Environmental impacts of peanut production system using life cycle assessment methodology

Abstract

Agricultural activities emit the greenhouse gases and the other environmental contaminants to the atmosphere. Thus, the environmental impacts of agricultural activities have to be examined for identification, assessment and mitigation. In this study, life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was used to determine the environmental impacts of peanut production system in Guilan province of Iran. These environmental impacts were classified into six impact categories including global warming, acidification, terrestrial eutrophication, depletion of fossil resources, depletion of phosphate and potash resources. Results indicated that the final indices for these six impact categories were calculated as 0.040, 0.216, 0.360, 3.98, 0.291 and 0.026 for one ton peanut production in this region, respectively. The depletion of fossil resources had wider negative effects on the environment. Farms of 0.1–0.5 ha showed the highest amount of global warming potential as well as the depletion of fossil resources. The environmental index and resource depletion index for one ton production of peanut were 0.62 and 4.30, respectively. Also, the final indices of global warming, acidification, terrestrial eutrophication, fossil, phosphate and potash resource depletion were revealed to be 0.0017, 0.0091, 0.0152, 0.168, 0.012 and 0.001 for generating 1000 MJ energy, respectively.