30 documents found, page 1 of 3

Surface vs. groundwater: the effect of forest cover on the costs of drinking water

Forests worldwide provide a variety of ecosystem services including carbon sequestration, soil protection and water purification. In particular, the minimal use of pesticides and fertilizers in forest operations coupled with the tree root system are associated with higher drinking water quality. However, forest coverage is expected to have a more influential impact in groundwater quality rather than surface as ...

Multi-Criteria and Life Cycle Assessment of Wood-Based Bioenergy Alternatives f...

Life cycle assessment of wood pellets and wood split logs for residential heating

Wood-fuelled systems are commonly used all over the world for residential heating, and recently wood pellets have been replacing traditional firewood. This article presents an environmental life cycle assessment of five wood-based combustion systems for residential heating: i) a pellet stove using maritime pine pellets; a wood stove using ii) eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus Labill.) and iii) maritime pine (Pinu...

Environmental impacts of forest biomass-to-energy conversion technologies: grat...

Electricity production from biomass has the potential to significantly contribute to the power mix in Portugal with lesser environmental impact than non-renewable resources. This study focuses on electricity production from the combustion of residual forest biomass from eucalypt logging activities in Portugal using life cycle assessment. In Portugal, several power plants fuelled by residual forest biomass have ...

Water footprint profile of crop-based vegetable oils and waste cooking oil: com...

This paper compares the water footprint profiles of four feedstocks used for biodiesel production: palm, soya, rapeseed and waste cooking oil (WCO). The profiles include: (a) a water scarcity footprint related to freshwater consumption impacts and (b) a water quality degradation footprint related to freshwater degradation impacts. The water scarcity footprint was assessed using two impact assessment methods: on...

Evaluating the carbon footprint of the cork sector with a dynamic approach incl...

Purpose The aim of the present study is to assess the influence of two different attributional life cycle assessment (LCA) approaches, namely static LCA (sLCA) and dynamic LCA (dLCA), through their application to the calculation of the carbon footprint (CF) of the entire cork sector in Portugal. The effect of including biogenic carbon sequestration and emissions is considered as well. Methods sLCA is often desc...

Comparison of tools for quantifying the environmental performance of an urban t...

To support effective urban policies aimed at decreasing the environmental impacts of cities, it is important to develop robust tools for accounting those impacts. Environmentally extended input‐output analysis (EEIOA) is among the most used tools for this purpose, allowing the quantification of both direct and indirect impacts. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is also a holistic and comprehensive tool that accounts ...

Cork stoppers supply chain: potential scenarios for environmental impact reduction

The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the environmental impacts deriving from the production of natural cork stoppers in Portugal, in order to identify the most significant stages and processes (hotspots) and to suggest improvement actions and alternative scenarios. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is used by applying a cradle-to-bottling approach. This approach includes the stages of forest ma...

A carbon footprint simulation model for the cork oak sector

In the present study, a simulation model for the calculation of the carbon footprint of the cork oak sector (CCFM) is developed for the first time. A life cycle approach is adopted including the forest management, manufacturing, use and end-of-life stages. CCFM allows the user to insert the cork type used as raw material and its respective quantity and the distances in-between the various stages. The user can c...

Evaluating the environmental impact of two beef production systems using life c...

Beef production has been identified as an important source of environmental impacts. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been applied worldwide to identify key processes/phases for environmental improvement in beef production. In this study, LCA is used to assess the environmental impacts of beef produced in two different production systems, namely extensive and intensive fattening. A “cradle-to-gate” approach is a...