Assessment of environment impacts of forage corn production using LCA: case study in Khorramabad, Iran

Hassani, Shahin; Ramroudi, Mahmoud; Ahmadi, Ebrahim

doi:10.22034/aes.2022.295057.1002

Assessment of environment impacts of forage corn production using LCA: case study in Khorramabad, Iran

Document Type : Original research article

Authors

Shahin Hassani ¹

Mahmoud Ramroudi ²

Ebrahim Ahmadi ³

¹ Ph.D. graduate in Agroecology, University of Zabol, Zabol, Iran

² Department of Agronomy, College of Agriculture, University of Zabol, Zabol, Iran

³ Department of Biosystem, College of Agriculture, Buali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran

10.22034/aes.2022.295057.1002

Abstract

Forage corn is an important crop with characteristics that make it attractive for livestock industry. In the west of Iran and the margin of the Zagros mountains, due to the flourishing of animal husbandry, production of forage corn is quite vital. However, such crop production may affect environmental phenomena including global warming, ozone depletion, eutrophication, acidification potential and human toxicity potential. In the present study, the life cycle assessment methodology has been applied to study contaminants production due to forage corn cultivation. Therefore, different environmental impacts, along with the production processes, have been evaluated. The potential environmental impacts are calculated according to the production unit equivalents considered by the global databases. The amount of greenhouse gases emissions due to the production of one ton of forage corn is 118.46 units, as CO₂equivalent. To consider the impact as ozone depletion, this amount was calculated to be one ton of forage corn equal to 0.0000147 units per kilogram of CEC₁₁ production. Eutrophication potential in the production of one ton of forage corn was estimated to be 0.4618 units, equivalent to kilograms of PO₄ production. Improvements in corn production efficiency may result in less contaminants production and lower environment degradation.

Highlights

The study examines the environmental impacts of forage corn production in western Iran using LCA method.
The study evaluates the greenhouse gas emissions, ozone depletion, eutrophication, acidification, and toxicity for humans and terrestrial ecosystems as environmental indicators.
The study shows that the production of one ton of forage corn generates 118.46 units of greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to CO₂.
The study suggests that improving the efficiency of forage corn production can reduce pollution and environmental degradation.

Keywords

Acidification

Eutrophication

Global warming

Human toxicity

Terrestrial ecotoxicity

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