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Peña LVL, Taelman SE, Préat N, et al. Towards a comprehensive sustainability methodology to assess anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems: Review of the integration of Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental Risk Assessment and Ecosystem Services Assessment. Sci Total Environ. 2021;152125doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152125.
Peña, L. V. L., Taelman, S. E., Préat, N., Boone, L., Van der Biest, K., Custódio, M., Lucas, S. H., Everaert, G., & Dewulf, J. (2021). Towards a comprehensive sustainability methodology to assess anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems: Review of the integration of Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental Risk Assessment and Ecosystem Services Assessment. The Science of the total environment, 152125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152125
Peña, Laura Vittoria De Luca, et al. "Towards a comprehensive sustainability methodology to assess anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems: Review of the integration of Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental Risk Assessment and Ecosystem Services Assessment." The Science of the total environment vol. (2021): 152125. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152125
Peña LVL, Taelman SE, Préat N, Boone L, Van der Biest K, Custódio M, Lucas SH, Everaert G, Dewulf J. Towards a comprehensive sustainability methodology to assess anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems: Review of the integration of Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental Risk Assessment and Ecosystem Services Assessment. Sci Total Environ. 2021 Dec 03;152125. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152125. Epub 2021 Dec 03. PMID: 34871681.
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Sci Total Environ. 2021 Dec 03;152125. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152125. Epub 2021 Dec 03.

Towards a comprehensive sustainability methodology to assess anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems: Review of the integration of Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental Risk Assessment and Ecosystem Services Assessment.

The Science of the total environment

Laura Vittoria De Luca Peña, Sue Ellen Taelman, Nils Préat, Lieselot Boone, Katrien Van der Biest, Marco Custódio, Simon Hernandez Lucas, Gert Everaert, Jo Dewulf

Affiliations

  1. Department of Green Chemistry and Technology, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000 Gent, Belgium. Electronic address: [email protected].
  2. Department of Green Chemistry and Technology, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000 Gent, Belgium.
  3. Ecosystem Management Research Group, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610 Wilrijk, Belgium.
  4. Flanders Marine Institute, Wandelaarkaai 7, B8400 Ostend, Belgium.
  5. Ghent University, Laboratory of Environmental Toxicology and Aquatic Ecology, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, 9000, Ghent, Belgium; Ghent University, BLUEGent Business Development Center in Aquaculture and Blue Life Sciences, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.

PMID: 34871681 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152125

Abstract

Nowadays, a variety of methodologies are available to assess local, regional and global impacts of human activities on ecosystems, which include Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) and Ecosystem Services Assessment (ESA). However, none can individually assess both the positive and negative impacts of human activities at different geographical scales in a comprehensive manner. In order to overcome the shortcomings of each methodology and develop more holistic assessments, the integration of these methodologies is essential. Several studies have attempted to integrate these methodologies either conceptually or through applied case studies. To understand why, how and to what extent these methodologies have been integrated, a total of 110 relevant publications were reviewed. The analysis of the case studies showed that the integration can occur at different positions along the cause-effect chain and from this, a classification scheme was proposed to characterize the different integration approaches. Three categories of integration are distinguished: post-analysis, integration through the combination of results, and integration through the complementation of a driving method. The literature review highlights that the most recurrent type of integration is the latter. While the integration through the complementation of a driving method is more realistic and accurate compared to the other two categories, its development is more complex and a higher data requirement could be needed. In addition to this, there is always the risk of double-counting for all the approaches. None of the integration approaches can be categorized as a full integration, but this is not necessarily needed to have a comprehensive assessment. The most essential aspect is to select the appropriate components from each methodology that can cover both the environmental and socioeconomic costs and benefits of human activities on the ecosystems.

Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Keywords: Ecosystem services; Integration; Life cycle assessment; Multifunctional use; Risk assessment; Sustainability

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