paul
dc.date.accessioned2017-06-29T09:00:26Z
dc.date.available2017-06-29T09:00:26Z
dc.date.issued2017-06-22
dc.description.abstractThere is an increasing demand for sustainable agricultural production as part of the transition towards a globally sustainable economy. To quantify impacts of agricultural systems on the environment, life cycle assessment (LCA) is ideal because of its holistic approach. Many tools have been developed to conduct LCAs in agriculture, but they are not publicly available, not open-source, and have a limited scope. Here, a new adaptable open-source tool (Crop.LCA) for carrying out LCA of cropping systems is presented and tested in an evaluation study with a scenario assessment of 4 cropping systems using an agroecosystem model (DNDC) to predict soil GHG emissions. The functional units used are hectares (ha) of land and gigajoules (GJ) of harvested energy output, and 4 impact categories were evaluated: cumulative energy demand (CED), 100-year global warming potential (GWP), eutrophication and acidification potential. DNDC was used to simulate 28 years of cropping system dynamics, and the results were used as input in Crop.LCA. Data were aggregated for each 4-year rotation and statistically analyzed. Introduction of legumes into the cropping system reduced CED by 6%, GWP by 23%, and acidification by 19% per ha. These results highlight the ability of Crop.LCA to capture cropping system characteristics in LCA, and the tool constitutes a step forward in increasing the accuracy of LCA of cropping systems as required for bio-economy system assessments. Furthermore, the tool is open-source, highly transparent and has the necessary flexibility to assess agricultural systems.en_UK
dc.identifier.citationPietro Goglio, Ward N. Smith, Devon E. Worth, et al., Development of Crop.LCA, an adaptable screening life cycle assessment tool for agricultural systems: A Canadian scenario assessment, Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 172, 20 January 2018, pp. 3770-3780en_UK
dc.identifier.issn0959-6526
dc.identifier.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.06.175
dc.identifier.urihttp://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/12122
dc.language.isoenen_UK
dc.publisherElsevieren_UK
dc.rightsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subjectLCAen_UK
dc.subjectCropping systemsen_UK
dc.subjectToolen_UK
dc.subjectScenario assessmenten_UK
dc.subjectAgricultureen_UK
dc.subjectOpen-sourceen_UK
dc.titleDevelopment of Crop.LCA, an adaptable screening life cycle assessment tool for agricultural systems: a Canadian scenario assessmenten_UK
dc.typeArticleen_UK

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