Life cycle assessment for major agricultural crops and different irrigation systems around Lake Urmia

In recent years, increasing population and food demand has led to greater use of water resources, fossil fuels (mechanization development) and chemical inputs in agriculture, and consequently has many environmental problems. In this study, the amount of environmental loads and environmental impacts of agriculture in the Urmia Lake basin was determined by assessing the life cycle of different major crops (wheat, sugar beet, tomato and corn). This research was conducted on 17 farms in different parts around Lake Urmia. The fields were selected in such a way that they represent the dominant crops of the region as well as the irrigation systems used in the region. Data used in this study were collected through field measurement methods, questionnaires, interviews with farmers and experts and using the Ecoinvent database. Data evaluation was based on life cycle assessment analysis and was done by SimaPro software. The results showed that in general, the largest share in energy consumption was for diesel and nitrogen fuel consumption, and farms with surface irrigation system had higher energy consumption than pressurized irrigation farms. Among the studied farms, both of basin and furrow irrigation methods achieved the lowest energy productivity (0.53 kg/MJ) while drip irrigation resulted in the highest (1.2 kg/MJ). The results also showed that in all farms the share of non-renewable energy (76%) was higher than of renewable energy (24%). Direct release from farms had the greatest impact on environmental degradation.