Morais Tiago G, Teixeira Ricardo Fm, Domingos Tiago
Marine, Environment and Technology Centre (MARETEC), Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.
Integr Environ Assess Manag. 2017 Sep;13(5):939-951. doi: 10.1002/ieam.1889. Epub 2017 Feb 20.
Life cycle inventory (LCI) regionalization (i.e., the determination of input and output flows from production processes at a subcountry scale) is a priority in life cycle assessment (LCA) studies, particularly in the agri-food sector. Many regionalized LCAs fail to ensure that microlevel inventories are consistent with country-level aggregated data-or "scale consistent." They also fail to construct LCIs using international reference guidelines and trustworthy standardized data sources. This failure generates inaccuracies and biases in inventories and can compromise comparability among international LCA studies. Our study introduces scale consistency as a principle for regionalized agri-food LCIs. We present a generic procedure that defines how scale-dependent LCI flows should be regionalized, depending on data availability. We then present a list of inventory flows that require regionalization and their suggested calculation procedures (methods and models) from 2 methodological guides developed by projects Agribalyse and World Food LCA Database. As proof of concept, we apply the procedure to Portugal and assess whether the methods and models proposed for each type of inventory flow in both guides can potentially be applied consistently with the data available. For 17 inventory flows, we apply calculated scale-consistent inventory flows for Portuguese agriculture, covering 260 products that can be used in future LCA studies. Comparing results with international databases, we show that this procedure can improve country-level estimates significantly. Our study is the first step in introducing scale consistency as a guiding principle for regionalized LCIs for agri-food LCA studies. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2017;13:939-951. © 2017 SETAC.
生命周期清单（LCI）区域化（即确定国家以下层面生产过程的输入和输出流）是生命周期评估（LCA）研究的重点，在农业食品部门尤为如此。许多区域化的LCA未能确保微观层面的清单与国家层面的汇总数据一致，即“尺度一致”。它们也未能依据国际参考指南和可靠的标准化数据源构建LCI。这种失误导致清单出现不准确和偏差，可能会损害国际LCA研究之间的可比性。我们的研究引入尺度一致性作为区域化农业食品LCI的一项原则。我们提出了一个通用程序，该程序根据数据的可得性定义了依赖尺度的LCI流应如何进行区域化。然后，我们列出了需要进行区域化的清单流，以及来自Agribalyse和世界粮食LCA数据库项目制定的两份方法指南中建议的计算程序（方法和模型）。作为概念验证，我们将该程序应用于葡萄牙，并评估这两份指南中针对每种清单流所提议的方法和模型是否能够与现有数据一致地潜在应用。对于17种清单流，我们应用计算得出的葡萄牙农业尺度一致的清单流，涵盖了260种可用于未来LCA研究的产品。将结果与国际数据库进行比较，我们表明该程序可以显著改进国家层面的估算。我们的研究是将尺度一致性作为农业食品LCA研究区域化LCI的指导原则的第一步。《综合环境评估与管理》2017年；13:939 - 951。© 2017 SETAC。
