Coupling GIS and LCA for biodiversity assessments of land use

Geospatial details about land use are necessary to assess its potential impacts on biodiversity. Geographic information systems (GIS) are adept at modeling land use in a spatially explicit manner, while life cycle assessment (LCA) does not conventionally utilize geospatial information. This study presents a proof-of-concept approach for coupling GIS and LCA for biodiversity assessments of land use and applies it to a case study of ethanol production from agricultural crops in California. GIS modeling was used to generate crop production scenarios for corn and sugar beets that met a range of ethanol production targets. The selected study area was a four-county region in the southern San Joaquin Valley of California, USA. The resulting land use maps were translated into maps of habitat types. From these maps, vectors were created that contained the total areas for each habitat type in the study region. These habitat compositions are treated as elementary input flows and used to calculate different biodiversity impact indicators in a second paper (Geyer et al., submitted). Ten ethanol production scenarios were developed with GIS modeling. Current land use is added as baseline scenario. The parcels selected for corn and sugar beet production were generally in different locations. Moreover, corn and sugar beets are classified as different habitat types. Consequently, the scenarios differed in both the habitat types converted and in the habitat types expanded. Importantly, land use increased nonlinearly with increasing ethanol production targets. The GIS modeling for this study used spatial data that are commonly available in most developed countries and only required functions that are provided in virtually any commercial or open-source GIS software package. This study has demonstrated that GIS-based inventory modeling of land use allows important refinements in LCA theory and practice. Using GIS, land use can be modeled as a geospatial and nonlinear function of output. For each spatially explicit process, land use can be expressed within the conventional structure of LCA methodology as a set of elementary input flows of habitat types

Identifying the relevance of construction products for building certification

The certification of sustainable buildings can easily be seen as one of the relevant drivers for current discussions concerning sustainability in the construction sector. The quality of.a certification depends on various factors, one being the choice of the materials and construction products used. The importance of the choice of the right material is frequently emphasised, yet rarely proven or quantified. Quantitative information on the performance of products with regard to sustainable buildings certification, however, forms the basis for the selection of objectively best performing products, as well as for further optimization of construction products. This article outlines a method to analyse the influence of a construction product on the outcome of a building certification process. The method identifies links between categories of construction products and certification indicators. On the basis of these links, the relation of product properties and indicator mechanisms are described and the influence of individual products and their properties can be quantified. The use of the method is applied to the certification system of the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) and demonstrated for one specific construction product, a wall-mounted acoustic absorber. The results of the case study highlight the relevance of specific indicators for the product. They indicate, on which product properties the focus of future product improvements should lie. Additionally, a thorough understanding of the systematics of the underlying certification system can be extracted from the application of the method. The method reflects a basis for further systematic analyses of the principles and mechanisms of building certification systems. It also provides a scientific foundation for an impartial discussion on the relevance of construction products or product categories for building certification. On this basis, further product developments and product innovation, as well as objective product choices by planners, may be anticipated. This article summarizes the dissertation of the corresponding author

Sustainable Building Specifier (SBS) in european research projects

In the last ten years significant progress in the development and implementation of energy efficiency measures in buildings and building equipment were achieved. Therefor the energy demand of buildings decreased tremendously. Due to the reduction of the energy needed in the use phase of a building, the production of the building itself and the building materials get more and more important. Hence in European research projects related to energy efficient buildings and building products, the European Commission asks for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies to verify the decrease of the energy consumption during the whole lifecycle of a building. So far mainly expert tools are available to perform such studies. The "SBS Building Sustainability" was developed to enable also non LCA experts to create transparently and cost effective building LCAs in order to include it not only in the very end of a research project but already in early design stages to maximize the optimization potential. Furthermore it is possible to develop not just a simplified first approach but also very detailed LCAs of buildings. In the European research projects "OPEN HOUSE" and "Cost-Effective" SBS was tested in different levels and with different goals. In "OPEN HOUSE" the tool was used by non LCA experts in different countries to set up 76 building LCAs in order to create European and national benchmarks. In "Cost-Effective" SBS was used to assess retrofit measures on building level including new energy efficient components (e.g. facade integrated PV solution). Building components (e.g. wall constructions) were modelled directly in SBS, whereas the specific energy efficient equipment was imported from the LCA expert tool GaBi. All in all, SBS showed its flexibility in practice to fit to the different goals of the two research projects and the simplification related to time and usability

Assessment of land use impacts on soil ecological functions : Development of spatially differentiated characterization factors within a caandian context

Purpose Among other regional impact categories in LCA, land use still lacks a suitable assessment method regarding the least developed soil ecological quality impact pathway. The goals of this study are to scope the framework addressing soil ecological functions and to improve the development of regionalized characterization factors (CFs). A spatially explicit approach was developed and illustrated for the Canadian context using three different regional scales and for which the extent of spatial variability was assessed. Materials and methods A model framework based on the multifunctional character of soil and the ecosystem services defined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is suggested. This framework includes land use impacts on soil ecological quality evaluated regarding the change in soil capacity to fulfill a range of soil ecological functions. Four impact indicators, namely erosion resistance, groundwater recharge, mechanical, and physicochemical filtration, proposed by the functional method of Baitz (2002), were used to assess three major degraded regulating services: erosion regulation, freshwater regulation, and water purification. Spatially differentiated CFs were calculated based on the principles proposed by the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative for two Canadian spatial models (15 ecozones, 193 ecoregions) along with a non-spatial one (one generic). Seven representative land use types were tested. Results and discussion Using the ecozone-based scale, an overall result comparison between the non-spatial and spatial models indicates significant differences between ranges across land use types and results up to four times larger than what the generic scale can capture. This highlights the importance of introducing a regionalized assessment. When considering the impacts from a specific land use type, such as urban land use, generic CFs fail to adequately represent spatial CFs because they tend to be highly dependent on the biogeographical conditions of the location. When comparing all three resolution scales, CF results calculated using the ecoregions spatial scale generally show a larger spread across each land use type. Interesting variations and extreme scenarios are revealed which could not be observed using a coarser scale-based model such as the ecozone resolution scheme. Conclusions This work demonstrates the accomplishment of developing spatially differentiated CFs addressing impacts of different land use types on soil ecological functions. For a large territorial area spreading over many biomes, such as Canada, accounting for ecological unit boundaries proves to be necessary since the generic scale is not sufficiently representative. An evaluation of the extent of spatial differentiation emphasized the influence on the variability of regionalized CFs

Coupling GIS and LCA for biodiversity assessments of land use: Part 2: Impact assessment

Geospatial details about land use are necessary to assess its potential impacts on biodiversity. Geographic information systems (GIS) are adept at modeling land use in a spatially explicit manner, while life cycle assessment (LCA) does not conventionally utilize geospatial information. This study presents a proof-of-concept approach for coupling GIS and LCA for biodiversity assessments of land use and applies it to a case study of ethanol production from agricultural crops in California. In Part 2 of this paper series, four biodiversity impact indicators are presented and discussed, which use the inventory data on habitat composition and sizes from the GIS-based inventory modeling in Part 1 (Geyer et al. 2010). The concepts used to develop characterization models are hemeroby, species richness, species abundance, and species evenness. The biodiversity assessments based on species richness, abundance, and evenness use a species–habitat suitability matrix which relates 443 terrestrial vertebrate species native to California to the 29 habitat types that occur in the study area. The structural similarities and differences of all four characterization models are discussed in some detail. Characterization factors and indicator results are calculated for each of the four characterization models and the 11 different land use scenarios from Part 1 of this paper series. For the sugar beet production scenarios, the indicator results are in fairly good agreement. For the corn production scenarios, however, they come to fundamentally different results. The overall approach of using GIS-based inventory data on land use together with information on species–habitat relationships is not only feasible but also grounded in ecological science and well connected with existing life cycle impact assessment efforts. Excluding biodiversity impacts from land use significantly limits the scope of LCA. Accounting for land use in inventory modeling is dramatically enhanced if LCA is coupled with GIS. The resulting inventory data are a sound basis for biodiversity impact assessments, in particular if coupled with information on species–habitat relationships. However, much more case studies and structural analysis of indicators is required, together with an evaluation framework that enables comparisons and ranking of indicators

Recycling options for masonry - identifying sustainable solutions

Almost 15% of the average yearly waste accumulation in Germany originates from construction waste. It mainly comprises mineral materials such as concrete and different types of stonework, like lime-sandstone, red brick, aerated concrete and lightweight concrete. Due to the heterogeneous material composition, this kind of waste often ends up in landfill or can only be used for lower-level recycling. The AiF (German Federation of Industrial Research Association) funded the national research project "Sustainability Analysis for the Recycling of Masonry" in order to show different recycling opportunities for masonry as well as respective required technologies with regard to potential occurring mineral material mixtures. Technologies identified are for example such ones to break masonry into smaller grain sizes and technologies to separate the masonry into single material fractions. Furthermore, the project has the objective to assess the sustainability performance of various recycling options. These options and the related recycling routes are evaluated regarding environmental, economic and social aspects - all three pillars of sustainability - by using the methods of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Life Cycle Working Environment (LCWE). The results are provided within a web-tool for operators of recycling facilities and for demolition companies. Its modular concept affords an individual sustainability assessment by several input options, like machine capacity, investment costs and achievable revenues. The tool enables the user to assess and compare different recycling opportunities concerning environmental, economic and social aspects in relation to identified material compositions and technologies applied

Acute mood effect of donepezil in young, healthy volunteers

Objective Chronic use of the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor donepezil has been found to improve mood or to induce mania/hypomania in many neuropsychiatric patients with altered cholinergic and dopaminergic tone. Our aim was to determine whether acutely administered donepezil would alter mood in volunteers with no such alterations. Methods This investigation was a double-blind, crossover design study of 15 young, healthy male participants who were allocated in random order to three oral treatments: placebo and 5-mg and 7.5-mg donepezil (doses which exert clinical and acute cognitive effects without considerable peripheral side effects). At the theoretical peak-plasma concentrations of donepezil, volunteers rated how they felt on validated questionnaires, which included various dimensions of subjective feelings. We also assessed changes in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which is increased by donepezil after chronic regimes and is related to modulation of mood. Results Donepezil significantly increased ratings of vigour and anxiety symptoms (medium effect sizes). No changes in bodily symptoms or BDNF were observed. Conclusions Acute donepezil administration in participants with unaltered cholinergic and dopaminergic tone led to positive and negative changes in affect. These results call for further research on the direct mood effects of donepezil. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Associacao Fundo de Incentivo a Pesquisa (AFIP)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Universidade Federal de São Paulo UNIFESP, Dept Psicobiol, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo UNIFESP, Dept Psicobiol, São Paulo, BrazilFAPESP: 2010/08840-0Web of Scienc