Modeling potential freshwater ecotoxicity impacts due to pesticide use in biofuel feedstock production - the cases of maize, rapeseed, Salix, soybean, sugarcane and wheat

Report, 2015

Ecotoxicity impacts have seldom been included in Life Cycle Assessments of biofuels. This report demonstrates an approach to model the potential freshwater ecotoxicity impacts due to pesticide use, using the PestLCI and USEtox models. The method is applied to eight biofuel feedstock production cases: maize in the US (two cases), rapeseed and wheat in Germany, soybean (two cases) and sugarcane in Brazil, and Salix in Sweden. Potential freshwater ecotoxicity impacts vary by up to 3 orders of magnitude with Salix at the lower end and wheat and rapeseed at the higher end. Potential mitigation strategies include substitution to less toxic pesticides, and reduction of emissions to freshwater ecosystems, through improved management, e.g. the use of buffer zones.