Assessing biodiversity impacts in life cycle assessment framework - Comparing approaches based on species richness and ecosystem indicators in the case of Finnish boreal forests
Impacts of bioeconomy on climate have been much discussed, but less attention has been given to biodiversity deterioration. One approach to assess biodiversity impacts is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Finland is a forested country with intensive forest industries, but only coarse biodiversity LCA met...
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ftchalmersuniv:oai:research.chalmers.se:511549 2023-05-15T17:42:15+02:00 Assessing biodiversity impacts in life cycle assessment framework - Comparing approaches based on species richness and ecosystem indicators in the case of Finnish boreal forests Myllyviita, Tanja Sironen, Susanna Saikku, Laura Holma, Anne Leskinen, Pekka Palme, Ulrika 2019 text https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.117641 https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/511549 unknown http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.117641 https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/511549 Ecology Environmental Management Forest Science Boreal biome Forest management Forest Life cycle assessment Biodiversity 2019 ftchalmersuniv https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.117641 2022-12-11T07:10:13Z Impacts of bioeconomy on climate have been much discussed, but less attention has been given to biodiversity deterioration. One approach to assess biodiversity impacts is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Finland is a forested country with intensive forest industries, but only coarse biodiversity LCA methods are available. The aim of this study was to further develop and apply approaches to assess the biodiversity impacts of wood use in Finland. With the species richness approach (all taxons included), biodiversity impacts were higher in Southern than in Northern Finland but impacts in Southern and Northern Finland were lower when mammals, birds and molluscs were included. With the ecosystem indicators approach, if the reference situation were forest in its natural state, biodiversity impacts were higher than in the case where the initial state of forest before final felling was used to derive biodiversity loss. In both cases, the biodiversity impacts were higher in Northern Finland. These results were not coherent as the model applying species richness data assesses biodiversity loss based on all species, whereas the ecosystem indicators approach considers vulnerable species. One limitation of the species richness approach was that there were no reliable datasets available. In the ecosystem indicators approach, it was noticed that the biodiversity of managed Finnish forests is substantially lower than in natural forests. Biodiversity LCA approaches are highly sensitive to reference states, applied model and data. It is essential to develop approaches capable of comparing biodiversity impacts of forest management practices, or when looking at multiple environmental impacts simultaneously with the LCA framework. Other/Unknown Material Northern Finland Chalmers University of Technology: Chalmers research Journal of Cleaner Production 236 117641 |
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Open Polar |
collection |
Chalmers University of Technology: Chalmers research |
op_collection_id |
ftchalmersuniv |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Ecology Environmental Management Forest Science Boreal biome Forest management Forest Life cycle assessment Biodiversity |
spellingShingle |
Ecology Environmental Management Forest Science Boreal biome Forest management Forest Life cycle assessment Biodiversity Myllyviita, Tanja Sironen, Susanna Saikku, Laura Holma, Anne Leskinen, Pekka Palme, Ulrika Assessing biodiversity impacts in life cycle assessment framework - Comparing approaches based on species richness and ecosystem indicators in the case of Finnish boreal forests |
topic_facet |
Ecology Environmental Management Forest Science Boreal biome Forest management Forest Life cycle assessment Biodiversity |
description |
Impacts of bioeconomy on climate have been much discussed, but less attention has been given to biodiversity deterioration. One approach to assess biodiversity impacts is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Finland is a forested country with intensive forest industries, but only coarse biodiversity LCA methods are available. The aim of this study was to further develop and apply approaches to assess the biodiversity impacts of wood use in Finland. With the species richness approach (all taxons included), biodiversity impacts were higher in Southern than in Northern Finland but impacts in Southern and Northern Finland were lower when mammals, birds and molluscs were included. With the ecosystem indicators approach, if the reference situation were forest in its natural state, biodiversity impacts were higher than in the case where the initial state of forest before final felling was used to derive biodiversity loss. In both cases, the biodiversity impacts were higher in Northern Finland. These results were not coherent as the model applying species richness data assesses biodiversity loss based on all species, whereas the ecosystem indicators approach considers vulnerable species. One limitation of the species richness approach was that there were no reliable datasets available. In the ecosystem indicators approach, it was noticed that the biodiversity of managed Finnish forests is substantially lower than in natural forests. Biodiversity LCA approaches are highly sensitive to reference states, applied model and data. It is essential to develop approaches capable of comparing biodiversity impacts of forest management practices, or when looking at multiple environmental impacts simultaneously with the LCA framework. |
author |
Myllyviita, Tanja Sironen, Susanna Saikku, Laura Holma, Anne Leskinen, Pekka Palme, Ulrika |
author_facet |
Myllyviita, Tanja Sironen, Susanna Saikku, Laura Holma, Anne Leskinen, Pekka Palme, Ulrika |
author_sort |
Myllyviita, Tanja |
title |
Assessing biodiversity impacts in life cycle assessment framework - Comparing approaches based on species richness and ecosystem indicators in the case of Finnish boreal forests |
title_short |
Assessing biodiversity impacts in life cycle assessment framework - Comparing approaches based on species richness and ecosystem indicators in the case of Finnish boreal forests |
title_full |
Assessing biodiversity impacts in life cycle assessment framework - Comparing approaches based on species richness and ecosystem indicators in the case of Finnish boreal forests |
title_fullStr |
Assessing biodiversity impacts in life cycle assessment framework - Comparing approaches based on species richness and ecosystem indicators in the case of Finnish boreal forests |
title_full_unstemmed |
Assessing biodiversity impacts in life cycle assessment framework - Comparing approaches based on species richness and ecosystem indicators in the case of Finnish boreal forests |
title_sort |
assessing biodiversity impacts in life cycle assessment framework - comparing approaches based on species richness and ecosystem indicators in the case of finnish boreal forests |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.117641 https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/511549 |
genre |
Northern Finland |
genre_facet |
Northern Finland |
op_relation |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.117641 https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/511549 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.117641 |
container_title |
Journal of Cleaner Production |
container_volume |
236 |
container_start_page |
117641 |
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1766144094359257088 |