A Newcomer's Guide to Life Cycle Assessment - Baselines and Boundaries

Life cycle assessment (LCA) aims to understand the environmental impact of a product or service (termed a functional unit) over its entire life cycle - using ‘standard methodologies’. The concept of LCA is simple – determine all the processes and products needed to produce the functional unit, measure the environmental impacts associated with each, and sum these up. But the reality is more complicated - for a range of reasons, two of which will be focused on in this paper.Gathorne-Hardy, A. (2015) A newcomer’s guide to life cycle assessment - baselines and boundaries, RGTW Working Paper Number 3, Oxford: South Asian Studies

The last mile:Using local knowledge to identify barriers to sustainable grain legume production

Grain legumes (or pulses–annual leguminous crops that are harvested solely for their dried seeds such as lentils or chickpeas) are essential for sustainable cropping systems. They positively contribute to soil fertility and agricultural biodiversity and are a highly nutritious food source, yet they remain under-exploited across the world. In India–soon to be the world's most populous country and the world's largest importer, producer and consumer of pulses–they are substantially under-utilized and are the only major food group not to have increased in output since independence in 1947. Existing efforts to address low grain legume production have focused on the scientific and agronomic barriers, with little impact on productivity. In contrast, this project, using Tripura in India as a case study, recognizes the limits of imposing top-down solutions and instead focuses on the barriers to production as identified by the growers themselves. Working with 440 farmers from 19 non-tribal and 11 tribal villages in Tripura, NE India, we used facilitated discussion to identify their key barriers to pulse production, and facilitated pile sorting to identify the commonly consumed, grown and available pulses. Twenty-eight barriers to legume production were identified by farmers. The eight principal barriers were: insufficient water; lack of technical knowledge; unreliable seed supply; lack of processing units; soil fertility; financial constraints; limited fertilizer supply; and insufficient fencing material. These barriers are complex and overlapping and originate from system level failures to sufficiently prioritise grain legumes compared to cereals. However, recognizing the length of time it takes to address system level problems, in this paper we identify five immediately applicable mitigating strategies to help overcome the principle barriers identified here. Importantly, these will also create an improved environment to apply the technologically sophisticated grain legume R&D that has been carried out over the last 20 years but has yet to have a measurable impact on pulse production. Therefore understanding the wider socio-economic pathways to sustainable pulse production is essential to facilitate change on the ground. Our results, relevant to policy makers in India and around the world, demonstrate the value of listening to farmers when attempting to improve production, and emphasize the necessity of including the socio-economic systems surrounding pulse production, to complement the current emphasis on biological barriers

A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from SRI and Flooded Rice Production in SE India

Rice feeds more people than any other crop, but each kilogram of rice is responsible for substantially more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than other key staple foods. The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) has recently received considerable attention for its ability to increase yields while using less water. Yet so far there has been little research into the GHG emissions associated with SRI production systems, and how they compare to those from conventional flooded-rice production techniques. A streamlined Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology was used to compare the GHG emissions and groundwater use from SRI and from conventional rice production. Input data were derived from farmer questionnaires in SE India and appropriate secondary data sources. The results showed that SRI methods substantially raised farmers' yields, from 4.8 tons to 7.6 ton per hectare, a 58% increase, while reducing water applications. At the same time it was seen that SRI management offered opportunities for significant GHG reductions, both per hectare and per kilogram of rice produced. These savings principally arise from reduced methane emissions and reduced embodied emissions in the electricity used to pump water for irrigation. SRI nitrous oxide emissions were somewhat higher than on control farms, but the difference was significant only per hectare, not per kg of rice. The net effects of SRI practice on reducing global warming potential were positive in that the small increases in N2O did not offset the larger diminishment of CH4

The role of biochar in English agriculture : agronomy, biodiversity, economics and climate change

This thesis explores the impact of biochar on the sustainability of English agriculture. It takes an integrated approach by looking at a range of agronomic, economic, biodiversity and climate change conditions that affect the total sustainability of biochar. Central to biochar use is its impact on yield. Laboratory and field trials were established to investigate the agronomic properties of biochar in both arable and grassland situations. Biochar strongly increased arable yields when associated with higher nitrogen fertiliser levels, showing an increase in Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE). Biochar had no apparent impact on grass yield. Central to biochar sustainability is the sustainability of its feedstocks. Four feedstocks were identified whose use could potentially increase local biodiversity, and whose use is potentially sustainable - coppiced hedgerows, undermanaged small farm woodlands, short rotation coppice willow and straw. The impacts of harvesting these on biodiversity were assessed through a combination of experiments and desk based review. The management of small farm woodlands is likely to increase sustainability. The sustainability of hedgerow coppicing depending on species groups - beetle numbers increased, but small mammal numbers were not affected. There is little evidence about the impact of removing straw on soil biodiversity, but if biochar replaces straw, straw can be harvested sustainably. The yield results from the arable trials were fed into three spreadsheet models. The first explored the net greenhouse gas (GHG) balance of biochar use. To better understand the impact of emission timing on biochar use a novel accounting method - Net Present Carbon -was developed. Biochar use can mitigate or exacerbate climate change, depending on the feedstock used and the boundaries of the model. The second model looked at the net economic balance of biochar use. Depending on feedstocks, biochar can be economical to produce without carbon payments through yield gains. Including a C price makes the economic return highly dependent on the C balance. A final model was then developed to investigate the trade-offs of biochar use between five different sustainability objectives: fixed carbon (C), all GHG emissions, economic return, local biodiversity and global biodiversity. Overall sustainability of biochar use depends greatly on what measure is used to assess sustainability-there is no scenario where it is possible to optimise all sustainability indices, instead trade-offs always occur.Open Acces

A Recent Journey to Northern Labrador

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Understanding farmers’ cropping decisions and implications for crop diversity conservation: insights from central India

Conserving crop diversity is promoted for global food system stability and creating local benefits like improved farmer nutrition, incomes and adaptive capacities. However, little is known about how farmers make decisions shaping crop diversity, and how conservation efforts can be aligned with farmers' goals. This study examines how interacting values, rules and knowledge shape decisions of subsistence farmers in central India. Findings suggest that farmers' values play a central role in shaping crop diversity. Their culinary and health preferences for consuming various self-cultivated crops primarily drive portfolio decisions. Farmers are hesitant to invest in commercial agricultural because of unreliable returns. Furthermore, they prefer to control water availability and land quality as means of coping with environmental change, rather than resorting to crop diversification. Finally, a rich understanding of local crop diversity dynamics questions the ethics of expecting marginal farmers to shoulder the burden of conservation for global gain, suggesting ex-situ strategies are appropriate where in-situ practices are not autonomously selected. Overall, the analysis demonstrates the importance of understanding farmer-level decision-making for wider crop diversity conservation debates

When the Medicine Feeds the Problem; Do Nitrogen Fertilisers and Pesticides Enhance the Nutritional Quality of Crops for Their Pests and Pathogens?

The challenge of maximising agricultural productivity encourages growers to apply high volumes of nitrogen (N) fertilisers and pesticides in order to promote and protect yields. Despite these inputs, pests and pathogens (P&Ps) continue to cause economic losses and challenge food security at local, national, and global scales. P&Ps are a particular problem in industrial agricultural environments, where large-scale monocultures facilitate rapid growth of crop-adapted P&P populations. P&P population growth is strongly dependent upon acquisition of N-resources (e.g., amino acids) from crop tissues, and concentrations of these compounds depend on the metabolic state of the crop which, in turn, is influenced by its growth stage, by environmental conditions, and by agrochemical inputs. In this study we demonstrate that routine applications of pesticides and/or N-fertilisers may inadvertently reinforce the problem of P&P damage in agriculture by enhancing the nutritional quality of crops for these organisms. N-fertilisation has diverse influences on crops' susceptibility to P&P damage; N-fertilisers enhance the nutritional quality and “attractiveness” of crops for P&Ps, and they can also alter crops' expression of the defensive traits (both morphological and chemical) that serve to protect them against these organisms. Exposure of crops to pesticides (including commonly used insecticide, fungicide, and herbicide products) can result in significant metabolic disruption and, consequently, in accumulation of nutritionally valuable amino acids within crop tissues. Importantly, these metabolic changes may not cause visible signs of stress or toxicity in the crop, and may represent an “invisible” mechanism underlying persistent P&P pressure in the field. Given the intensity of their use worldwide, their far-reaching and destructive consequences for wildlife and overall ecosystem health, and the continued prevalence of P&P-associated crop damage in agriculture, we recommend that the impacts of these cornerstone agricultural inputs on the nutritional relationship between crops and their P&Ps are closely examined in order to inform appropriate management for a more secure and sustainable food system

The salmon, with chapters on the law of salmon-fishing, cookery.

From the Fur, Feather, and Fin Serieshttps://scholars.unh.edu/angling/1013/thumbnail.jp

Car harm:A global review of automobility’s harm to people and the environment

Despite the widespread harm caused by cars and automobility, governments, corporations, and individuals continue to facilitate it by expanding roads, manufacturing larger vehicles, and subsidising parking, electric cars, and resource extraction. This literature review synthesises the negative consequences of automobility, or car harm, which we have grouped into four categories: violence, ill health, social injustice, and environmental damage. We find that, since their invention, cars and automobility have killed 60–80 million people and injured at least 2 billion. Currently, 1 in 34 deaths are caused by automobility. Cars have exacerbated social inequities and damaged ecosystems in every global region, including in remote car-free places. While some people benefit from automobility, nearly everyone—whether or not they drive—is harmed by it. Slowing automobility’s violence and pollution will be impracticable without the replacement of policies that encourage car harm with policies that reduce it. To that end, the paper briefly summarises interventions that are ready for implementation

Local terrestrial biodiversity impacts in life cycle assessment:A case study of sedum roofs in London, UK

Urban development is a key driver of global biodiversity loss. “Green” infrastructure is integrated to offset some impacts of development on ecosystem quality by supporting urban biodiversity, a prominent example being green roofs. The effects of green infrastructures on urban biodiversity are not well understood and poorly included in life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. Here, we present a novel methodology that quantifies the local impact of green infrastructures on terrestrial biodiversity—demonstrated here for sedum roofs in London, UK—and integrates within LCA. It relates energy provision by plants to the metabolic requirements of animals to determine what species richness (number of species) and species abundance (number of individuals) are supported. We demonstrate this methodology using a case study, comparing the life cycle impact of developing 18 buildings, with either asphalt concrete or sedum roofs, on ecosystem quality. We found the sedum roofs (0.018 km 2) support 53 species (673 individuals), equivalent to 1.3% of the development's life cycle impacts on ecosystem quality. Complete offsetting requires considerable reduction in transport use throughout the development's lifetime, and lower environmental impact material selection during construction (contributing 98% and 2%, respectively). The results indicate sedum roofs offer minor impact mitigation capacities in the context of urban development, and this capacity is limited for all green infrastructures by species richness in local species pools. This paper demonstrates the potential and limitations of quantifying terrestrial biodiversity offsets offered by green infrastructures alongside urbanization, and the need for realistic expectations of what role it might play in sustainable urban design.</p