Characterization of the terrestrial ecotoxicological impact category in LCIA for mixtures of pollutants

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Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an approach for assessing the environmental impacts associated with each life cycle stage (i.e. from raw material extraction to final disposal) of a product, process or service. An LCA consists of four phases: 1) Goal & scope definition; 2) Life cycle inventory (LCI); 3) Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA); and 4) Interpretation (ISO 14040, 2006). The LCIA phase is crucial and consists of assessing the environmental potential impacts. Among impact categories, toxicological and ecotoxicological impact categories, unlike the others, reflect local rather than global impacts. These impacts are thus more complicated to model due to their specific character and require spatial differentiation to be taking into account. In the context of using LCA as a decision-making tool for contaminated site management, this problem becomes evident when comparing primary impacts (caused by the soil contamination) to secondary impacts (caused by the remediation activities themselves). Many studies in this field neglect the characterization of primary impacts due to the generic aspect of models used in LCIA. In order to better assess primary impacts of contaminated sites, research is needed to 1) adapt LCIA global multimedia fate models to a local scale, 2) develop terrestrial effect data to avoid using aquatic data as is currently the case and 3) develop characterization factors (CFs) for mixtures of contaminants that are generally found in contaminated soils. To characterize in an appropriate way the terrestrial ecotoxicological impact category, LUCAS, an LCIA method developed for the Canadian environmental context will be improved. This research program aims to make LCIA more relevant and scientifically defendable when assessing impacts related to contaminated site management. Currently, the number of Canadian specialists in the LCA field is quite low, particularly with respect to the characterization of local impacts such as ecotoxicological terrestrial impact.