Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Effects of Rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) Production in Alborz Province

In recent years, growing awareness of environmental problems, particularly global warming, has raised concerns about the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the global atmosphere. More life cycle assessments are used to assess and compare the environmental impacts of energy production and the economic aspects of producing a product worldwide. The aim of this study was to evaluate and analyze the environmental effects of canola production in terms of life cycle assessment (LCA) using SimaPro software with the aim of focusing on environmental impacts. In order to perform the experiments, one ton of rapeseed was used as the operational unit. Required data were collected from 30 farms in Alborz province. The results indicated that the potential of human toxicity, terrestrial ecotoxicity, freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity, and arine aquatic ecotoxicity per ton of rapeseed production were 881.63, 7.08, 288.67, and 618515.14 kg 1,4-dichlorobenzene equal (1,4-DB eq.), respectively, and photochemical oxidation potential was 0.43 kg C2H4 eq. The amount of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium used to produce each ton of rapeseed was about 84, 63 and 63 kg, respectively, and the amount of diesel fuel and electrical energy were estimated at 133.5 liters and 586 kW, respectively. Also, the CO2, CO, N2O and NOX emissions were about 361, 4.1, 11.5 and 4.8 kg per ton of rapeseed, respectively. It was also found that chemical fertilizers had the largest contribution among the evaluated inputs in the canola life cycle. As a whole, this study showed that the management of nutrients and pesticides can be considered as a strong point for optimizing the environmental impact of rapeseed production.