Environmental impacts of organic and conventional agricultural products--are the differences captured by life cycle assessment?

Comprehensive assessment tools are needed that reliably describe environmental impacts of different agricultural systems in order to develop sustainable high yielding agricultural production systems with minimal impacts on the environment. Today, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is increasingly used to assess and compare the environmental sustainability of agricultural products from conventional and organic agriculture. However, LCA studies comparing agricultural products from conventional and organic farming systems report a wide variation in the resource efficiency of products from these systems.

Investigating the relationship between toxicity and organic sum-parameters in kraft mill effluents.

Elaborate toxicity diagnostics, such as toxicity identification evaluation (TIE) and effects-directed analysis (EDA) have helped in identifying the causative agents of effluent wastewater toxicity. However, simpler means of relating ecotoxicological effects to effluent composition could be useful for effluent management practices when there is no scope for more complex procedures. The aim of this work was to investigate and isolate the relationship between biological responses and commonly measured organic sum-parameters, such as chemical- and biochemical oxygen demand (COD and BOD, respectively) in kraft mill effluents.

Estimating half-lives for pesticide dissipation from plants.

Pesticide risk and impact assessment models critically rely on and are sensitive to information describing dissipation from plants. Despite recent progress, experimental data are not available for all relevant pesticide-plant combinations, and currently no model predicting plant dissipation accounts for the influence of substance properties, plant characteristics, temperature, and study conditions. In this study, we propose models to estimate half-lives for pesticide dissipation from plants and provide recommendations for how to use our results.

Beyond the material grave: Life Cycle Impact Assessment of leaching from secondary materials in road and earth constructions.

In industrialized countries, large amounts of mineral wastes are produced. They are re-used in various ways, particularly in road and earth constructions, substituting primary resources such as gravel. However, they may also contain pollutants, such as heavy metals, which may be leached to the groundwater.

Indoor exposure to toluene from printed matter matters: complementary views from life cycle assessment and risk assessment.

A pronounced presence of toluene from rotogravure printed matter has been frequently observed indoors. However, its consequences to human health in the life cycle of magazines are poorly known. Therefore, we quantified human-health risks in indoor environments with Risk Assessment (RA) and impacts relative to the total impact of toxic releases occurring in the life cycle of a magazine with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).

Biodiversity impacts from salinity increase in a coastal wetland.

A Life Cycle Impact Assessment method was developed to evaluate the environmental impact associated with salinity on biodiversity in a Spanish coastal wetland. The developed characterization factor consists of a fate and an effect factor and equals 3.16 × 10(-1) ± 1.

Variability of pesticide dissipation half-lives in plants.

Information on dissipation kinetics of pesticides in food crops and other plants is a key aspect in current risk and impact assessment practice. This is because human exposure to pesticides is predominantly caused by residues in agricultural crops grown for human and animal consumption. However, modeling dissipation of pesticides in plants is highly uncertain and therefore strongly relies on experimental data.

Parameterization models for pesticide exposure via crop consumption.

An approach for estimating human exposure to pesticides via consumption of six important food crops is presented that can be used to extend multimedia models applied in health risk and life cycle impact assessment. We first assessed the variation of model output (pesticide residues per kg applied) as a function of model input variables (substance, crop, and environmental properties) including their possible correlations using matrix algebra. We identified five key parameters responsible for between 80% and 93% of the variation in pesticide residues, namely time between substance application and crop harvest, degradation half-lives in crops and on crop surfaces, overall residence times in soil, and substance molecular weight.

Deposition and residues of azoxystrobin and imidacloprid on greenhouse lettuce with implications for human consumption.

Lettuce greenhouse experiments were carried out from March to June 2011 in order to analyze how pesticides behave from the time of application until their intake via human consumption taking into account the primary distribution of pesticides, field dissipation, and post-harvest processing. In addition, experimental conditions were used to evaluate a new dynamic plant uptake model comparing its results with the experimentally derived residues. One application of imidacloprid and two of azoxystrobin were conducted.

Pesticide residue dynamics in passion fruits: comparing field trial and modelling results.

We evaluated the exposure to pesticides from the consumption of passion fruits and subsequent human health risks by combining several methods: (i) experimental field studies including the determination of pesticide residues in/on passion fruits, (ii) dynamic plant uptake modelling, and (iii) human health risk assessment concepts. Eight commonly used pesticides were applied onto passion fruits cultivated in Colombia. Pesticide concentrations were measured periodically (between application and harvest) in whole fruits and fruit pulp.

A concurrent neuro-fuzzy inference system for screening the ecological risk in rivers.

Purpose: A conceptual model to assess water quality in river basins was developed here. The model was based on ecological risk assessment principles, and incorporated a novel ranking and scoring system, based on self-organizing maps, to account for the likely ecological hazards posed by the presence of chemical substances in freshwater. This approach was used to study the chemical pollution in the Ebro River basin (Spain), whose currently applied environmental indices must be revised in terms of scientific accuracy.

Exposure to engineered nanoparticles: Model and measurements for accident situations in laboratories.

In the life cycle of engineered nanoparticles (ENP), their manufacturing requires particular attention because of unwanted potential ENP emissions to workplaces. We simulated three scenarios of equipment failure during gas phase production of nanoparticles in a laboratory. The emission plume of nanoparticles was tracked with high spatial and temporal resolution by 10 measurement devices.

Life cycle inventory and carbon and water FoodPrint of fruits and vegetables: application to a Swiss retailer.

Food production and consumption is known to have significant environmental impacts. In the present work, the life cycle assessment methodology is used for the environmental assessment of an assortment of 34 fruits and vegetables of a large Swiss retailer, with the aim of providing environmental decision-support to the retailer and establishing life cycle inventories (LCI) also applicable to other case studies. The LCI includes, among others, seedling production, farm machinery use, fuels for the heating of greenhouses, irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides, storage and transport to and within Switzerland.

Dynamic multicrop model to characterize impacts of pesticides in food.

A new dynamic plant uptake model is presented to characterize health impacts of pesticides applied to food crops, based on a flexible set of interconnected compartments. We assess six crops covering a large fraction of the worldwide consumption. Model estimates correspond well with observed pesticide residues for 12 substance-crop combinations, showing residual errors between a factor 1.

Pesticide uptake in potatoes: model and field experiments.

A dynamic model for uptake of pesticides in potatoes is presented and evaluated with measurements performed within a field trial in the region of Boyacá, Colombia. The model takes into account the time between pesticide applications and harvest, the time between harvest and consumption, the amount of spray deposition on soil surface, mobility and degradation of pesticide in soil, diffusive uptake and persistence due to crop growth and metabolism in plant material, and loss due to food processing. Food processing steps included were cleaning, washing, storing, and cooking.

Life cycle toxicity assessment of pesticides used in integrated and organic production of oranges in the Comunidad Valenciana, Spain.

The relative impacts of 25 pesticides including acaricides, fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, and post-harvest fungicides, used in the production of oranges in Spain were assessed with current life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) tools. Chemical specific concentrations were combined with pesticide emission data and information on chemical toxicity to assess human toxicity and freshwater ecotoxicity impacts. As a case study, the relative impacts of two orange production systems in the region of Valencia, integrated pest management (IP) and organic production (OP), were assessed.

Life cycle human toxicity assessment of pesticides: comparing fruit and vegetable diets in Switzerland and the United States.

Food consumption represents the dominant exposure pathway of the general public to pesticides. In this paper, we characterize the lifelong cumulative human health damage from ingestion of pesticides contained in fruits and vegetables in Switzerland and the United States. We evaluated pesticide residues in 62,151 food samples.

Uptake and persistence of pesticides in plants: measurements and model estimates for imidacloprid after foliar and soil application.

The uptake and persistence behaviour of the insecticide imidacloprid in tomato plants treated by (i) foliar spray application and (ii) soil irrigation was studied using two plant uptake models. In addition to a pesticide deposition model, a dynamic root uptake and translocation model was developed, and both models predict residual concentrations of pesticides in or on fruits. The model results were experimentally validated.

Estimating half-lives of pesticides in/on vegetation for use in multimedia fate and exposure models.

Degradation half-lives in/on vegetation are needed in environmental risk assessment of pesticides, but these data are often not available for most active ingredients. To address this, we first correlated experimental soil degradation half-life data of 41 pesticides obtained from the reviewed literature with the corresponding experimental half-lives on plant surface. Degradation half-lives in soil were found to be four times slower compared with half-lives on plant surfaces.

PestScreen: a screening approach for scoring and ranking pesticides by their environmental and toxicological concern.

A chemical ranking and scoring method entitled PestScreen has been developed as a screening tool to provide a relative assessment of pesticide hazards to human health and the environment. The method was developed to serve as an analytical tool in screening and identification of pesticides of environmental concern used in agriculture. PestScreen incorporates both the toxic effects of pesticides and their fate and exposure characteristics in different compartments of the environment.