Life-Cycle-Assessment (LCA) - Ecobalances - Natural Resource Management

In general the agricultural impact on nature and natural resources are well known and a set of agri-enviromental- indicators has been developed for national monitoring systems and resource management systems. But efficient methods to comprehend and assess agricultural impacts on the environment by combining suitable indicators are very much needed. One of the methods considered in the last years is the Life-Cycle-Assessment method (ISO 14040).

We adapted this method for agricultural purposes for comparing single farming procedures, total farm comparisons and scenarios evaluating and comparing the regional impact of farming systems (below some key figures) and for a goal-oriented natural resource management. For more details see Publications

Natural Resource Management and Environmental Impact of Agriculture on

• Biotopes(e.g. biodiversity of flora and fauna species, habitats)

• Soil (e.g. erosion, humus content, compaction, xenobiotica)

• Groundwater (e.g. nitrate and pesticide content, catchment sensitive farming)

• Surface water (e.g. phosphate, nitrate, pesticides, pharmaca)

• Food quality (e.g. residues, inner quality, product and process quality)

• Air (e.g. ammonia)

• Climate change (e.g. emission of trace gases, carbon sequestration, CO2-emission certificates)

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