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Article Dans Une Revue International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment Année : 2013

Adapting the LCA framework to environmental assessment in land planning

Adaptation du cadre méthodologique de l'ACV à l'évaluation environnementale de territoires

Résumé

Purpose: Since the implementation of the European directive (EC/2001/42) on strategic environmental assessment, an ex-ante evaluation has become mandatory for plans and programmes. This requirement could have significant consequences for the environment. Local authorities, who are in charge of land planning issues, must therefore conduct such assessments. However, they are faced with lack of uniform methodology. The aim of this paper is thus to propose a methodological framework for the required environmental assessment stages in land planning. Methods: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been identified as a promising tool to perform environmental assessment at a meso-level (i.e., territories). Yet, the standardized LCA framework has never been used for assessing the environmental impacts of a territory as such, which can be explained by the complexity that its application would involve. Four major methodological bottlenecks have been identified in this paper, i.e., (i) functional unit definition, (ii) boundary selection, (iii) data collecting, and (iv) the refinement of the Life Cycle Impact Assessment phase in order to provide useful indicators for land planning. For each of these challenges, recommendations have been made to adapt the analytical framework of LCA. Results and discussion: A revised framework is proposed to perform LCA of a territory. One of the major adaptations needed concerns the goal and scope definition phase. Henceforth, the association of a territory and the studied land planning scenario, defined by its geographical boundaries and its interactions with other territories, will be designated as the reference flow in LCA. Consequently, two kinds of indicators will be determined using this approach, i.e., (i) a vector of environmental impacts generated (conventional LCA) and (ii) a vector of land use functions provided by the territory for different stakeholders (e.g., provision of work, recreation, culture,...). This revised framework has been applied to a theoretical case study in order to highlight its utility in land planning. Conclusion: This work is a first step in the adaptation of the LCA framework to environmental assessment in land planning. We believe that this revised framework has the potential to provide relevant information in decision-making processes. Nonetheless, further work is still needed to broaden and deepe.
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Dates et versions

hal-02598541 , version 1 (15-05-2020)

Identifiants

Citer

Eléonore Loiseau, P. Roux, G. Junqua, Pierre Maurel, Véronique Bellon Maurel. Adapting the LCA framework to environmental assessment in land planning. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 2013, 18 (8), pp.1533-1548. ⟨10.1007/s11367-013-0588-y⟩. ⟨hal-02598541⟩
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