Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for Wheat Production Systems of Iran: 2- Spatial Comparison over the Country

بوم شناسی کشاورزی

Article 1, Volume 10, Issue 1 - Serial Number 35, March 2018, Pages 48-68   

Document Type: Scientific - Research

DOI: 10.22067/jag.v10i1.45791

Authors

Mahdi Nassiri Mahallati; Alireza koocheki^*

Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

Abstract

Introduction
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a well-known and accurate method for comparison of environmental impacts of human activities including different agricultural management systems. Since agricultural activities are known as an important source of environmental pollution and greenhouse gas emission, LCA have been extensively applied for several tree and crop species around the country. However, these researches are generally conducted at field or district scales and due to variation in agronomic practices and input levels, the results cannot extended to regional or national level. In this paper using spatial upscaling method the results of LCA for wheat production systems with different level of inputs were extended to province and the results were subjected to statistical classification methods for comparison of impacts between provinces.
Materials and Methods
In this research the results of LCA for low, medium and high input wheat production systems of the country were upscaled to 14 provinces, details on LCA analysis of these systems is provided. For each province contribution of three management systems in cultivated area and wheat yield were extracted from official databases. Using these data the intensity of seven impact groups available from LCA were estimated for each province by linear upscaling method as described. Standardized values of seven impact categories over 14 provinces were subjected to principal component analysis (PCA) to compare provinces for overall impacts and separately for each impact category. In addition a normalized environmental index which integrates all impacts in a single index was calculated for direct comparison between provinces.
Results and Discussion
Results indicated that studied provinces had wide range of land use efficiency. Khozestan province with 18% of country wheat production had the lowest land use efficiency where 4271 m2 land is needed per ton wheat grain while it was the lowest (2079 m2) in Tehran. The highest per hectare global warming potential and ecotoxicity was obtained for Tehran province where contribution of high input systems in total cultivated area was at the maximum. However, per ton grain Hamadan and Khozestan provinces had respectively, the lowest and the highest global warming potential. Classification with principal component analysis (PCA) showed that difference between provinces in addition to yield, was highly related to the percentage distribution of low, medium and high input systems in total cultivated area. Comparison of provinces with a normalized environmental index showing the integrated effects of seven impact groups confirmed the results of PCA. Based on the results, taking into account all impact categories, production of one ton wheat grain in Hamadan had the lowest environmental impact between 14 provinces and Khozestan showed the highest impacts for production of the same amount of grain yield. In wheat production systems in Iran with high input management, increasing yield level above 4 t ha-1 may result to severe per hectare environmental impacts which cannot be compensated for by yield increment.

Conclusion
It is concluded that at current level of resource use efficiency in wheat production systems of the country, increasing wheat yield through intensification is not a reliable approach and will be led to strict environmental consequences.

Keywords

intensification; life cycle assessment; Normalized Environmental Index; Principal component analysis; Scaling

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