Hi!
I am wondering if land use change (or deforestation) emissions are included in the production of food items in the LCI data of ecoinvent? From what I could tell, the emissions due to land use are (at least for corn), but I could not find emissions for land use change.
With kind regards,
Natasha
Dear Natasha,
Thank you for your question. The food production datasets are modelled using the 'Direct Land Use Change Assessment Tool' version 2014 developed by Blonk Consultants. In this tool, the amount of emissions created from the land use change, mainly N2O emissions, are included in the inventory. You can read more about this tool and what exactly it includes in the 'WFLDB-Guidelines.pdf' at the agricultural file, available at here.
Best regards
Nikolia Stoikou, Junior Data Analyst, ecoinvent association
Dear Nikolia,
I am also trying to understand how land use change is currently implemented in ecoinvent, and also for food production datasets from WFLDB. I've followed your link above - also referenced as the place to look in the UPR files - but there is no file 'WFLDB-Guidelines.pdf' in the list of reports. Please can you clarify where this report is now saved? And which version of the WFLDB is currently implemented in ecoinvent 3.7.1?
Thanks and best wishes,
Samantha
Dear Samantha,
The report is actually a white paper, as it is properly called. It is available after logging in at the ecoQuerry, under the “Reports” section and it is named as Consideration of land use change in ecoinvent. It corresponds to the WFLDB version of 2016 that is still implemented in ecoinvent 3.7.1.
Best regards,
Nikolia Stoikou, Junior Data Analyst
Dear Nikolia,
Thank you for the direction. I have read the report 'Consideration of land use change in ecoinvent', as well as the associated 'Agriculture' files - specifically the 'ecoinvent 3 report_WFLDB_Guidelines_v3.0_2016' and I'm afraid I now have a further query.
Is ecoinvent 3.3 (and 3.7.1) a direct implementation of the equivalent WFLDB 3.1 process, or are there some changes between the two? Looking for example at Table 2 in 'Consideration of land use change in ecoinvent', this is very similar but not identical to tab.2 in 'ecoinvent 3 report_WFLDB_Guidelines_v3.0_2016' (see attached image). Which report is the methodology that is implemented?
And is it possible to add up the impacts of a selection of the inputs in the UPR to calculate just the impact from land use change directly attributable to the crop? My understanding from the methodology is that summing the impacts from the 'Market for Land Use Change...' processes would do this at least in part; is there anything else I'd need to add?
Thanks and best wishes,
Samantha
Dear Samantha,
Thanks for coming back to us.
The ecoinvent versions 3.3 and 3.7.1 have the same implementation when it comes to land use change methodology and they are based in the white paper (Consideration of land use change in ecoinvent report).
Regarding the tables that you mentioned, I am afraid that they are not comparable as the soil organic carbon is part of the land transformation methodology.
It is also possible to add up the selected impacts depending on what exactly you are interested in including, but keep in mind that this is valid only for non-global datasets.
If you have further questions, please, feel free to contact us directly in support@ecoinvent.org to better support you via email.
Best regards,
Nikolia Stoikou, Junior Data Analyst, ecoinvent
