title: Characterization factors for land use impacts on biodiversity in life cycle assessment based on direct measures of plant species richness in European farmland in the 'Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forest' biome.
abstract: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a widely used tool to assess environmental sustainability of products. The LCA should optimally cover the most important environmental impact categories such as climate change, eutrophication and biodiversity. However, impacts on biodiversity are seldom included in LCAs due to methodological limitations and lack of appropriate characterization factors. When assessing organic agricultural products the omission of biodiversity in LCA is problematic, because organic systems are characterized by higher species richness at field level compared to the conventional systems. Thus, there is a need for characterization factors to estimate land use impacts on biodiversity in life cycle assessment that are able to distinguish between organic and conventional agricultural land use that can be used to supplement and validate the few currently suggested characterization factors. Based on a unique dataset derived from field recording of plant species diversity in farmland across six European countries, the present study provides new midpoint occupation Characterization Factors (CF) expressing the Potentially Disappeared Fraction (PDF) to estimate land use impacts on biodiversity in the 'Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forest' biome in Europe. The method is based on calculation of plant species on randomly selected test sites in the biome and enables the calculation of characterization factors that are sensitive to particular types of management. While species richness differs between countries, the calculated CFs are able to distinguish between different land use types (pastures (monocotyledons or mixed), arable land and hedges) and management practices (organic or conventional production systems) across countries. The new occupation CFs can be used to supplement or validate the few current CF's and can be applied in LCAs of agricultural products to assess land use impacts on species richness in the 'Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forest' biome.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Agroecology, Aarhus University, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark. Electronic address: mariet.knudsen@agro.au.dk.
authors.forename: Marie Trydeman
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Knudsen
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Agroecology, Aarhus University, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark.
authors.forename: John E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Hermansen
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Energy and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, 41296 Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Christel
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cederberg
authors.affiliation: Agroscope, Institute for Sustainability Sciences ISS, Zurich CH-8046, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Felix
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Herzog
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth University, UK-SY23 3DD, UK.
authors.forename: Jim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vale
authors.affiliation: Agroscope, Institute for Sustainability Sciences ISS, Zurich CH-8046, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jeanneret
authors.affiliation: Toulouse University, ENSAT, UMR 1248 AGIR, Castanet-Tolosan F-31326, France; INRA, UMR 1248 AGIR, Chemin de Borde-Rouge, Castanet-Tolosan F-31326, France.
authors.forename: Jean-Pierre
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Sarthou
authors.affiliation: University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Vienna A-1180, Austria.
authors.forename: Jürgen K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Friedel
authors.affiliation: Institute of Environmental and Landscape Management, MKK, Szent Istvan University, Pater K. u.1, Gödöllö H-2100, Hungary.
authors.forename: Katalin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Balázs
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute (NFLI), N-1431 Ås, Norway.
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Fjellstad
authors.affiliation: Munich Technical University, Freising D-85350, Germany.
authors.forename: Max
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kainz
authors.affiliation: Munich Technical University, Freising D-85350, Germany.
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wolfrum
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth University, UK-SY23 3DD, UK.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Dennis
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D044822:Biodiversity; D057231:Climate Change; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D005060:Europe; D000072480:Farms; D065928:Forests
keywords: Biodiversity damage potential; Conventional farming; General habitat categories; LCA; Organic agriculture; Potentially disappeared fraction of species