Page 243 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

4.5 Impact Categories, Impact Indicators and Characterisation Factors 227

according to the goal and scope of the study and shall be described precisely. If a
full LCA is conducted, that is, impact categories are included indicating qualitative
water pollution like eutrophication, acidification, ecotoxicity and thermal pollution,
the water scarcity footprint can be used as additional impact category.

4.5.1.6 Land Use
Land use is discussed in the impact assessment as discrete impact category. This
is not to be confused with the importance of land use and land use change for
the impact category climate change. In this context land use is analysed on the
properties to function as source and sink of GHGs, mainly CO and N O.
2
2
Depending on the safeguard subject the focus of the view can be different
with the consequence that different impacts are addressed and thus different
indicators apply. If the view focuses on the safeguard subject ‘protection of natural
areas without anthropogenic intervention’ this can be seen as an umbrella goal,
for example, for biodiversity. If the view focuses on ‘preservation of soil fertility’
obviously different indicators are meaningful. Both approaches are explained below.
The most recent ‘state of the art’ with regard to land use and LCIA is presented
in a special issue of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assess. 136) It is based on
a UNEP/SETAC guideline on land use in LCIA. 137)
4.5.1.6.1 The Hemerobic Level Approach The approach to land use assessment
discussed here goes back to ecological landscape assessment and may be older than
LCIA. The primary subject for safeguard is the nativeness of land, which is seen
as another scarce resource particularly in densely populated countries and regions:
natural spaces of sufficient size are becoming scarce. For many years now, natural
spaces have become smaller worldwide because of land requirement for intensive
agriculture and renewable raw materials . In a broader sense any occupation and/or
transformation of soil, natural or used by humans in different intensity is assessed.
Many animals and plants depend on the presence of larger areas, either natural
ones or those which are only extensively used. An ongoing settlement, increas-
ing populations, de-fragmentation of landscapes by roads, intensive agriculture,
forestry by means of plantations, and so on imply extinction of species and in the
worst case the desertification of landscapes.
The variety of species and biodiversity as an admitted environmental target can
be mapped within an LCA only with great difficulty. Therefore an attempt was made
to indirectly define a criterion that covers at least some aspects for the protection of
species. Besides, a demand for natural space can be regarded as criterion applicable
for the protection of nature and landscape, soil and groundwater and similar goods,
where natural soil is an indispensable prerequisite. A detailed consideration of
possible and hypothetical consequences of land use by means of ‘endpoints’ where
causal relations to the examined product system could hardly be provided would be
far out of scope of an LCA. This is rather the task of environmental compatibility
assessment and local planning. In LCIA, the category land use is above all regarded

136) Koellner and Geyer (2013).
137) Koellner et al. (2013a,b).