The importance of incorporating soil in the life cycle assessment procedure to improve the sustainability of agricultural management

De Feudis, M, Selmi, C, Falsone, G, Missere, D, Di Bonito, M ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8590-0267 and Vittori Antisari, L, 2022. The importance of incorporating soil in the life cycle assessment procedure to improve the sustainability of agricultural management. CATENA, 218: 106563. ISSN 0341-8162

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Abstract

The formidable ability of soil to store carbon has attracted an increasing number of studies, but few of them included soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration as part of a carbon balance assessment in the agroecosystem. This raises some interesting questions: 1) how orchards conversion increase soil capacity to mitigate the green–house gases (GHG) emissions by storing C? 2) can it be considered in life cycle assessment (LCA)? 3) can SOC pools and soil biochemical properties determination improve LCA interpretation? To answer these questions, this study selected a ten– and fifteen–years–old peach orchards, a twenty–years–old pear orchard, a thirty–years–old kiwi orchard in south-east part of Emilia–Romagna Region (Italy), and a cereals’ field as reference. Soil samples were collected from 0 to 15 and 15–30 cm depths, and the SOC pool amounts (i.e., labile and recalcitrant) determined. LCA was used to estimate the GHG emissions (CO2eq) from the orchards. Results showed that the conversion from cereals to orchard production increased OC stock (+82 % on average) suggesting that orchards cultivation systems have the capacity to enrich soil organic matter. Fertilization had the greatest impact on CO2eq emission accounting for at least 40 % of total CO2eq emissions. Kiwi cultivation had the highest impact on GHG emissions mainly due to the high water and nutrient demand (0.045 and 0.149 kg CO2eq kg−1 fruit yr−1, respectively). When taking into account the C–CO2eq loss by fruit cultivation and C storage in soils, results would indicate that peach and pear orchard agroecosystems promote C sequestration. Conversely, kiwi cultivation showed large CO2eq emissions only partly counterbalanced by SOC sequestration. This study highlights the importance of including soils in LCA: if made mandatory this would allow a wider, yet more detailed, picture of the impact of agricultural practices on C budget. This simple step could help optimise resource management and at the same time improve agroecosystem sustainability.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	CATENA
Creators:	De Feudis, M., Selmi, C., Falsone, G., Missere, D., Di Bonito, M. and Vittori Antisari, L.
Publisher:	Elsevier BV
Date:	November 2022
Volume:	218
ISSN:	0341-8162
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1016/j.catena.2022.106563 DOI S0341816222005495 Publisher Item Identifier 1594939 Other
Rights:	© 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	18 Oct 2022 14:00
Last Modified:	06 Aug 2023 03:00
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/47269

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