Spatially Explicit Characterization of Acidifying and Eutrophying Air Pollution in Life-Cycle Assessment

摘要

Simple models are often used to assess the potential im- pact of acidifying and eLrtrophying substances released dur- ing the life cycle of products. As fate, background depositions. and ecosystem sensitivity are not included in these models, environmentallife-cycle assessment of prod- ucts(LCA) may produce incorrect results for these impact categories. This paper outlines the spatially explicit regional air pollution information and simulation model (RAINS- LCA), which was developed for the calculation of aciditica- tion ar)d terrestrial eLrtrophication potentials of ammonia (NH3) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) air emissions and acidi- ticationpotentials for sulfur dioxide (SOV air emissions for Europe and a number of European regions. taking fate. background depositions and effects Into account.Two impact definition~are ex- plored in the calculations: l) the marginal change in the hazard index of all ecosys- tems in Europe and 2) the marginal change in the hazard index of ecosystems in Europe where the critical load is actu- ally exceeded. The indusion of fate.. back- ground depositioQs,and ecosystem sensitivity results in a different ranking of substances compared to simplermodej outcomes. In the context of acidification, emissions of nitrogen compounds are re- garded as about a factor 2 less important. relative to sulfur compounds. Further- more, using RAINS-LCA as opposed to simpler models, it was found that region- specific differences in terrestrial eutrophi- cation and acidification potentials range up to 1.5 and 3.5 orders of magnitude, respectively. By means of scenario analysis, it was also shown that "only above critical .load" terrestrial eutrophication and acidi- fication potentials for the years 1995 and 20 10 differ up to 0.6 order and I order of magnitude, respectively. These results im- ply that it is important to use region-spe- cific and time-specificac.idifi~qtion and terrestrial eutrophication potentials, if it is expected that life-cyde emissions of acidi- fying and eutrophying air pollutants are predominantly situated in a few (Euro- pean) regions and within a specific year: Further improvements in RAINS-LCA may be established by induding source- receptor matrices of the Northern Hemisphere instead of Europe and using the probability of species occurrence as" a basis for the effect assessment