Improvement of energy efficiency and environmental impacts of rainbow trout in Iran

Abstract

Combination of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and other management tools can help production units to improve economic productivity and environmental protection. In this study, a combination of LCA and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was applied in order to improve the energy efficiency and reduce the environmental burdens of rainbow trout farm in Ardal and Lordegan regions located in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province of Iran. The required data were collected from 60 rainbow trout farms in Ardal region and 38 rainbow trout farms in Lordegan region through face-to-face questionnaire method. In Ardal region, total energy inputs, rainbow trout yield and Energy Ratio (ER) were estimated as 60,483.50 MJ ton−1, 281.78 ton ha−1 and 0.40, respectively, while for Lordegan region, these estimates were obtained as 77,183.63 MJ ha−1, 210.50 kg ha−1 and 0.33, respectively. The results of LCA revealed that rainbow trout production in Ardal region had lower environmental burdens than Lordegan region in all impact categories. Accordingly, Environmental Emissions Final Score (EEFS) in Ardal and Lordegan regions were 1638.88 and 3484.31 ppt ton−1, respectively. The normalized results also showed that Marine Aquatic Ecotoxicity (MAE) had the highest value among all impact categories in both regions. The DEA results showed that in Ardal and Lordegan regions about 29.28% and 9.59% of the total energy can be saved without reducing the yield, respectively. The highest potential for saving energy was related to feed in both Ardal (24.74%) and Lordegan (9.12%) regions. The results of LCA coupled with DEA also revealed that there is a higher potential for reduction of environmental impacts in Ardal region compare to Lordegan region. Accordingly, the EEFS value in Ardal and Lordegan regions were reduced by 27.34% and 8.85%, respectively. Generally, rainbow trout production in Ardal region had higher energy efficiency, lower environmental burdens and also higher potential to improve energy consumption and reduce the environmental impacts compared to Lordegan region.