Data di Pubblicazione:
2016
Citazione:
A new tool for life cycle inventories of agricultural machinery operations / D. Lovarelli, J. Bacenetti, M. Fiala. - In: JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING. - ISSN 2239-6268. - 47:1(2016), pp. 40-53. [10.4081/jae.2016.480]
Abstract:
The interest in environmental assessments about agricultural
processes is fast growing and asking for new tools for accurate impact
evaluations. The methodology commonly used to go through these
studies is the life cycle assessment, of which the inventory phase (life
cycle inventory, LCI) is an essential step. For studies focusing on agricultural
productions, the completion of LCI is particularly complex: taking
into account the pedo-climatic and mechanical operative variability
is evidently difficult. However, the prediction of the environmental
impact of mechanical operations caused by the agricultural sector is
essential to quantify the impact categories for which it is responsible.
A new tool, ENVIAM, was developed to complete LCI to guarantee the
availability of local data that describe the mechanical and pedo-climatic
conditions occurring in the Po Valley area and widely applicable as
well. It calculates mechanical power requests, directly consumed
inputs (i.e., fuel, lubricant) and material consumption of a productive
system by taking into account soil texture, specific machinery operations
and coupling solutions as defined by the user. A subdivision of
working time and defined engine load have been considered to calculate
fuel consumption; with regard to outputs, exhaust gases emissions
from internal combustion engines have been assessed by evaluating
the emissive stages of belonging as stated by the EU Directive. A
case study was also performed to highlight the differences that occur
when an analysis is fulfilled in a context with features different from
the average, and resulted in significant variations for the inventory. In
more details, a comparison was carried out both with Ecoinvent database
and within ENVIAM. With regard to fuel consumption, by changing
the soil texture, the analysis showed a range between 64%-184%
for sandy and clay soils, respectively, if compared with medium texture
ones. With this tool, local contexts defined either as real or as optimised
coupling solutions can be investigated to assess their environmental
impact.
Tipologia IRIS:
01 - Articolo su periodico
Keywords:
agricultural mechanisation; life cycle inventory; pedo-climatic variability; environmental impact assessment.
Elenco autori:
D. Lovarelli, J. Bacenetti, M. Fiala
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