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Toward Software for Incorporating the Role of Ecosystem Services in LCA along with Regional Variation

Upasani, Shubhankar, Upasani
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543335634067175

Abstract Details

2018, Master of Science, Ohio State University, Chemical Engineering.
Efforts to improve sustainability of products and processes have failed to explicitly include the role of nature resulting in designs and decisions that depend on or degrade scarce ecosystem services. Sustainability assessment methods such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) only account for the demand for ecosystems goods and services (ES) and help to identify opportunities for enhancing sustainability by reducing impact, but ignore the ecological carrying capacity. The conventional sustainability assessment methods give insights about relative, rather than absolute sustainability. Techno-ecological synergy (TES) is an approach that accounts for the role of nature by quantifying ecological supply, and its metrics provide information about absolute environmental sustainability by quantifying overshoots for ES. Techno-Ecological Synergy in Life Cycle Assessment (TES-LCA) is a framework developed to extend conventional process LCA to capture the interactions between and within technological and ecological systems. Spatial variation in lifecycle inventory, characterization factors and ecological supply is considered in the regionalized TES-LCA framework. This work develops a Python prototype for integrating the regionalized TES-LCA framework in conventional LCA software such as openLCA to enable practical use of TES-LCA in both industry and academia. The code is demonstrated for a two-region case study and takes into account regional technological and ecological interactions and variations as well as spatial variation in ES servicesheds. Expansion of the analysis boundary to include multiple spatial scales and inclusion of ecosystem services such as air quality regulation, carbon sequestration can provide unique insights useful for ecosystem management and restoration, nutrient and capital management, sustainable production, farming, and policy making decisions. Inclusion of nature in engineering is thus a step to ensure that by working synergistically with nature we do not lose opportunities for improvement and innovation. Future work could be including spatial and ecological data in large scale lifecycle databases, extending this work in Java for compatibility with openLCA, and integrating this work in research-based LCA software like Brightway2.
Bhavik Bakshi (Advisor)
Li-Chiang Lin (Committee Member)
120 p.
Chemical Engineering; Ecology; Environmental Engineering; Public Policy; Sustainability
sustainability; ecosystem services; lifecycle assessment; TES-LCA; regionalization; software; computational framework

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Upasani, Upasani, S. (2018). Toward Software for Incorporating the Role of Ecosystem Services in LCA along with Regional Variation [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543335634067175

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Upasani, Upasani, Shubhankar. Toward Software for Incorporating the Role of Ecosystem Services in LCA along with Regional Variation. 2018. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543335634067175.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Upasani, Upasani, Shubhankar. "Toward Software for Incorporating the Role of Ecosystem Services in LCA along with Regional Variation." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543335634067175

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1543335634067175
386
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.