1,721,136 research outputs found
Dryland interactions
No full textDataset accompanying the paper: Schild, J.E.M., Vermaat, J.E., van Bodegom, P.M., 2018b. Differential effects of valuation method and ecosystem type on the monetary valuation of dryland ecosystem services: a quantitative analysis. J. Arid Environ. 159, 11–21. doi:10.1016/j.jaridenv.2017.09.00
Dryland meta-analysis
No full textDataset accompanying the paper: Schild, J.E.M., Vermaat, J.E., de Groot, R.S., Quatrini, S., van Bodegom, P.M., 2018a. A global meta-analysis on the monetary valuation of dryland ecosystem services: The role of socioeconomic, environmental and methodological indicators. Ecosyst. Serv. 32. doi:10.1016/j.ecoser.2018.06.00
Impact of land use on functional plant diversity: A new assessment method demonstrated in Germany
No full textAssessing the human impacts on biodiversity is important for conserving biodiversity. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool to assess the impact product service systems have on the environment. To critically asses the human impact of land use on biodiversity in LCA, characterisation factors (CF) are needed to translate area and type of land use into loss of biodiversity. Most CFs are based on species richness but another biodiversity indicator, functional diversity (FD), better represents ecosystem functioning compared to taxonomic measures such as species richness. This study proposes a new method for calculating CFs, based on FD, for assessing impact of land use on plant biodiversity. To demonstrate the applicability of the method that is proposed, CFs were calculated based on data from Germany. The data was divided into four types, being land use, plant abundance, trait data and environmental data. The CFs developed show trends in impact on biodiversity in accordance with other studies. The proposed method in this study can guide in the development of more precise and geographically diverse CFs for assessing the impact of land use in biodiversity in LCA.The Master's programme Industrial Ecology is jointly organised by Leiden University and Delft University of Technology.Industrial Ecolog
Development of Ocean Acidification Endpoint Characterization Model for Life Cycle Assessment
No full textWith the current trend in emissions, the pH levels of the oceans are expected to decrease from 8.1 to 7.8 by the end of the century. In combination with the other stressors, it is projected that OA will have a wide range of impacts on marine life and its services to humanity. The representation of these implications is limited in environmental assessment tools such as Life Cycle Assessment. This research explores the relationship between the changing acidity of the oceans and marine biodiversity loss. This relation is quantified through utilising the ecotoxicology impact assessment approach for LCA. Following this approach, an endpoint characterization model is developed for ocean acidification. 3 different categorisations (climate zones, calcification, exposure duration) were made to assess their effects on species responses. The results revealed that there is no significant difference in responses based on different exposure durations or climate zones. Calcifying species on the other hand is found to have a higher sensitivity to ocean acidification as the change in carbonate chemistry directly influences the shell and skeleton formation of these organisms. Lastly, these models were integrated into an endpoint characterization model for ocean acidification. From the 3 GHG emissions included within the scope of this research (CO2, CO, CH4), CO2 has the highest (CFCO2 = 4.883 × 104 (𝑃𝐷𝐹)𝑚3/𝑘𝑔𝐺𝐻𝐺) and CH4 has the lowest (CFCH4 = 4.072 × 104 𝑃𝐷𝐹)𝑚3/𝑘𝑔𝐺𝐻𝐺) impact on marine biodiversity loss due to OA. These ecosystem damage indicators can be utilised in the impact assessment phase of the Life Cycle Assessment to translate the inventory results into impact on marine biodiversity. Through the quantification of the impacts of ocean acidification, the effects of this major stressor on marine life can be better understood and targeted strategies can be developed. However, more research is required to increase the robustness of these models through expanding the species scope and incorporating temporal and geographical aspects into the models. Furthermore, the cascading effects of the changing ocean pH are still unknown and its consequences on ecosystems and socio-economic structures are unprecedented. To establish science-based targets and strategies to conserve the species richness in marine life, the extent of our understanding of the damage caused by anthropogenic actions needs to be further explored and estimated.Industrial Ecolog
The direct effect of CO2 rise on the plant ionome: Implications for Exacerbating Global Malnutrition
No full textMalnutrition is worsening, affecting every country and over 3 billion people. There is evidence that rising CO2 levels will not only indirectly increase malnutrition through climate change effects, but also directly through a downshift in the plant ionome, reducing nutritional quality and increasing hidden hunger. Attempts to calculate the human health impact have been conducted with limited statistical power on a small group of nutrients. The impact on different age-sex groups, countries, and nutrients is still largely unknown. This research aims to fill this gap, creating a meta-analysis of the most data (5,809 entries), crops (43), and elements (31 plus phytate) of any study to date, resolving a methodological gap for disharmonious data and applying this to the GENuS model of global nutritional supply in 2011 for eight nutrients (calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, protein, and zinc) to see which countries will be able to provide enough nutrients for their citizens in a 550 ppm world compared to at 350 ppm.Bootstrapping reveals a distinct 5% to 12% systemic downshift in the plant ionome. Both C3 and C4 plants respond, disproving the hypothesis that C4 plants are mostly unaffected by CO2 rise and supporting the idea that the CO2 saturation point is not directly linked to mineral uptake. Elements have a differential response, suggesting that the carbon dilution theory is an inappropriate explanation. Zinc, protein, and iron have the largest decreases, and zinc in chickpeas decreases the most (40%) of all groups. Grains (wheat and rice) and soybeans are the hardest hit crops, decreasing in nutritional value up to 12%. The total nutrient supply decreases by 2.3% to 6.4%, increasing the malnourishment and obesity double burden. Countries will no longer provide enough nutrients from food solely due to changes in the plant ionome, impacting every country. Half of the world will develop new deficiencies. The strongest predictor of resiliency to nutritional changes from CO2 rise is diet diversity. Exacerbating global inequality, the impact will be particularly pronounced in African and Asian countries, and among women aged 25-29 compared to men of the same age group and children aged 0-4 years. Changing plant stoichiometry will have dramatic global implications for hidden hunger, worsening or introducing deficiencies, especially in iron, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc.Code and dataset available upon request. They will be uploaded publicly once the thesis has been submitted for publication.Industrial Ecolog
Azolla: a small fern with a high potential: Assessing the environmental impacts of Azolla-based feed in the transition to a circular agricultural system
No full textThe Azolla Filiculoidis is a subtype of aquatic fern species that thrives on fresh surface water bodies, and has a nutritive profile similar to soybean. In this thesis research, it was examined to what extent the large-scale implementation of Azolla-based livestock feed production will affect the future environmental sustainability performance of the Dutch livestock feed sector, in the context of the transition to a circular agricultural system (CAS). To that end, two novel, circular, Azolla-based feed production systems (FPSs) were designed as alternatives to the incumbent, linear, soy-based FPS. Subsequently, these FPSs were combined into three feed production scenarios: a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario which primarily relies on soy, as well as a local farming project (LFP) and a regional supply chains (RSC) scenario, in which the Azolla-based FPSs become dominant by 2050. The environmental impacts of each scenario were quantified in an ex-ante life cycle assessment (LCA), using the Activity Browser (AB) modelling tool. It appeared that, under the given assumptions, the LFP and RSC scenarios perform substantially better on all included environmental indicators by mid-century. This study opens the way for more profound future-oriented environmental modelling research, and recommends follow-up research on the biogeochemical carbon cycle of agro-industrial production systems in an LCA context, the development of fore- and background data for (circular) feed production, and the advancement of the AB software tool.Industrial Ecolog
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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