How ICT can contribute to environmental assessment
Information & Technologies Information & Technologies
for Agrofor Agro--ProcessesProcesses
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
environmental assessmentPr V. Bellon-Maurel
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010
Why carrying out Environmental Assessment?
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
Environmental Assessment?
A big challenge
Improving (reducing) our environmental footprint
If you can not measure it, you can not improve it!
William Thomson (1868)
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
Lord Kelvin
Improving (reducing) our environmental footprintWilliam Thomson (1868)
Also named….
How carrying out Environmental Assessment?
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
Environmental Assessment?
Several methods =>
Life Cycle Assessment is global and covers the whol e cycle
Life Cycle Assessment (ISO 14040 and 14044)
-In water-In air-In soil
EMISSION
MID-POINTENVIR. IMPACTS
- Global warming
- Stratosph ozone depletion
- Photochemicaloxidation
2- LCI:Inventory
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
- Energy- Raw material- Land
CONSUMPTION
oxidation
- Acidification
- Eutrophication
- Toxicity,ecotox
- Resource depletion
DAMAGES
1- Modellingthe studied
system
3- Convert flux intoimpacts
Inventoryof emitted/ consumedsubstances
HUGE NEED OF DATA
How to get such amount of data?
A old story…
- In 1999, SETAC created the “Streamlined LCA” group (Todd & Curran, 1999)
⇒ LC Inventory (LCI) is the most demanding phase of LCA.
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
-Agricultural system are susceptible to natural variability=> generalisation is more difficult and => reliable emissions data hard to collect (Lewis et al., 1999).
-In 2009 Finnveden et al. describe recent developments in LCA
=> confirm that LCI data acquisition remains one of the most labour-and time-intensive stages of LCA.
Two ways of collecting data in agriculture
Input Output
1- From global (farm level) to specific (one product): the ACCOUNTING APPROACH
Prod 1Prod 2Prod 3Prod 4
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
2- From each step to each product : the ANALYTICAL APPROACH
Input Output
Prod 4Prod 5
Allocation !!
ICT
Different types of data must be recorded
Input Output
Data about the process and conditions are to be recorded
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
Data about the process and conditions are to be recorded
Emissions vary a lot depending on the environmental conditions, technologies etc
Input -> Model (Environmental conditions, technology) -> Emissions
Variability of emissions with regard to the conditions
Example: fertilization / Langevin et al, 2010
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
Emission levels depends on the technology and on the conditions
Different types of data must be recorded
Input Output
Data about the process and conditions are to be recorded
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
Data about the process and conditions are to be recorded
Emissions vary a lot depending on the environmental conditions, technologies etc
Input -> Model (Environmental conditions, technology) -> Emissions
Various steps X various inputs, conditions, technologies => Huge amount of data
Example in viticulture
Viticulture
Pre-Pruning + Pruning
Grass Mowing
Shoot shredding Tillage (cultivation)
Tillage (cultivation)Deeper Tillage
Fertilisation
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
(Bud-removal)Lifting
Pesticide spraying (7 times-14 spraing)
Grass Mowing
Vine topping
HarvestTillage (cultivation)
On-the-row cultivation
Tillage (cultivation)
Fertilisation
Pesticide SprayingFertilisation TillageVine management
OPERATIONS
Example: Fertilizing in viticulture
N2O
NH3
SOIL
Soil moisture
Fuel consumption/emissions
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
NO3-
N2O
Fertilizer burying
Air moisture
Leaching
Soil , Rain
Soil-slurry pH TYPE & AMOUNT OF FERTILIZER
How to feed a LCI database?
N2O
NH3
SOIL T°
Soil moisture
Fuel consumption/emissions
Manual input
Sensor input
One-shot input
Weather input
Model output
Wind
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
NO3-
N2O
Air moisture
Soil type
Soil-slurry pH TYPE & AMOUNT OF FERTILIZER
Rain
Fertilizer burying
Where can ICT contribute ?Manual input
Sensor input
One-shot input
Weather input
Model output
Mobile technologies for data collection
Embedded sensors for data collection
Automatic data collection & mapping
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
Data collection and Modelling
Databasis
Mobile technologies for data acquisition
• Today: Pocket PCs, PDA, EDA, mobile phones- Pb: Acceptation by farmers- Mobile phones have the interest of having well penetrated the
market anywhere (5 billion subscriptions in 2010).
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
• Towards: more automatic data collection?- Bar codes, RFId (ex: pesticide recognition, see Peets et al
2009)- Voice recognition (ex: Talkman for forestry, see Rumble et al,
2009)
Embedded sensors for data acquisition
• Coupling sensor and GPS outputs- Sensors for the operation: digital gauges (fuel), flowmeters (pesticide
spraying, irrigation), etc - Sensors for the conditions: soil moisture, air moisture, wind…
• Isobus standard- Helps to seamlessly record data from different types of machines as well as
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
- Helps to seamlessly record data from different types of machines as well as working times (Sat-trace);
- Very interesting for generating huge amount of data on farm operations; See Steinberger et al. (2009)
• Mapping is not a mustGPS is necessary for recognising the field but a unique value –not a map- is
needed for LCI.
Automatic data collection and mapping
• Deals with weather data but also with environmental condition data (soil moisture, texture etc)
• Use of « regional » weather stations or of local sensor networks.
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
• Mapping increases the precision but is not compulsory (the nearest station data can be used)
• Such data are used to surrogate the lack of other data which are more difficult to measure but necessary for impact assessment; for instance soil T°can be modelled fro m air T°
Databases
• Farmers are more and more pushed to record data for traceability purposes: compulsory (ex: pesticide, fertilizers…) and voluntary traceability (ex: );
• Use of digital databases
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
• Use of digital databases
• LCI generation would not require too much additional data (environmental data to generate pollution emission from input use)
Conclusion• ICTs have a great interest for environmental assess ment, in
particular to generate LCI data (automatic or streamlined data acquisition)
• Not only knowledge of input (and technology) is needed but alsoknowledge of the environmental conditions:
Input -> Model (Environmental conditions, technology) -> Emissions
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
• So far, ICTs have not penetrated enough the agricul tural market but 3 main drivers exist:
- Low cost GPS- Smart phones- Compulsory traceability
Only few additional data (environmental data) must be added to traceability data ti generate emission data
Thank you for your attention
2 publications are currently being prepared on that subject:
- Streamlining life cycle inventory data generation in agriculture using traceability data and information and communication technologies –Part I: General concepts .
- Streamlining life cycle inventory data generation in agriculture using traceability data and information and communication technologies –Part II: Specifications to build up LCI-relevant databases in viticulture.
TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes
Part II: Specifications to build up LCI-relevant databases in viticulture.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work was carried out as part of a travelling scholarship supported by the European Commission (IRSES program, IRSES project nr 235108), the
Languedoc Roussillon Council (Regional Plat-form GEPETOS – ECOTECH-LR) and PEER (Partnership for European Environmental Research).