Life cycle assessment of urea fertilizer consumption in Iran

In recent years, a major contribution of the nitrogen needed for agricultural production was supplied from urea chemical fertilizer in Iran; this issue would lead to the serious environmental impacts. The aim of this study was to investigate the environmental impacts of the use of this important agricultural input through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology during 2007-2012. LCA in four sections including "the goal and scope definition”, “inventory analysis (inputs and outputs of the system)”, “impact assessment, and interpretation of the impacts were calculated. Investigation was performed on three impact categories such as global warming, acidification and eutrophication for terrestrial ecosystems. The obtained data analysis showed that approximately of 1.5%, 8.6% and 42.8% of the environmental consequences of impact categories including global warming, acidification and eutrophication for terrestrial ecosystems in Iran were related to the this input consumption, respectively. The amounts of weighted indices during the period for these impact categories were calculated 1160785, 11330566 and 25384073, respectively. Urea fertilizer consumption had the highest environmental hazards in terms of eutrophication for terrestrial ecosystems impact category. Therefore, management of the urea fertilizer consumption to minimize its environmental impacts and its replacement by non-chemical nitrogen resources is vital in agriculture sector of Iran.