Life Cycle Assessment of Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Shelterbelt Seedling Production and Transportation in Saskatchewan, Canada

摘要

Shelterbelts on Saskatchewan (SK) farms are rows of tree and shrub species established around farmyards and livestock enclosures and within crop fields to serve various roles, including protection against wind and water damage to crops and farm infrastructure, soil erosion and moisture loss. Shelterbelts also can contribute to environmental benefits, most important of which is mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which has been identified as an important climate change mitigation strategy. In the overall strategy of mitigation of GHGs, there is a need for quantifying emissions of these gases in various mitigation operations, including plating of shelterbelts on farms. In order for a farm to plant a shelterbelt, a seedling has to be produced. This information is not currently available and therefore, was selected as the focus of the study. This research developed a life-cycle assessment of production and transportation of shelterbelt seedlings. It provides details on the processes and emissions of the production and transportation stages in the generation of tree seedlings used to establish a one kilometer long farm shelterbelt. The production and transportation stages for 1,000 shrub shelterbelt seedlings was estimated to generate 2,200 kg of carbon dioxide emissions regardless of species. During these stages of the shelterbelt life-cycle, the primary sources of GHG emissions were energy use for heating and for lighting during seedling growth while transportation of seedlings from the point of production to point of use represented a significantly smaller proportion of overall emissions.