A life cycle assessment of the environmental impacts in the Egyptian aquaculture value chain

Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperatio

Evaluating European imports of Asian aquaculture products using statistically supported life cycle assessments

This thesis aims to evaluate the environmental sustainability of European imports of farmed aquatic food products from Asia, using life cycle assessment (LCA). Farming of Asian tiger prawn, whiteleg shrimp, freshwater prawn, tilapia and pangasius catfish in Bangladesh, China, Thailand and Vietnam were chosen as representatives of the Asian aquaculture industry. Initial research revealed large discrepancies among LCA results driven by methodological choices and data sourcing. A protocol for quantifying dispersions around unit process data was therefore developed, characterising inherent uncertainty, spread (variability) and unrepresentativeness as the three major sources driving overall discrepancies. Results, propagated using Monte Carlo simulations, highlighted that the uncertainty related to LCA results could range with over an order of magnitude. For comparative purposes, however, only relative uncertainties are of relevance. Defining a hypothesis and using dependent sampling therefore allowed for several significant conclusions to be identified. Among these were significantly lower environmental impacts of Asian tiger shrimp farming in western Bangladesh, tilapia in Guangdong and pangasius in large-scale farms. Common environmental hot-spots included aqua-feeds, eutrophying effluents from farms, the use of benzalkonium chloride and other chlorine releasing compounds as disinfectants, and extensive use of paddle-wheels on shrimp farms. The research identified discrepanciesIndustrial Ecolog

Digesting the alphabet soup of LCA

Article / Letter to editorCentrum voor Milieuwetenschappen LeidenCML/Industriele Ecologi

Including GHG emissions from mangrove forests LULUC in LCA: a case study on shrimp farming in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

Industrial Ecolog

Characterizing antibiotics in LCA-a review of current practices and proposed novel approaches for including resistance

Purpose With antibiotic resistance (ABR) portrayed as an increasing burden to human health, this study reviews how and to what extent toxicological impacts from antibiotic use are included in LCAs and supplement this with two novel approaches to include ABR, a consequence of antibiotic use, into the LCA framework. Methods We review available LCA studies that deal with toxicological aspects of antibiotics to evaluate how these impacts from antibiotics have been characterized. Then, we present two novel approaches for including ABR-related impacts in life cycle impact assessments (LCIAs). The first approach characterizes the potential for ABR enrichment in the environmental compartment as a mid-point indicator, based on minimum selective concentrations for pathogenic bacteria. The second approach attributes human health impacts as an endpoint indictor, using quantitative relationships between the use of antibiotics and human well-being. Results and discussion Our findings show that no LCA study to date have accounted for impacts related to ABR. In response, we show that our novel mid-point indicator approach could address this by allowing ABR impacts to be characterized for environmental compartments. We also establish cause-effect pathways between antibiotic use, ABR, and human well-being that generate results which are comparable with USEtox and most endpoint impact assessment approaches for human toxicology. Conclusions Our proposed methods show that currently overlooked impacts from ABR enrichment in the environment could be captured within the LCA framework as a robust characterization methodology built around the established impact model USEtox. Substantial amounts of currently unavailable data are, however, needed to calculate emissions of antibiotics into the environment, to develop minimum selective concentrations for non-pathogenic bacteria, and to quantify potential human health impacts from AB use.Industrial Ecolog

Exploring Indonesian aquaculture futures

Aquaculture is the fastest-growing food production sector globally, with production projected to double within the next 15–20 years. Future growth of aquaculture is essential to providing sustainable supplies of fish in national, regional and global fish food systems; creating jobs; and maintaining fish at affordable levels for resource-poor consumers. To ensure that the anticipated growth of aquaculture remains both economically and ecologically sustainable, we need to better understand the likely patterns of growth, as well as the opportunities and challenges, that these trends present. This knowledge will enable us to better prioritize investments that will help ensure the sustainable development of the sector. In Indonesia, WorldFish and partners have applied a unique methodology to evaluate growth trajectories for aquaculture under various scenarios, as well as the opportunities and challenges these represent. Indonesia is currently the fourth largest aquaculture producer globally, and the sector needs to grow to meet future fish demand. The study overlapped economic and environmental models with quantitative and participatory approaches to understand the future of aquaculture in Indonesia. Such analyses, while not definitive, have provided new understanding of the future supply and demand for seafood in Indonesia stretching to 2030. The learning from this research provides a foundation for future interventions in Indonesian fish food systems, as well as a suite of methodologies that can be applied more widely for insightful analyses of aquaculture growth trajectories in other countries or regions

Quantified Uncertainties in Comparative Life Cycle Assessment: What Can Be Concluded?

Industrial Ecolog