Predicted environmental impact and expected occurrence of

The necessity of the impact assessment phase in life-cycle assessment (LCA) is presently debated. The crux of the debate lies in the poor accordance in some I.CA studies between the predicted environmental impact and the expected occurrence of actual environmental impact. That is in particular the case for impacts of a continental, regional and local character. We consider an impact assessment as being an indispensable phase of LCA, and see options for solving the identified problem. This article takes a closer look into the nature of the assessed impact in LCA in order to provide the basis for enhancement of life-cycle impact assessment. LCA is one of the analytical tools to support environmental policy focused on the control of present environmental problems. Nowadays, environmental problems are caused by concentration levels that result from the emissions of many sources together, rather than from single sources alone. The contribution from a single source is usually small or even marginal in comparison with the total contribution from all sources together. The multiple source character of the related impact categories provides the justification for the linear nature of the assessed impact in LCA. An article in the next issue of this journal will build further on this article, and will discuss the inclusion of temporal and spatial aspects (by a site-dependent approach) in order to enhance the accordance between the predicted environmental impact and the expected occurrence of actual environmental impact.     

Spatially differentiated midpoint indicator for marine eutrophication of waterborne emissions in Sweden

Purpose

In life cycle assessment (LCA), eutrophication is commonly assessed using site-generic characterisation factors, despite being a site-dependent environmental impact. The purpose of this study was to improve the environmental relevance of marine eutrophication impact assessment in LCA, particularly regarding the impact assessment of waterborne nutrient emissions from Swedish agriculture.

Methods

Characterisation factors were derived using site-dependent data on nutrient transport for all agricultural soils in Sweden, divided into 968 catchment areas, and considering the Baltic Sea, the receiving marine compartment, as both nitrogen- and phosphorus-limited. These new characterisation factors were then applied to waterborne nutrient emissions from typical grass ley and spring barley cultivation in all catchments.

Results and discussion

The site-dependent marine eutrophication characterisation factors obtained for nutrient leaching from soils varied between 0.056 and 0.986 kg N_eq/kg N and between 0 and 7.23 kg N_eq/kg P among sites in Sweden. On applying the new characterisation factors to spring barley and grass ley cultivation at different sites in Sweden, the total marine eutrophication impact from waterborne nutrient emissions for these crops varied by up to two orders of magnitude between sites. This variation shows that site plays an important role in determining the actual impact of an emission, which means that site-dependent impact assessment could provide valuable information to life cycle assessments and increase the relevance of LCA as a tool for assessment of product-related eutrophication impacts.

Conclusions

Characterisation factors for marine eutrophication impact assessment at high spatial resolution, considering both the site-dependent fate of eutrophying compounds and specific nutrient limitations in the recipient waterbody, were developed for waterborne nutrient emissions from agriculture in Sweden. Application of the characterisation factors revealed variations in calculated impacts between sites in Sweden, highlighting the importance of spatial differentiation of characterisation modelling within the scale of the impact.

     

“Less is better” and “only above threshold”: Two incompatible paradigms for human toxicity in life cycle assessment?

The absence of spatial and temporal information in the data from a typical Life Cycle Inventory puts constraints on the possibilities of subsequent Life Cycle Impact Assessment to predict actual impact. Usual methods for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (often referred to as “less is better” methods) make only limited use of spatial and temporal information, because they predict concentration increases rather than full concentrations. As a consequence it does not seem possible to evaluate whether a threshold value is surpassed. The resulting poor accordance between the predicted impact and the expected occurrence of actual impact is a major problem. This problem is particularly relevant for human toxicity assessment, since the probability of surpassing thresholds here traditionally is the main point of attention. A considerable group of practitioners suggests to follow an “only above threshold” principle by introduction of assessment tools from risk assessment and environmental impact assessment in LCA. Intensive debate is going on about possibilities and limitations of “less is better” and “only above threshold”. The debate is obscured by two underlying discussions (about no-effect-levels and about data-availability) that are partly, but not fully intertwined. Both principles tend to be given fixed positions in these discussions, and are therefore often put forward as fundamentally different and incompatible with each other. This article entwines the discussions, shows parallels between both principles, and uses these parallels to present a new method for Life Cycle Impact Assessment of human toxicity from air emissions that — with limited data requirement from Life Cycle Inventory — can take as well threshold evaluation and spatial source-differentiation into account.     

Site-dependent Life-Cycle Impact Assessment in Sweden (5 pp)

Goal, Scope and Background Although LCA is traditionally a site-independent tool, there is currently a trend towards making LCA more site-dependent if not site-specific. For Europe, site-dependent impact factors have been calculated on a country basis for acidification, terrestrial eutrophication and toxicological impacts. It is, however, an open question whether this is the optimum level for site-dependent factors. The aim of this paper is to develop site-dependent characterisation factors for different parts of Sweden for air emissions of NOx, SOx and particulates regarding ecosystem and human health impacts. Based on experiences from a case-study, the usability of the site-dependent factors for LCA are discussed, as well as the appropriate level of site-dependency for ecosystem and human health impacts. Method logy. The Ecosense model is used for calculating site-dependent factors for some atmospheric pollutants. Characterisation factors are calculated for four different places in Sweden with two different stack heights. Results and Conclusions The characterisation factors for ecosystem impacts show fairly small differences between different parts of Sweden (within a factor of two). For health impacts, the differences between different parts of the country were larger and more significant (up to one order of magnitude). Also the difference between low and high stack heights may be relevant, especially in densely populated areas. These results suggest that for ecosystems, site-dependent characterisation factors for the considered atmospheric pollutants on a country level may be sufficient for most applications. However, for health impacts, site-dependent factors on a country level may be inappropriate. Beside LCA, the calculated factors and the methodology used should also be useful for other environmental system analysis tools, such as Strategic Environmental Assessment, Cost-Benefit Analysis and Environmental Management Systems.     

Life-Cycle Assessment: Constraints on Moving from Inventory to Impact Assessment

Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a technique for systematically analyzing a product from cradle-to-grave, that is, from resource extraction through manufacture and use to disposal. LCA is a mixed or hybrid analytical system. An inventory phase analyzes system inputs of energy and materials along with outputs of emissions and wastes throughout life cycle, usually as quantitative mass loadings. An impact assessment phase then examines these loadings in light of potential environmental issues using a mixed spectrum of qualitative and quantitative methods. The constraints imposed by inventory's loss of spatial, temporal, dose-response, and threshold information raise concerns about the accuracy of impact assessment. The degree of constraint varies widely according to the environmental issue in question and models used to extrapolate the inventory data. LCA results may have limited value in two areas: (I) local and/ortransient biophysical processes and (2) issues involving biological parameters, such as biodiversity, habitat alteration, and toxicity. The end result is that impact assessment does not measure actual effects or impacts, nor does it calculate the likelihood of an effect or risk Rather, LCA impact assessment results are largely directional environmental indicaton. The accuracy and usefulness of indicators need to be assessed individually and in a circumstance-specific manner prior to decision making. This limits LCAs usefulness as the sole basis for comprehensive assessments and the comparisons of alternatives. In conclusion, LCA may identify potential issues from a systemwide perspective, but more-focused assessments using other analytical techniques are often necessary to resolve the issues.     

Development of regional characterization factors for aquatic eutrophication

Background, aim, and scope  

Life cycle assessment (LCA) has traditionally been considered a site-independent tool, but nowadays, there is a trend towards making LCA more site-dependent. Site-dependent characterization factors have been calculated for regional impact categories such as acidification, terrestrial and aquatic eutrophication, and smog. Specifically, for aquatic eutrophication, characterization factors have been proposed for large geographical areas (mainly European and North American countries). Those factors are not detailed enough for countries which present large geographical, climatic, and economical variability such as Spain. Therefore, this work aims to calculate the characterization factors and the normalization reference for aquatic eutrophication at a regional level, using Galicia (NW Spain), a region with increasing problems of eutrophication, as a case study. Finally, the comparison of the factors obtained here with literature values will be used to analyze the influence of spatial differentiation with increasing coverage of the causality chain.     

Assessment of ecological sustainability of a building subjected to potential seismic events during its lifetime

Purpose

Sustainable development aims to enhance the quality of life by improving the social, economic and environmental conditions for present and future generations. A sustainable engineering decision-making strategy for design and assessment of construction works (i.e., civil engineering and buildings) should take into account considerations regarding the society, the economy and the environment. This study presents a novel approach for the life cycle assessment (LCA) of a case-study building subjected to seismic actions during its service life, accounting for structural reliability.

Methods

A methodology is presented that evaluates the time-dependent probability of exceeding a limit state considering the uncertainty in the representation of seismic action. By employing this methodology, the earthquake-induced damages are related to the environmental and social losses caused by the occurrence of the earthquake. A LCA of a case-study building accounting for the time-dependent seismic reliability is conducted using a damage-oriented LCA approach.

Results and discussion

The contributions of the different life cycle phases to the total environmental impact related to the building lifetime are in agreement with previous results in this field of study. However, the LCA results revealed significant risk-based contributions for the rehabilitation phase due to the induced damage resulting in seismic events. Particularly, the rehabilitation phase is expected to contribute to the total environmental impact with around the 25 % of the initial environmental impact load (related to the pre-use phase) as a consequence of seismic damage.

Conclusions and recommendations

The probability of occurrence of seismic events affects the LCA results for various life cycle phases of a building in terms of all the indicators adopted in the analysis. The time-dependent probability of collapse in a year can represent a benchmark indicator for human safety in the context of social sustainability for the building sector. The proposed approach can be implemented in a sustainable decision-making tool for design and assessment.     

Feasibility of Applying Site-dependent Impact Assessment of Acidification in LCA (8 pp)

Goal, Scope and Background Taking into account the location of emissions and its subsequent, site-dependent impacts improves the accuracy of LCIA. Opponents of site-dependent impact assessment argue that it is too time-consuming to collect the required additional inventory data. In this paper we quantify this time and look into the added value of site-dependent LCIA results. Methods We recalculated the acidifying impact for three existing LCA studies: linoleum, stone wool, and water piping systems. The amount of time needed to collect the required additional data is reported. The EDIP2003 methodology provides site-generic and site-dependent acidification factors. We used these factors to recalculate acidification for the case studies. We analyzed differences between site-generic and site-dependent acidification and reported problems experienced. Results and Discussion Finding the location of processes and emissions was easy. The reports of the three case studies contained most of this information. Far more time was needed to disaggregate processes to the level where emissions can be localized. Although the overall conclusions with regard to acidification did not change in the case studies, the relative importance of processes shifted when considering sub-levels. This is especially important for improvement analysis. Site-dependent acidification assessment was hampered in the linoleum case study where about 40% of the acidification originates from non-European emissions. However, EDIP2003 provides no site-dependent factors for these countries and site-generic factors had to be used instead. Thus, calculating site-dependent acidification is only feasible for LCA studies in which the majority of the emissions originate in Europe. We could not reproduce all parts of the three case studies using the report and additional public resources. This hindered our recalculation. In fact, any additional analysis will be hampered by this lack of reproducibility. ISO recommends such reproducibility for comparative assertion disclosed to the public. Conclusion Spatially differentiated acidification is feasible for each of the three case studies. Finding the location of processes and emissions was easy, but quite some time was needed to disaggregate processes and emissions to the appropriate level. Overall conclusions on acidification remained the same for the case studies, but the relative contribution of basic processes changed when applying site-dependent impact assessment. Though the three case studies were all rather detailed and complete, none of them was fully reproducible. This complicated recalculation of acidification, and will in fact make any additional analysis difficult.     

Exergy-based accounting for land as a natural resource in life cycle assessment

Purpose

In life cycle assessment (LCA), literature suggests accounting for land as a resource either by what it delivers (e.g., biomass content) or the time and space needed to produce biomass (land occupation), in order to avoid double-counting. This paper proposes and implements a new framework to calculate exergy-based spatial explicit characterization factors (CF) for land as a resource, which deals with both biomass and area occupied on the global scale.

Methods

We created a schematic overview of the Earth, dividing it into two systems (human-made and natural), making it possible to account for what is actually extracted from nature, i.e., the biomass content was set as the elementary flow to be accounted at natural systems and the land occupation (through the potential natural net primary production) was set as the elementary flow at human-made systems. Through exergy, we were able to create CF for land resources for these two different systems. The relevancy of the new CF was tested for a number of biobased products.

Results and discussion

Site-generic CF were created for land as a resource for natural systems providing goods to humans, and site-generic and site-dependent CF (at grid, region, country, and continent level) were created for land as a resource within human-made systems. This framework differed from other methods in the sense of accounting for both land occupation and biomass content but without double-counting. It is set operationally for LCA and able to account for land resources with more completeness, allowing spatial differentiation. When site-dependent CF were considered for land resources, the overall resource consumption of certain products increased up to 77 % in comparison with site-generic CF-based data.

Conclusions

This paper clearly distinguished the origin of the resource (natural or human-made systems), allowing consistent accounting for land as a resource. Site-dependent CF for human-made systems allowed spatial differentiation, which was not considered in other resource accounting life cycle impact assessment methods.     

Dynamic life cycle assessment: framework and application to an institutional building

Purpose

This paper uses a dynamic life cycle assessment (DLCA) approach and illustrates the potential importance of the method using a simplified case study of an institutional building. Previous life cycle assessment (LCA) studies have consistently found that energy consumption in the use phase of a building is dominant in most environmental impact categories. Due to the long life span of buildings and potential for changes in usage patterns over time, a shift toward DLCA has been suggested.

Methods

We define DLCA as an approach to LCA which explicitly incorporates dynamic process modeling in the context of temporal and spatial variations in the surrounding industrial and environmental systems. A simplified mathematical model is used to incorporate dynamic information from the case study building, temporally explicit sources of life cycle inventory data and temporally explicit life cycle impact assessment characterization factors, where available. The DLCA model was evaluated for the historical and projected future environmental impacts of an existing institutional building, with additional scenario development for sensitivity and uncertainty analysis of future impacts.

Results and discussion

Results showed that overall life cycle impacts varied greatly in some categories when compared to static LCA results, generated from the temporal perspective of either the building's initial construction or its recent renovation. From the initial construction perspective, impacts in categories related to criteria air pollutants were reduced by more than 50 % when compared to a static LCA, even though nonrenewable energy use increased by 15 %. Pollution controls were a major reason for these reductions. In the future scenario analysis, the baseline DLCA scenario showed a decrease in all impact categories compared with the static LCA. The outer bounds of the sensitivity analysis varied from slightly higher to strongly lower than the static results, indicating the general robustness of the decline across the scenarios.

Conclusions

These findings support the use of dynamic modeling in life cycle assessment to increase the relevance of results. In some cases, decision making related to building design and operations may be affected by considering the interaction of temporally explicit information in multiple steps of the LCA. The DLCA results suggest that in some cases, changes during a building's lifetime can influence the LCA results to a greater degree than the material and construction phases. Adapting LCA to a more dynamic approach may increase the usefulness of the method in assessing the performance of buildings and other complex systems in the built environment.     

环境影响评价的尺度约束性及技术框架

尺度约束是地表复杂系统的基本规律,环评尺度约束常隐存于主观经验或零存于环评导则中,环评尺度约束较少被明确关注。讨论了环境影响尺度约束、环评尺度约束和环评技术框架尺度约束。研究发现,环境影响的尺度约束性内在原因在于环境影响主体、客体和影响内容存在等级结构;环评受空间、时间和分析三类尺度约束,空间尺度约束体现于空间范围和空间信息分辨率对环评影响,时间尺度约束体现于环评的时长和时频,分析尺度约束表现为环评技术方法和环境影响主观认知水平对评价的影响,三类尺度约束同时贯穿于环评过程,任何环评都可以在三类尺度空间中定位;环评技术框架的关键环节都受空间、时间和分析尺度约束,且以环境影响主体的空间、时间尺度为核心,具有一定弹性,一般空间或时间范围先放大再缩小、分辨率由粗到细。     

A characterization model with spatial and temporal resolution for life cycle impact assessment of photochemical precursors in the United States

Background, aim, and scope  Traditional life cycle impact assessment methodologies have used aggregated characterization factors, neglecting spatial and temporal variations in regional impacts like photochemical oxidant formation. This increases the uncertainty of the LCA results and diminishes the ease of decision-making. This study compares four common impact assessment methods, CML2001, Eco-indicator 99, TRACI, and EDIP2003, on their underlying models, spatial and temporal resolution, and the level at which photochemical oxidant impacts are calculated. A new characterization model is proposed that incorporates spatial and temporal differentiation. Materials and methods  A photochemical air quality modeling system (CAMx-MM5-SMOKE) is used to simulate the process of formation, transformation, transport, and removal of photochemical pollutants. Monthly characterization factors for individual US states are calculated at three levels along the cause–effect chain, namely, fate level, human and ecosystem exposure level, and human effect level. Results and discussion  The results indicate that a spatial variability of one order of magnitude and a temporal variability of two orders of magnitude exist in both the fate level and human exposure and effect level characterization factors for NO_x. The summer time characterization factors for NO_x are higher than the winter time factors. However, for anthropogenic VOC, the summer time factors are lower than the winter time in almost half of the states. This is due to the higher emission rates of biogenic VOCs in the summer. The ecosystem exposure factors for NO_x and VOC do not follow a regular pattern and show a spatial variation of about three orders of magnitude. They do not show strong correlation with the human exposure factors. Sensitivity analysis has shown that the effect of meteorology and emission inputs is limited to a factor of three, which is several times smaller than the variation seen in the factors. Conclusions  Uncertainties are introduced in the characterization of photochemical precursors due to a failure to consider the spatial and temporal variations. Seasonal variations in photochemical activity influence the characterization factors more than the location of emissions. The human and ecosystem exposures occur through different mechanisms, and impacts calculated at the fate level based only on ozone concentration are not a good indicator for ecosystem impacts. Recommendations and perspectives  Spatial and temporal differentiation account for fate and transport of the pollutant, and the exposure of and effect on the sensitive human population or ecosystem. Adequate resolution for seasonal and regional processes, like photochemical oxidant formation, is important to reduce the uncertainty in impact assessment and improve decision-making power. An emphasis on incorporating some form of spatial and temporal information within standard LCI databases and using adequately resolved characterization factors will greatly increase the fidelity of a standard LCA. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Quantifying environmental impacts of primary aluminum ingot production and consumption : A trade‐linked multilevel life cycle assessment

Aluminum is one of the most used metals of modern civilization, but its production is responsible for multiple adverse environmental impacts mostly due to aluminum smelting and alumina refining. Previous life cycle assessments (LCAs) have aggregated alumina refining into a single global process even though refining processes are highly spatially differentiated and alumina is highly traded. Our work improves on existing LCAs of primary aluminum by including temporal and spatial differentiation in alumina refining and aluminum smelting and trade of alumina and primary aluminum ingots. We build country‐level impact factors for primary aluminum ingot production and consumption, with the spatial distributions of environmental impacts, from 2000 to 2017, by combining a trade‐linked multilevel material flow analysis with LCA using six midpoint categories of the ReCiPe method. Climate change impacts of primary aluminum production range from 4.5 to 33.6 kg CO₂ eq./kg. We then estimate the life cycle production‐ and consumption‐based environmental burdens of primary aluminum ingot by country. High spatial variations exist among impact factors of primary aluminum production. Aggregating the alumina refining processes into a single process may cause important deviations on the impact factors of primary aluminum ingot production (up to 38% differences in climate change impacts). Finally, we estimate the climate change impacts of worldwide primary aluminum production at 1.2 Gt CO₂ eq. in 2017 and untangle their spatial origins, localized at 70% in China. Overall, we show the importance of spatial differentiation for highly traded products that rely on highly traded inputs and offer recommendations for LCA practitioners. This article met the requirements for a gold‐gold JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges .     

An integrated approach for environmental assessments

LCA is a system-wide assessment, and the LCIA phase is confronted with the difficulties of local and regional effects in a number of impact categories. We integrate three different environmental techniques to demonstrate how these effects can be addressed in an environmental assessment. The techniques are life cycle inventory, environmental fate models, and an ecological impact assessment using fuzzy expert systems. Results of the LCI are mass and energy flows. In the environmental fate modelling step these mass flows are transformed into concentration and immission values by dispersion-reaction models. A generalised fuzzy expert system for the environmental mechanisms compares calculated exposure with site specific buffering capacities and formulates a generalised dose-response relationship. This generalised fuzzy expert system is used as a template for the assessment of local and regional environmental impacts. An application of this integrated approach is shown for a practical problem: production of magnesium car components. The environmental fate of nitrogen oxides which are released due to the major combustion source within that production system is simulated. Fuzzy expert models for crop damage, soil acidification and eutrophication determine the possible environmental impact of the immited nitrogen oxides. The important methodological extension of this integrated approach is a regionalised impact assessment depending on the spatial distribution of environmental characteristics.     

When the Background Matters: Using Scenarios from Integrated Assessment Models in Prospective Life Cycle Assessment

Prospective life cycle assessment (LCA) needs to deal with the large epistemological uncertainty about the future to support more robust future environmental impact assessments of technologies. This study proposes a novel approach that systematically changes the background processes in a prospective LCA based on scenarios of an integrated assessment model (IAM), the IMAGE model. Consistent worldwide scenarios from IMAGE are evaluated in the life cycle inventory using ecoinvent v3.3. To test the approach, only the electricity sector was changed in a prospective LCA of an internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) and an electric vehicle (EV) using six baseline and mitigation climate scenarios until 2050. This case study shows that changes in the electricity background can be very important for the environmental impacts of EV. Also, the approach demonstrates that the relative environmental performance of EV and ICEV over time is more complex and multifaceted than previously assumed. Uncertainty due to future developments manifests in different impacts depending on the product (EV or ICEV), the impact category, and the scenario and year considered. More robust prospective LCAs can be achieved, particularly for emerging technologies, by expanding this approach to other economic sectors beyond electricity background changes and mobility applications as well as by including uncertainty and changes in foreground parameters. A more systematic and structured composition of future inventory databases driven by IAM scenarios helps to acknowledge epistemological uncertainty and to increase the temporal consistency of foreground and background systems in LCAs of emerging technologies.     

A Decision Support Framework for Sustainable Waste Management

This article describes a decision support framework for the evaluation of scenarios for the integrated management of municipal solid waste within a local government area (LGA).
The work is initially focused on local government (i.e., municipal councils) in the state of Queensland, Australia; however, it is broadly applicable to LGAs anywhere. The goal is to achieve sustainable waste management practices by balancing global and regional environmental impacts, social impacts at the local community level, and economic impacts. The framework integrates life-cycle assessment (LCA) with other environmental, social, and economic tools. For this study, social and economic impacts are assumed to be similar across developed countries of the world. LCA was streamlined at both the life-cycle inventory and life-cycle impact assessment stages.
For this process, spatial resolution is introduced into the LCA process to account for impacts occurring at the local and regional levels. This has been done by considering social impacts on the local community and by use of a regional procedure for LCA data for emissions to the environment that may have impacts at the regional level.
The integration follows the structured approach of the pressure-state-response (PSR) model suggested by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This PSR model has been extended to encompass nonenvironmental issues and to guide the process of applying multiple tools.
The framework primarily focuses on decision analysis and interpretation processes. Multiattribute utility theory (MAUT) is used to assist with the integration of qualitative and quantitative information. MAUT provides a well-structured approach to information assessment and facilitates objective, transparent decisions. A commercially available decision analysis software package based on MAUT has been used as the platform for the framework developed in this study.     

Excluding site-specific data from the lca inventory: how this affects life cycle impact assessment

The exclusion of site-specific data from the inventory phase of an LCA continues to be a point of controversy. Though the current simplified data collection strategy is widely supported by the LCA community, there are still many who are concerned about the implications this limitation has for the utility and reliability of LCA results. This is particularly relevant to practitioners who are attempting to draw conclusions about the environmental performance of different systems for the development of environmental policy. The current site-generic methodology introduces uncertainties into LCA results that have the potential to misdirect decisions on improvement measures. Therefore, in this paper we assess the practicality of collecting site-specific data and examine its value for study interpretation and decision-making. In our case study, we compare the contribution of a number of plastics-based packaging systems to photochemical oxidant formation. Our results demonstrate that the aggregation of photochemical oxidant precursor emissions into a single global parameter is an unreliable indicator of environmental burden and that the real significance of each packaging’ contribution to the formation of photochemical smog in the atmosphere can only be understood after the addition of spatial and temporal information. We conclude that for non-global cumulative impact categories, additional spatial and temporal data should be collected, and that the benefits to decision makers far outweigh the additional effort needed to acquire this data for the LCA inventory.     

A proposal for accounting for biodiversity in life cycle assessment

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology for assessing the environmental impacts associated with products throughout their lifecycle. Many impacts are accounted for within the LCA framework, but to date biodiversity impacts have received little attention. There are a number of existing direct and indirect measures of biodiversity within the ecological field, some of which have the potential to be developed into a useable method for LCA. However, our assessment is that considerable development would be required and their implementation for LCA is not likely in the foreseeable future. Here an alternative approach is proposed for rapidly incorporating biodiversity impacts into LCA. The approach relies on expert opinions through a series of questions which aim to encapsulate the main issues relating to biodiversity within a disturbance impact framework. While the technique is in its infancy we outline a foundation for the approach and identify the steps required to develop this method for implementation into LCA.     

基于GIS的产业生态学研究述评

产业生态学由于缺少关于空间分析的工具,使得研究结果因缺乏空间维度信息而影响对管理效率和精准度的支持。基于GIS的产业生态学相关研究已成为产业生态学研究的一个新的方向。为总结已有的研究成果并展望未来的研究方向,运用文献计量及对比分析的手段,系统分析了国内外基于GIS的产业生态学的相关研究进展,得出以下结论:当前基于GIS的产业生态研究主要集中在物质代谢、产业共生和生命周期评价3个方面,将GIS技术引入到物质代谢研究中,可以更好的展示物质代谢的时空分布格局,为物质代谢研究提供了一种新的方法;基于GIS技术,不仅可以更加高效地挖掘潜在的产业共生机会,还可应用于生态产业园的规划管理如企业的选址、空间布局等以及废弃物的回收再利用方面;将GIS与LCA耦合在一起,可以很好地补充、完善和管理传统数据,有助于探索产品、活动或工艺的环境影响的空间特性以及进行土地利用相关的环境影响评价。另外,国内外研究的侧重点也不尽相同。在物质代谢研究中,国内研究较少,仅在城市尺度上进行了基础设施的物质代谢及其存量分析,国外在国家、城市尺度上研究了铜、锌等金属的物质代谢情况;在产业共生研究中,国内侧重于生态产业园的研究,而国外侧重于城市尺度的产业共生机会识别的研究;在LCA的研究中,国内开展了基于GIS的生命周期评价数据库和产品材料信息管理系统的研究,而国外侧重于进行区域化的生命周期评价、进行土地利用影响类型的相关评价以及污染物的追踪,国内在该方面尚处于起步阶段。国内外在研究方法上存在共性,都是基于GIS的空间分析方法、缓冲区分析方法以及数据库技术等。未来将GIS作为一个平台,面向产业转型展开产业生态学综合理论方法的研究,可以为产业的可持续性管理提供有效支持。