Development of metal's terrestrial ecotoxicological characterization factors within life cycle assessment

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Metals often appear as main contributors to ecotoxicological impacts in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) studies. However, these high impact scores are mainly obtained from unadapted models, often leading to an overestimation by several orders of magnitude. A consensus was reached in recent UNEP/SETAC workshops recognizing that LCIA models inadequately consider the impacts of metals given that they neglect their specific properties and behaviour and should therefore be enhanced in order to provide more meaningful ecotoxicity results. In particular, the importance of accounting for metal speciation and its spatial variability was highlighted, as metal fate and transport are highly influenced by local physicochemical and biological parameters, and as related impacts can vary by several orders of magnitude from site to site. The main goal of the project is to improve metal impact characterization within the globally regionalized LCIA method IMPACT World + accounting for spatial and temporal aspects. Specific objectives are to: 1) Improve atmospheric fate modelling in the determination of the fate factors from air to other environmental compartments; 2) Include metal speciation in the determination of fate factors from soil; 3) Generate new ecotoxicological terrestrial effect factors for metals accounting for metal speciation; 4) Determine how to deal with temporal aspects and propose a dynamic approach; 5) Propose a general framework to determine regionalized ecotoxicological characterization factors (CFs) and their uncertainty at different geographical resolution scales for zinc, copper and nickel for emissions to air and to soil and operationalize their use in case studies, and 6) Extend the general framework to other types of metals, generate additional metal CFs and incorporate them into the IMPACT World+ LCIA method. The improved impact assessment of metals will enhance the scientific relevance and the credibility of LCA and its acceptance by practitioners and decision makers.