How do we establish life cycle assessment methods to assess the impact of agricultural production on soil functions?

Soil quality attributes, and their contribution to soil function, are inherently linked to agricultural productivity, and the long-term sustainability of agriculture relies on protecting and improving our soils. The influence of soil quality on productivity and ecosystem services has been under-represented in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to date. Recent efforts by the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative and the European Commission JRC have devised impact assessment frameworks that capture the ecosystem service functions of land, including soil functions. However, there is still ambiguity over the terms used to describe soil processes, elementary flows, and impact indicators. This paper explores important soil processes, identifies how elementary flows can be estimated, and explores how different aspects of soil quality can be characterised to give an integrated assessment of impact. In doing this, we define the language and terms used in the impact pathway that will help delineate inventory development from development of impact assessment methods. We discuss how the tools now available, through the growth of GIS data on land use, soils, and climate, open up the opportunity to parametrise LCI directly with the relevant elementary flows and construct LCIA methods, so that they are matched to real production systems.

EADY Sandra;  BESSOU Cecile;  SALA Serenella;  GRANT Tim; 

2018-01-05

LCA

JRC102812