Environmental Impacts of Peanut Production in Astaneh Ashrafiyeh of Guilan Province

Agricultural activities have always been partly responsible for the emission of greenhouse gases and other environmental contaminants in the atmosphere. Thus, studying on the environmental effects of agricultural activities and proposing appropriate strategies to mitigate these adverse effects can be paramount importance. In this study, in order to determine the environmental impacts of peanut production in Guilan province, the life cycle assessment method was used. These effects in six groups; the global warming, acidification, terrestrial eutrophication, the depletion of fossil resources, the depletion of potassium and the depletion of phosphate were investigated. In this research, the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilizers and diesel fuel for one-ton production and drying of peanut were set as the input to production system that cause the environmental impacts. Dada analysis revealed that the final indicators for one-ton production of peanut for the global warming, acidity, the depletion of fossil resources, eutrophication, the deplete of potassium resources and the depletion of phosphate resources were calculated 0.036, 0.194, 3.64, 0.316, 0.0243 and 0.266, respectively. It suggests that in one-ton production of peanut in Guialn province, the depletion of fossil resources has the most severe environmental effect followed by the eutrophication. In this study, the environmental index (ECOX) and resources depletion index (RDI) for one-ton production of peanut were obtained 0.55, 3.93, respectively. Also, final indicators for the global warming, acidification, the depletion of fossil resources, eutrophication, the depletion of phosphate resources and the depletion of potassium resources were 0.0015, 0.0082, 0.153, 0.0112 and 0.0010 respectively, for generating 1000 MJ energy.