title: A Protocol for the Global Sensitivity Analysis of Impact Assessment Models in Life Cycle Assessment.
abstract: The life cycle assessment (LCA) framework has established itself as the leading tool for the assessment of the environmental impact of products. Several works have established the need of integrating the LCA and risk analysis methodologies, due to the several common aspects. One of the ways to reach such integration is through guaranteeing that uncertainties in LCA modeling are carefully treated. It has been claimed that more attention should be paid to quantifying the uncertainties present in the various phases of LCA. Though the topic has been attracting increasing attention of practitioners and experts in LCA, there is still a lack of understanding and a limited use of the available statistical tools. In this work, we introduce a protocol to conduct global sensitivity analysis in LCA. The article focuses on the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), and particularly on the relevance of global techniques for the development of trustable impact assessment models. We use a novel characterization model developed for the quantification of the impacts of noise on humans as a test case. We show that global SA is fundamental to guarantee that the modeler has a complete understanding of: (i) the structure of the model and (ii) the importance of uncertain model inputs and the interaction among them.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Leiden University, P.O. Box 9518,2300, RA, Leiden, The Netherlands.|Bren School of Environmental Sciences and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cucurachi
authors.affiliation: Department of Decision Sciences, Management Science Laboratory, SDA Bocconi Business School, Bocconi University, Via Roentgen 1, 20136, Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Borgonovo
authors.affiliation: Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Leiden University, P.O. Box 9518,2300, RA, Leiden, The Netherlands.|Department of Economeasures and Operations Research, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Heijungs
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000032:analysis*; D006801:Humans; D015233:Models, Statistical; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D035501:Uncertainty
keywords: Global sensitivity analysis; LCIA; life cycle assessment; risk analysis; uncertainty importance