Shahin Hassani; Mahmoud Ramroudi; Ebrahim Ahmadi
Abstract
The characteristics of forage corn make it an important crop for the livestock industry. Due to the thriving animal husbandry in western Iran and the foothills of the Zagros, the production of forage corn is crucial. However, such crop production has the potential to affect environmental phenomena such ...
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The characteristics of forage corn make it an important crop for the livestock industry. Due to the thriving animal husbandry in western Iran and the foothills of the Zagros, the production of forage corn is crucial. However, such crop production has the potential to affect environmental phenomena such as global warming, ozone depletion, eutrophication, acidification potential, and human toxicity potential. In this study, the life cycle assessment methodology was used to examine the production of contaminants due to forage corn cultivation. Consequently, various environmental impacts and production processes have been evaluated. The potential environmental impacts are calculated according to the production unit equivalents considered by the global databases. 118.46 CO2 equivalent units of greenhouse gas emissions result from the production of one tonne of forage corn. This quantity was calculated to be one tonne of forage corn equal to 0.0000147 units per kilogramme of CEC11 production in order to account for ozone depletion. The estimated eutrophication potential of producing one tonne of forage corn was 0.4618 units, or kilogrammes of PO4 production. Increases in the efficiency of corn production may reduce the production of contaminants and the rate of environmental degradation.
Shahin Hassani; Mahmoud Ramroudi; Ebrahim Ahmadi
Abstract
The life-cycle assessment of two irrigated and rainfed wheat crops was investigated in this study. Tillage, planting, irrigation, fertilization, pesticide spraying, and harvesting are the basic stages of production for each crop throughout its life cycle. A farmer's questionnaire was used to collect ...
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The life-cycle assessment of two irrigated and rainfed wheat crops was investigated in this study. Tillage, planting, irrigation, fertilization, pesticide spraying, and harvesting are the basic stages of production for each crop throughout its life cycle. A farmer's questionnaire was used to collect farm data. The ecoinvent models compile emissions in their reports. The functional unit is designed to produce one ton of grain. Following the calculation, emissions from each stage of production in a triple environment (soil, water, and atmosphere) are logged. Following that, a life-cycle impact assessment, or LCIA, was carried out. The environmental effects were first estimated separately for each crop, followed by a comparison of the two crops. The calculated potential for each ton of irrigated wheat equals 860 Kg of CO2 equivalent in the impact assessment of global warming, whereas it is 623 Kg for rainfed wheat. The production potential per ton for the eutrophication phenomenon is roughly equivalent for both systems: 2.625 equivalent Kg po4 for irrigated wheat and 2.601 for rainfed wheat. The data from the long-term scenario show an increase in the potential for eutrophication in both crop productions. Meanwhile, the long-term effects of chemical fertilizer use on human health and aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems indicated a potential increase in their use. Following a data uncertainty analysis, it was determined that, with a confidence interval of 95 percent, details of the life-cycle assessment results could be applied to the farms under consideration. However, some of the environmental impacts in the uncertainty analysis overlap. The highest overlapping values are insufficient to call average farm results into question.
