Site-dependent acidification factors for argentinean western arid region

CIVIT, B; ARENA, AP; PULIAFITO, SE

Barcelona

Conferencia; 2nd International Conference on Life Cycle Management; 2005

The environmental impact assessment phase of LCA relates the emissions identified and quantified in the life cycle inventory phase with the effect produced on different impact categories by means of equivalency factors. In the case of acidifying potential those factors are called the acidification factors. While in the past only potential factors have been used, during the last years various methods have been developed that consider aspects related to the site where the emissions are released and characteristics of the receiving ecosystem, in order to get a real impact instead of a potential one. However, those methods are valid only for the region where they have been developed, and their use in other regions can lead to erroneous results. This paper deals with the calculation procedure followed to obtain site-specific acidification factors for the Argentinean central-western arid region. They have been calculated based on the soil sensitivity to acidic deposition. So far the acidification factors considered include only SO2 and NOx, while background concentrations have not been included. concentrations have not been included. 2 and NOx, while background concentrations have not been included.