10.1021/es4009757.s001
Shweta Singh
Shweta
Singh
Bhavik R. Bakshi
Bhavik R.
Bakshi
Accounting for the Biogeochemical Cycle of Nitrogen
in Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment
American Chemical Society
2013
LCA
nitrogen cycle
U.S
2013-08-20 00:00:00
Journal contribution
https://acs.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Accounting_for_the_Biogeochemical_Cycle_of_Nitrogen_in_Input_Output_Life_Cycle_Assessment/2385049
Nitrogen is indispensable for sustaining
human activities through
its role in the production of food, animal feed, and synthetic chemicals.
This has encouraged significant anthropogenic mobilization of reactive
nitrogen and its emissions into the environment resulting in severe
disruption of the nitrogen cycle. This paper incorporates the biogeochemical
cycle of nitrogen into the 2002 input-output model of the U.S. economy.
Due to the complexity of this cycle, this work proposes a unique classification
of nitrogen flows to facilitate understanding of the interaction between
economic activities and various flows in the nitrogen cycle. The classification
scheme distinguishes between the mobilization of inert nitrogen into
its reactive form, use of nitrogen in various products, and nitrogen
losses to the environment. The resulting inventory and model of the
US economy can help quantify the direct and indirect impacts or dependence
of economic sectors on the nitrogen cycle. This paper emphasizes the
need for methods to manage the N cycle that focus not just on N losses,
which has been the norm until now, but also include other N flows
for a more comprehensive view and balanced decisions. Insight into
the N profile of various sectors of the 2002 U.S. economy is presented,
and the inventory can also be used for LCA or Hybrid LCA of various
products. The resulting model is incorporated in the approach of Ecologically-Based
LCA and available online.