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Recommendation for Land Use Impact Assessment: First Steps into Framework, Theory, and Implementation
Citation:
BARE, J. Recommendation for Land Use Impact Assessment: First Steps into Framework, Theory, and Implementation. CLEAN TECHNOLOGIES AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY. Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, 13(1):07-18, (2011).
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public.
Description:
Although early Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology researchers focused on the modeling of impacts from chemical emissions, it has become obvious that resource depletion categories such as land use, water use, and fossil fuel depletion require additional attention to appropriately value the impacts. The land use impact category has proven to be the most difficult of all impact categories to quantify to date for a number of reasons. First, it is unlike any chemical emissions impact category because there are no existing regulations or methodologies by which one can gauge the importance of the environmental burden – in other words, there is no guideline for what should be valued. Secondly, developing a national strategy (United States) for land use is difficult given the variety of land modifications and occupations which may be the result of agriculture, forestry, and residential and commercial development. Thirdly, it is unlike other categories since the impacts are not caused by flows into or out of the environment, but simply modifications to the environment [1]. Finally, given global trading which is currently prevalent, a model which is globally applicable is desirable, but land use practices and existing databases and regulations are even more diverse when attempting global applicability. Resource depletion issues have been recognized in early ISO documents [2], but at that time it was also recognized that significant research was still necessary in this field. Some of this research was initiated under the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative [3-7], and more recently several publications in this area are available. This article presents the criteria which were developed to determine the direction of recommendations along with a 10 step framework including a comprehensive ecosystem valuation of scenarios developed. Guidance is given on the selection of ecosystem services tools and the data which are necessary to develop the scenarios, integration curves, maps, and ecosystem profiles of each scenario. Based on these scenarios, curves, maps, and profiles, additional recommendations may be made on land use practices or regional selections. Finally, a discussion of implementation of the theory behind this methodology focuses on a biofuels analysis.
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RECOMMENDATION FOR LAND USE IMPACT ASSESSMENT: FIRST STEPS INTO FRAMEWORK, THEORY, AND IMPLEMENTATION
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