Dataset Information

Soil quality index: Exploring options for a comprehensive assessment of land use impacts in LCA.

ABSTRACT: Impacts associated with land use are increasingly recognized as important aspects to consider when conducting Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Across the existing models accounting for land use activities in life cycle impact assessment, a balance is yet to be found between complexity and comprehensiveness on one hand, and applicability on the other hand. This work builds on the LANd use indicator value CAlculation (LANCA^®) model, assessing the impacts of land use activities on five soil properties, and aims at developing an aggregated index to improve its applicability. First a statistical analysis is conducted, leading to the shortlisting of the four most significant soil quality indicators. Then two options for aggregating the selected indicators are presented: the soil quality index (SQI), based on linear aggregation, and the normalisation-based soil quality index (NSQI), where the aggregation process involves normalisation integrated into the characterisation step. Country-specific and global average characterisation factors (CFs) are calculated for 57 land use types considering both land occupation and land transformation interventions with the two suggested approaches. The two indices present similar ranking of land use types but the relative contribution of the separate indicators to the aggregated index varies according to the approach adopted. The differences between the aggregation approaches suggested are discussed, together with the limitations related to both the LANCA^® model and the aggregation approaches. This work represents a first step towards the widespread application of a comprehensive and robust land use model at midpoint level in LCA. Finally, a number of recommendations for the future development of the LANCA^® model and of the related soil quality models are provided.

SUBMITTER: De Laurentiis V

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6472660 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Soil quality index: Exploring options for a comprehensive assessment of land use impacts in LCA.

De Laurentiis Valeria V Secchi Michela M Bos Ulrike U Horn Rafael R Laurent Alexis A Sala Serenella S

Journal of cleaner production 20190401

Impacts associated with land use are increasingly recognized as important aspects to consider when conducting Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Across the existing models accounting for land use activities in life cycle impact assessment, a balance is yet to be found between complexity and comprehensiveness on one hand, and applicability on the other hand. This work builds on the LANd use indicator value CAlculation (LANCA<sup>®</sup>) model, assessing the impacts of land use activities on five soil ...[more]

PMID: 31007413

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Project description:To obtain utilities (a unit of measure of a person's relative preferences for different health states compared with death or worst possible outcome) for uterine fibroids before and after treatment and to measure short-term utilities for the following uterine fibroid treatments: abdominal hysterectomy, magnetic resonance (MR) imaging-guided focused ultrasound surgery, and uterine artery embolization (UAE).This retrospective study was approved by the institutional review board and was HIPAA compliant. The waiting trade-off (WTO) method, a variation on the time trade-off (TTO) method, is used to obtain utilities for diagnostic procedures on the basis of the fact that people wait longer to avoid noxious tests and/or procedures. The WTO method provides short-term quality of life tolls in terms of quality-adjusted life-weeks by scaling wait times with pre- and posttreatment utilities. Utilities for uterine fibroids before and after treatment were obtained with the TTO method and a visual analog scale (VAS) by using a questionnaire administered by means of a phone interview. WTO wait times were adjusted for quality of life with VAS and TTO utilities and a transformation of VAS. Wait times were compared by using nonparametric tests. The study participants included 62 patients who had undergone abdominal hysterectomy, 74 who had undergone UAE, and 61 who had undergone MR imaging-guided focused ultrasound surgery.Quality of life increased with all treatments. The median WTO wait time was higher for hysterectomy (21.6 weeks) than for UAE or MR imaging-guided focused ultrasound surgery (14.1 weeks for both) (P < .05). Quality-adjusted life-week tolls were smaller when scaled according to TTO than when scaled according to VAS or transformation of VAS.Quality of life increased after all fibroid treatments. WTO is feasible for assessing the quality-adjusted morbidity of treatment procedures.http://radiology.rsna.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1148/radiol.11100704/-/DC1.

Dataset Information

Soil quality index: Exploring options for a comprehensive assessment of land use impacts in LCA.

Publications

Soil quality index: Exploring options for a comprehensive assessment of land use impacts in LCA.

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