Harmonizing the Assessment of Biodiversity Effects from Land and Water Use within LCA

Title data

Verones, Francesca ; Huijbregts, Mark A. J. ; Chaudhary, Abhishek ; de Baan, Laura ; Koellner, Thomas ; Hellweg, Stefanie:
Harmonizing the Assessment of Biodiversity Effects from Land and Water Use within LCA.
In: Environmental Science & Technology. Vol. 49 (2015) Issue 6 . - pp. 3584-3592.
ISSN 0013-936X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/es504995r

Official URL:

Abstract in another language

Addressing biodiversity impacts in life cycle assessment (LCA) has recently been significantly improved. Advances include the consideration of several taxa, consideration of vulnerability of species and ecosystems, global coverage and spatial differentiation. To allow a comparison of biodiversity impacts of different stressors (e.g., land and water use), consistent approaches for assessing and aggregating biodiversity impacts across taxa are needed. We propose four different options for aggregating impacts across taxa and stressors: equal weight for species, equal weight for taxa and two options with special consideration of species’ vulnerability. We apply the aggregation options to a case study of coffee, tea and sugarcane production in Kenya for the production of 1 kg of crop. The ranking between stressors (land vs water use) within each crop and also of the overall impact between crops (coffee > sugarcane > tea) remained the same when applying the different aggregation options. Inclusion of the vulnerability of species had significant influence on the magnitude of results, and potentially also on the spatial distribution of impacts, and should be considered.

Further data

Item Type:	Article in a journal
Refereed:	Yes
Institutions of the University:	Faculties Faculties > Faculty of Biology, Chemistry and Earth Sciences Faculties > Faculty of Biology, Chemistry and Earth Sciences > Department of Earth Sciences Faculties > Faculty of Biology, Chemistry and Earth Sciences > Department of Earth Sciences > Professor Ecological Services Faculties > Faculty of Biology, Chemistry and Earth Sciences > Department of Earth Sciences > Professor Ecological Services > Professor Ecological Services - Univ.-Prof. Dr. Thomas Köllner Research Institutions Research Institutions > Research Centres Research Institutions > Research Centres > Bayreuth Center of Ecology and Environmental Research- BayCEER
Result of work at the UBT:	Yes
DDC Subjects:	500 Science 500 Science > 550 Earth sciences, geology
Date Deposited:	03 Jul 2015 06:50
Last Modified:	02 Feb 2023 12:49
URI:	https://eref.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/15714