Including Human Health Damages due to Road Traffic in Life Cycle Assessment of Dwellings

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (S1) ◽  
pp. 64-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Huijbregts ◽  
Edgar G. Hertwich ◽  
Lucas Reijnders
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Human Health Damages

scholarly journals Exploring sustainability potentials in vineyards through LCA? Evidence from farming practices in South Africa

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Russo ◽  
A. E. Strever ◽  
H. J. Ponstein
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Human Health ◽  
South African ◽  
Wine Grape ◽  
Impact Categories ◽  
Farming Practices ◽  
Manual Labour ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Purpose Following the urgency to curb environmental impacts across all sectors globally, this is the first life cycle assessment of different wine grape farming practices suitable for commercial conventional production in South Africa, aiming at better understanding the potentials to reduce adverse effects on the environment and on human health. Methods An attributional life cycle assessment was conducted on eight different scenarios that reduce the inputs of herbicides and insecticides compared against a business as usual (BAU) scenario. We assess several impact categories based on ReCiPe, namely global warming potential, terrestrial acidification, freshwater eutrophication, terrestrial toxicity, freshwater toxicity, marine toxicity, human carcinogenic toxicity and human non-carcinogenic toxicity, human health and ecosystems. A water footprint assessment based on the AWARE method accounts for potential impacts within the watershed. Results and discussion Results show that in our impact assessment, more sustainable farming practices do not always outperform the BAU scenario, which relies on synthetic fertiliser and agrochemicals. As a main trend, most of the impact categories were dominated by energy requirements of wine grape production in an irrigated vineyard, namely the usage of electricity for irrigation pumps and diesel for agricultural machinery. The most favourable scenario across the impact categories provided a low diesel usage, strongly reduced herbicides and the absence of insecticides as it applied cover crops and an integrated pest management. Pesticides and heavy metals contained in agrochemicals are the main contributors to emissions to soil that affected the toxicity categories and impose a risk on human health, which is particularly relevant for the manual labour-intensive South African wine sector. However, we suggest that impacts of agrochemicals on human health and the environment are undervalued in the assessment. The 70% reduction of toxic agrochemicals such as Glyphosate and Paraquat and the 100% reduction of Chlorpyriphos in vineyards hardly affected the model results for human and ecotoxicity. Our concerns are magnified by the fact that manual labour plays a substantial role in South African vineyards, increasing the exposure of humans to these toxic chemicals at their workplace. Conclusions A more sustainable wine grape production is possible when shifting to integrated grape production practices that reduce the inputs of agrochemicals. Further, improved water and related electricity management through drip irrigation, deficit irrigation and photovoltaic-powered irrigation is recommendable, relieving stress on local water bodies, enhancing drought-preparedness planning and curbing CO2 emissions embodied in products.

The use of the risk assessment in the life cycle assessment framework

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Francesca Milazzo ◽  
Francesco Spina
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Biodiesel Production ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
Complete Analysis ◽  
Transfer Factors ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Human Health Impacts

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to quantify the human health impacts of soy-biodiesel production with the aim to discuss about its environmental sustainability. Design/methodology/approach – The integrated use of two current approaches, risk assessment (RA) and life cycle assessment (LCA), has allowed improvement of the potentialities of both in obtaining a more complete analysis. The implementation of a life cycle indicator for the assessment of the impacts on the human health, integrating the features of both approaches, is the main focus of this paper. Findings – It has been found that, although the biodiesel is a green fuel, it has some criticalities in its life cycle, which cannot be disregarded. In fact, even if biodiesel is essentially a clean fuel there are some phases, prior to the industrial phase, that can cause negative effects on human health and ecosystems. Practical implications – Results suggest some measures which can be adopted to substantially reduce human health impacts. Further alternative could be analysed in future to gain more insight about the use of biodiesel fuels. Originality/value – The estimation of the impacts of a process producing biodiesel has been made by using a novel approach. The novelty is associated with the calculation of the impacts on human health by using the transfer factors applied in RA. The use of such factors, properly modified in order to estimate the impacts on a wider scale than a site-dimension, allows defining a holistic approach, as LCA and RA are used as complete units but at the same time can be related to each other.

Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Autoclaved Concrete Blocks and Fired Blocks in China

2018 ◽  
Vol 913 ◽  
pp. 1018-1026
Author(s):  
Yan Qiong Sun ◽  
Yu Liu ◽  
Su Ping Cui
Keyword(s):  
Sensitivity Analysis ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Data Quality ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Functional Unit ◽  
Cement Production ◽  
Terrestrial Ecotoxicity ◽  
Concrete Blocks

In this paper, a variety of blocks were grouped into the autoclaved blocks and fired blocks as far as the productive technology is concerned. In order to compare the life cycle impacts of the two kinds of the blocks, a life cycle assessment of two products on the functional unit 1m3 was carried out through the exploitation of mineral stage, transportation stage and the production of the blocks stage on the considering of the resource and energy consumption and the pollutant discharges. The results demonstrated that the fired blocks appeared to have less impact than autoclaved concrete blocks on human health, marine ecotoxicity toxicity and terrestrial ecotoxicity toxicity nearly 30%. The raw coal led to the serious impacts on the fossil depletion through the cement production stage of the autoclaved concrete blocks accounting for 45.86% and the gangue exploitation stage of the fired blocks accounting for 42.5%. Assessment of the data quality that the data was of pretty high or within the permission. The sensitivity analysis and contribution analysis assessment showed that the conclusion were robust.

Developing physicochemical property-based ecotoxicity characterization factors for silver nanoparticles under mesocosm conditions for use in life cycle assessment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sila Temizel-Sekeryan ◽  
Andrea L. Hicks
Keyword(s):  
Silver Nanoparticles ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Physicochemical Property ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Characterization Factors ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Modern Technologies

Global production and consumption of silver nanoparticles (nAg) are forecasted to increase due to their applications in modern technologies. This situation raises concerns related to their environmental and human health...

scholarly journals Radiological impact assessment approaches for Life Cycle Assessment: a review and possible ways forward

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 239-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Paulillo ◽  
Roland Clift ◽  
Jonathan Dodds ◽  
Andrew Milliken ◽  
Stephen J. Palethorpe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Impact Assessment ◽  
Standard Procedure ◽  
Standard Approach ◽  
Industrial Processes ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
Radiological Impact ◽  
Treat All ◽  
Human Health Damages

Many industrial processes routinely release radionuclides into the environment. Such emissions may be recognised in the inventory phase of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), but they are rarely carried forward to the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) phase because a standard approach for assessing their impact is still lacking. The aim of this article is to collect and critically analyse radiological impact assessment methodologies to establish a basis for developing a standard approach. Seven methodologies are reviewed. Amongst these, the human health damages approach is the only methodology to date to be included in LCIA methodologies. Furthermore, five of the reviewed methodologies are concerned with impacts on humans, whilst the remaining two address effects on the environment. The article concludes that even though a number of methodologies are currently available, none is suitable as the basis for a standard procedure in LCIA. Two main features have been identified as crucial: the ability to treat all types of waste forms by which radionuclides can be released and the use of a fate analysis that returns average (rather than worst case) estimates of impacts. In light of the findings of this review, a novel framework for radiological impact assessment on humans has been devised; its development is being pursued by the authors.

scholarly journals Human Health Damage Modelling in Life Cycle Assessment: A Valuable Addition to the Evaluation of Medical Interventions?

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. A731
Author(s):  
S Debaveye ◽  
W De Soete ◽  
S De Meester ◽  
D Vandijck ◽  
B Heirman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Medical Interventions ◽  
Valuable Addition ◽  
Damage Modelling ◽  
Human Health Damage ◽  
Health Damage
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