1,720,984 research outputs found
Assessing Crop Portfolios: Diversification versus Monoculture for Biodiesel
Get PDFThe selection of crop patterns for agricultural areas is usually guided by the maximization of expected income. This variable is, however, influenced by the fluctuations of both crop productivity and prices.
The annual variability is directly related to the risk of a crop portfolio and, according to the so called Modern Theory Portfolio (MTP), it is a fundamental aspect to be taken into account during the selection of crops. This is true especially in case of those farmers who are not wealthy. Crop diversification is considered an effective solution able to alleviate the abovementioned inter-annual fluctuations and to
guarantee a safe minimum income. This being the context we assess different alternative crop portfolios for biodiesel production in Brazil, where many small and resource-poor ones co-exist with capital intensive and large-scale farms (units of less than 20 hectares constitute more than 60% of the total farm number). By adopting the MTP approach, we aim to compare two alternative and opposite strategies: monoculture and crop diversification for biofuel crop production. In particular, we evaluate the effectiveness of crop diversification in reducing the risk of crop portfolios and estimate possible losses in terms of expected incomes. The obtained results confirm that the choice of a mixed crop portfolio can guarantee the minimum risk in the majority of the analyzed cases, but the incomes are considerably lower than the ones obtained with monocultures. Nevertheless, the obtained outcomes vary considerably depending on the considered crop. Finally, an increment of diversity could have improved both expected income and risk of actual average national crop portfolio, which is close to soybean monoculture
Valutazione di sostenibilità ambientale in edilizia tramite analisi LCA: il caso di un pannello isolante in sughero
No full textAn optimization model for the planning of agroecosystems: Trading off socio-economic feasibility and biodiversity
No full textComprehensive approaches integrating ecological and socio-economic objectives are fundamental pillars in the design of more sustainable agroecosystems. To this purpose, we formulated an optimization model aimed to support decisions behind the planning of agricultural ecosystems. We demonstrate the proposed approach onto the design agroecosystems aimed at the regeneration of deforested lands in the Peruvian Amazon to investigate how the different objectives influence the species composition and the overall sustainability performance. The model incorporates the three dimensions of sustainability into the optimization objectives, i.e., annual income (economic dimension), species diversity (environmental dimension), and income stability (social dimension). The obtained results show, firstly, relevant tradeoffs between the economic objective and the social and ecological ones, with significant reductions in short term incomes in the agroecosystems with the highest levels of diversity. Secondly, the species compositions changes over time depending on the life cycle of selected species and following ecological succession paths. Finally, species diversity also determines heterogeneous ecological structures, and these are jointly good premises for ecosystem multi-functionality. We highlighted major methodological challenges for the planning of more sustainable agroecosystems, which are mainly linked to the conflict and trade-off analysis, long-term assessment, non steady-state solutions, and lack of data. Despite these challenges, the formulated optimization framework can quantitatively support the understanding and the pursuing of both the ecological conservation and the productivity of agroecosystems, and put the basis for future more detailed models
Planning Complex Agro-Ecosystems: The Case of Analog Forestry
Get PDFTraditional agroecosystems, aimed at maximizing the short term productivity, are characterized by
oversimplification of ecological structure and dependence on the use of external inputs. Moreover,
intensive agriculture is one of the main cause of deforestation. The main consequence of traditional
agriculture is the loss of natural ecosystems and of their precious services. Analog forestry has emerged
as a sustainable productive model able to be integrated in forest contexts, without degrading their
ecological functions. The obtained agro-ecosystem is characterized by an ecological structure similar to
the one of forest, and by the presence of several productive species in the same area. In this study we
formalize a planning problem aimed at the optimized design of an analog forest on the medium term. In
particular, besides the maximization of income, we considered both ecological (i.e., the presence of
different vertical layers and several species) and socio-economic requirements (i.e., the smoothing of
both inter- and intra-annual variability of income). We focus the analysis on the Peruvian Amazon, basing
on a species database created by ArBio, a Peruvian association which promotes the analog forestry as
tool for pursuing the conservation of forest ecosystem services. The obtained results show that the interannual
income variability, characterizing an approach of short-term maximization, can be eliminated by
adopting the gradual planting of individuals belonging to the same species. Secondly, we quantified the
economic and ecological performance of the designed analog forest under different settings of the
planning problem. The introduction of the defined ecological and socio-economic constraints affects the
economic performance on the medium term, by reducing the annual economic income up to 80%
Assessing food security in water scarce regions by Life Cycle Analysis: a case study in the Gaza strip
No full textAssessing the Influence of Vegetation on the Water Budget of Tropical Areas
No full textThe regulation of the water cycle is a major service provided by forests. However, this service is endangered by the deforestation taking place in areas like the Brazilian Amazon basin. In this study, we use two different approaches to investigate how evapotranspiration and rainfall partitioning are influenced by different vegetation covers (forest and pasture). We first explore a dataset produced with a global model (GLEAM) and compare its predictions with those obtained with an existing simulation software (HYDRUS 1-D). Both methods consistently show that forests guarantee higher evapotranspiration rates than pastures, thus providing a larger contribution to water-related ecosystem services
Conciliare sicurezza alimentare e impatti ambientali: Water Footprint di scenari di produzione agricola nella Striscia di Gaza
Get PDFIl presente studio analizza gli impatti ambientali e, in particolare, l’impronta idrica della produzione agricola
su piccola scala nella Striscia di Gaza, area in cui le risorse naturali sono scarse, la densità demografica è
molto elevata e buona parte della popolazione soffre di insicurezza alimentare. L’analisi confronta in una
prospettiva di ciclo di vita una serie di scenari di rotazione colturale in termini di Water Footprint e di impatto
ambientale, valutato mediante il metodo ReCiPe. I risultati mostrano discordanze tra gli ordinamenti dei diversi
scenari ottenuti mediante le due metodologie. Viene, inoltre, valutata l’opportunità di affiancare alla
produzione agricola l’acquacoltura basata sull’utilizzo dei bacini di accumulo dell’acqua piovana allo scopo di
migliorare l’approvvigionamento proteico della popolazione. Risultati preliminari suggeriscono che tale attività
non sia una soluzione efficiente in termini di consumi idrici, a causa degli elevati tassi di evaporazione
From beans to bar: A life cycle assessment towards sustainable chocolate supply chain
Get PDFThe environmental sustainability has emerged as a crucial aspect in the agri-food sector, nevertheless environmental assessments and certifications of cocoa and chocolate are still missing. Given this gap and the increasing global demand for cocoa derivatives, this study aims to evaluate the environmental impacts of an Italian dark chocolate through a holistic cradle-to-grave Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The impact categories assessed are acidification potential (AC), eutrophication potential (EU), global warming potential (GW), photochemical ozone creation potential (POC), ozone layer depletion potential (OD), abiotic depletion (AD) and cumulative energy demand (CED). The obtained results highlight the relevant contributions of upstream phase (63% for the ODP, 92% for EU and 99% for the AD) and core processes (39% for the GW and 49% for the CED) on the overall impacts. Specifically, cocoa provisioning and energy supply at the manufacturing plant emerged as environmental hotspots and have been deeper investigated through a sensitivity analysis. Obtained outcomes show the significant variability of the environmental impacts due to the agricultural phase (i.e., depending on agroecosystems and practices) and environmental benefits guaranteed by an efficient trigeneration system implemented in the manufacturing plant. The quantification of the environmental impacts of chocolate through LCA, the identification of the main hotspots along the supply chain and the sensitivity analysis performed in this study could effectively support chocolate companies in their pathway towards environmentally sustainable productions
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