How ICT can contribute to environmental assessment

Information & Technologies Information & Technologies

for Agrofor Agro--ProcessesProcesses

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

environmental assessmentPr V. Bellon-Maurel

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010

Why carrying out Environmental Assessment?

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

Environmental Assessment?

A big challenge

Improving (reducing) our environmental footprint

If you can not measure it, you can not improve it!

William Thomson (1868)

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

Lord Kelvin

Improving (reducing) our environmental footprintWilliam Thomson (1868)

Also named….

How carrying out Environmental Assessment?

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

Environmental Assessment?

Several methods =>

Life Cycle Assessment is global and covers the whol e cycle

Life Cycle Assessment (ISO 14040 and 14044)

-In water-In air-In soil

EMISSION

MID-POINTENVIR. IMPACTS

- Global warming

- Stratosph ozone depletion

- Photochemicaloxidation

2- LCI:Inventory

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

- Energy- Raw material- Land

CONSUMPTION

oxidation

- Acidification

- Eutrophication

- Toxicity,ecotox

- Resource depletion

DAMAGES

1- Modellingthe studied

system

3- Convert flux intoimpacts

Inventoryof emitted/ consumedsubstances

HUGE NEED OF DATA

How to get such amount of data?

A old story…

- In 1999, SETAC created the “Streamlined LCA” group (Todd & Curran, 1999)

⇒ LC Inventory (LCI) is the most demanding phase of LCA.

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

-Agricultural system are susceptible to natural variability=> generalisation is more difficult and => reliable emissions data hard to collect (Lewis et al., 1999).

-In 2009 Finnveden et al. describe recent developments in LCA

=> confirm that LCI data acquisition remains one of the most labour-and time-intensive stages of LCA.

Two ways of collecting data in agriculture

Input Output

1- From global (farm level) to specific (one product): the ACCOUNTING APPROACH

Prod 1Prod 2Prod 3Prod 4

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

2- From each step to each product : the ANALYTICAL APPROACH

Input Output

Prod 4Prod 5

Allocation !!

ICT

Different types of data must be recorded

Input Output

Data about the process and conditions are to be recorded

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

Data about the process and conditions are to be recorded

Emissions vary a lot depending on the environmental conditions, technologies etc

Input -> Model (Environmental conditions, technology) -> Emissions

Variability of emissions with regard to the conditions

Example: fertilization / Langevin et al, 2010

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

Emission levels depends on the technology and on the conditions

Different types of data must be recorded

Input Output

Data about the process and conditions are to be recorded

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

Data about the process and conditions are to be recorded

Emissions vary a lot depending on the environmental conditions, technologies etc

Input -> Model (Environmental conditions, technology) -> Emissions

Various steps X various inputs, conditions, technologies => Huge amount of data

Example in viticulture

Viticulture

Pre-Pruning + Pruning

Grass Mowing

Shoot shredding Tillage (cultivation)

Tillage (cultivation)Deeper Tillage

Fertilisation

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

(Bud-removal)Lifting

Pesticide spraying (7 times-14 spraing)

Grass Mowing

Vine topping

HarvestTillage (cultivation)

On-the-row cultivation

Tillage (cultivation)

Fertilisation

Pesticide SprayingFertilisation TillageVine management

OPERATIONS

Example: Fertilizing in viticulture

N2O

NH3

SOIL

Soil moisture

Fuel consumption/emissions

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

NO3-

N2O

Fertilizer burying

Air moisture

Leaching

Soil , Rain

Soil-slurry pH TYPE & AMOUNT OF FERTILIZER

How to feed a LCI database?

N2O

NH3

SOIL T°

Soil moisture

Fuel consumption/emissions

Manual input

Sensor input

One-shot input

Weather input

Model output

Wind

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

NO3-

N2O

Air moisture

Soil type

Soil-slurry pH TYPE & AMOUNT OF FERTILIZER

Rain

Fertilizer burying

Where can ICT contribute ?Manual input

Sensor input

One-shot input

Weather input

Model output

Mobile technologies for data collection

Embedded sensors for data collection

Automatic data collection & mapping

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

Data collection and Modelling

Databasis

Mobile technologies for data acquisition

• Today: Pocket PCs, PDA, EDA, mobile phones- Pb: Acceptation by farmers- Mobile phones have the interest of having well penetrated the

market anywhere (5 billion subscriptions in 2010).

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

• Towards: more automatic data collection?- Bar codes, RFId (ex: pesticide recognition, see Peets et al

2009)- Voice recognition (ex: Talkman for forestry, see Rumble et al,

2009)

Embedded sensors for data acquisition

• Coupling sensor and GPS outputs- Sensors for the operation: digital gauges (fuel), flowmeters (pesticide

spraying, irrigation), etc - Sensors for the conditions: soil moisture, air moisture, wind…

• Isobus standard- Helps to seamlessly record data from different types of machines as well as

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

- Helps to seamlessly record data from different types of machines as well as working times (Sat-trace);

- Very interesting for generating huge amount of data on farm operations; See Steinberger et al. (2009)

• Mapping is not a mustGPS is necessary for recognising the field but a unique value –not a map- is

needed for LCI.

Automatic data collection and mapping

• Deals with weather data but also with environmental condition data (soil moisture, texture etc)

• Use of « regional » weather stations or of local sensor networks.

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

• Mapping increases the precision but is not compulsory (the nearest station data can be used)

• Such data are used to surrogate the lack of other data which are more difficult to measure but necessary for impact assessment; for instance soil T°can be modelled fro m air T°

Databases

• Farmers are more and more pushed to record data for traceability purposes: compulsory (ex: pesticide, fertilizers…) and voluntary traceability (ex: );

• Use of digital databases

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

• Use of digital databases

• LCI generation would not require too much additional data (environmental data to generate pollution emission from input use)

Conclusion• ICTs have a great interest for environmental assess ment, in

particular to generate LCI data (automatic or streamlined data acquisition)

• Not only knowledge of input (and technology) is needed but alsoknowledge of the environmental conditions:

Input -> Model (Environmental conditions, technology) -> Emissions

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

• So far, ICTs have not penetrated enough the agricul tural market but 3 main drivers exist:

- Low cost GPS- Smart phones- Compulsory traceability

Only few additional data (environmental data) must be added to traceability data ti generate emission data

Thank you for your attention

2 publications are currently being prepared on that subject:

- Streamlining life cycle inventory data generation in agriculture using traceability data and information and communication technologies –Part I: General concepts .

- Streamlining life cycle inventory data generation in agriculture using traceability data and information and communication technologies –Part II: Specifications to build up LCI-relevant databases in viticulture.

TIC & Agriculture – 4-5 Novembre 2010Information & Information & Technologies Technologies for Agrofor Agro--Processes Processes

Part II: Specifications to build up LCI-relevant databases in viticulture.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This work was carried out as part of a travelling scholarship supported by the European Commission (IRSES program, IRSES project nr 235108), the

Languedoc Roussillon Council (Regional Plat-form GEPETOS – ECOTECH-LR) and PEER (Partnership for European Environmental Research).