Attributional and consequential life cycle assessment of wood chip and bark mulch use on Okanagan apple orchards, including uncertainty assessment and best practices recommendations
department or school: Arts and Sciences, Irving K. Barber School of (Okanagan)
department or school: Biology, Department of (Okanagan)
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCO
creator: Bamber, Nicole
issued: 2019-12-07T09:05:21Z
issued: 2019
related degree: Master of Science - MSc
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Food systems contribute substantially to environmental impacts, including 19-29% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The use of wood and bark chip mulch as soil cover has been proposed to reduce GHG emissions, in addition to water use and herbicide use on apple orchards. The current study expanded the scope of this prior investigation of mulch use to include all “upstream” processes for the production and transportation of the mulch used on orchards, as well as all other industrial systems that use mulch and would be impacted (i.e. through decreased availability) if mulch use on orchards were to increase. This was done using life cycle assessment (LCA), a sustainability management tool that accounts for all environmental inputs and outputs along the supply chain, or life cycle, of a product. The differences in water and herbicide use with and without mulch were not accounted for due to the experimental study design. When the orchard life cycle was considered, apples produced using mulch had higher GHG emissions than those without mulch, as well as higher impacts in all of the other impact categories considered (including acidification, eutrophication, toxicity, land and energy use). When the systems that would likely be affected by an increase in mulch use were also considered (i.e. bioenergy co-generation and paper production, the primary alternative uses of bark and wood chips in the region), the results were mixed. Some impact categories showed a benefit for mulch use on orchards and some showed a negative impact. These results also depended on whether the co-generation processes were assumed to take place in British Columbia or Washington (locations where biomass is used for co-generation). These results do not support the recommendation of mulch application on orchards as a sustainability management practice, based on the GHG mitigation benefits alone (other mulch benefits were not included). This study also demonstrates the importance of including LCA in sustai…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/72586
note: ATTRIBUTIONAL AND CONSEQUENTIAL LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT OF WOOD CHIP AND BARK MULCH USE ON OKANAGAN APPLE ORCHARDS, INCLUDING UNCERTAINTY ASSESSMENT AND BEST PRACTICES RECOMMENDATIONS by Nicole Bamber B.Sc., University of Toronto, 2017 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE in THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Biology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) December 2019 © Nicole Bamber, 2019 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis/dissertation entitled: Attributional and consequential life cycle assessment of wood chip and bark mulch use on Okanagan apple orchards, including uncertainty assessment and best practices recommendations submitted by Nicole Bamber in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science . Dr. Nathan Pelletier, Biology Department, Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences, and Faculty of Management Supervisor Dr. Melanie Jones, Biology Department, Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Louise Nelson, Biology Department, Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Mike Chiasson, Faculty of Management Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Steven Young, School of Environment, Enterprise and Development, University of Waterloo External Examiner iii Abstract Food systems contribute substantially to environmental impacts, including 19-29% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The use of wood and bark chip mulch as soil cover has been proposed to reduce GHG emissions, in addition to water use and herbicide use on apple orchards. The current study expanded the scope of this prior investigation of mulch use to include all “upstream” processes for the production and transportation of the mulch used on orchards, as well as all other industrial systems that use mulch and would be impacted (i.e. through decrease…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2020-02
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0386776
language: eng
degree discipline: Biology
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/72586