Environmental Impact Assessment of Soybean Cultivation in Ardabil Farms

Calculating the environmental impact assessment during a product's life cycle is very important. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the environmental effects of soybean oil production (Glycine max) in Ardabil province.

Lifecycle assessment was conducted to compare environmental burdens of this crop. Four categories (eutrophication, acidification, global warming potential and photochemical oxidation) of environmental impacts were used to define in this method. Inventory phase was conducted in 1393.

The production of one-ton soybean in Ardabil in eutrophication potential, acidification potential, photochemical oxidation and global warming are 13.671 kg PO4eq, 13.680 kg SO2eq, 0.093 kg C2H4 eq and 857.128 kg CO2eq respectively.

It was found that the effects from the three crops comes generally from manufactured fertilizer, manure, diesel combustion, agricultural practices, and electricity for irrigation. It can be said that the indirect effects associated with these inputs are related to producing and processing, which had negative impacts. Result indicated that input performance of production of one-ton soybean is low. With increasing crop yield per input can decrease environmental burdens.