title: Land Use in LCA: Including Regionally Altered Precipitation to Quantify Ecosystem Damage.
abstract: The incorporation of soil moisture regenerated by precipitation, or green water, into life cycle assessment has been of growing interest given the global importance of this resource for terrestrial ecosystems and food production. This paper proposes a new impact assessment model to relate land and water use in seasonally dry, semiarid, and arid regions where precipitation and evapotranspiration are closely coupled. We introduce the Precipitation Reduction Potential midpoint impact representing the change in downwind precipitation as a result of a land transformation and occupation activity. Then, our end-point impact model quantifies terrestrial ecosystem damage as a function of precipitation loss using a relationship between woody plant species richness, water and energy regimes. We then apply the midpoint and end-point models to the production of soybean in Southeastern Amazonia which has resulted from the expansion of cropland into tropical forest, with noted effects on local precipitation. Our proposed cause-effect chain represents a complementary approach to previous contributions which have focused on water consumption impacts and/or have represented evapotranspiration as a loss to the water cycle.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia , 2202 Main Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada.
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Lathuillière
authors.affiliation: Département de stratégie, responsabilité sociale et environnementale, École des Sciences de la Gestion, Université du Québec à Montréal , CIRAIG, 315, rue Sainte-Catherine Est, Montreal, Quebec H2X 3X2, Canada.
authors.forename: Cécile
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bulle
authors.affiliation: Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia , 2202 Main Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada.|Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, University of British Columbia , 2207 Main Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada.
authors.forename: Mark S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Johnson
mesh_terms: D003889:Desert Climate; D017753:Ecosystem; D065928:Forests; D006802:Human Activities; D012987:Soil
chemical_list: D012987:Soil