e-infrastructure Roadmap for Open Science in Agriculture

A bibliometric study

The e-ROSA project seeks to build a shared vision of a future sustainable e-infrastructure for research and education in agriculture in order to promote Open Science in this field and as such contribute to addressing related societal challenges. In order to achieve this goal, e-ROSA’s first objective is to bring together the relevant scientific communities and stakeholders and engage them in the process of coelaboration of an ambitious, practical roadmap that provides the basis for the design and implementation of such an e-infrastructure in the years to come.

This website highlights the results of a bibliometric analysis conducted at a global scale in order to identify key scientists and associated research performing organisations (e.g. public research institutes, universities, Research & Development departments of private companies) that work in the field of agricultural data sources and services. If you have any comment or feedback on the bibliometric study, please use the online form.

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Title

Modelling representative life cycle inventories for Swiss arable crops

en
Abstract

Goal, Scope and Background. Life cycle inventories (LCIs) of agricultural products, infrastructure, inputs and processes are required to optimise food supply chains. In the past, the use of LCA was hindered by the limited availability of databases with LCIs for such agricultural inputs, processes and products in combination with LCIs of other major economic sectors. The ecoinvent database covers this need for the Swiss, and to an extent, the European context. A suitable approach bad to be outlined for defining representative datasets for products from arable crops, since there was no comprehensive survey of agricultural production. Methods. No single data source was available for defining representative datasets for arable crops. It was therefore decided to define model crops on the basis of a variety of sources in collaboration with experts on the crops in question. The datasets were validated by experts and by comparison with literature. Field emissions were calculated using a set of models taking into account situation-specific parameters. Data defined by this procedure are more generally usable, bur their definition is also more laborious. Results and Discussion. Selected results (inventories and impact assessment) are presented for infrastructure (buildings, machinery), work processes, fertilisers, pesticides, seed and arable crop products. Infrastructure has a higher share of environmental impacts than in typical industrial processes, often due to low utilisation rates. Energy use is dominated by mechanisation, the use of mineral fertilisers (particularly nitrogen) and grain drying. Eutrophication is caused mainly by nitrogen compounds. In general, field emissions are of decisive importance for many environmental impacts. Conclusion and Outlook. The ecoinvent database provides representative agricultural data for the Swiss, and to an extent, the European context. It also provides the meta-information necessary for deciding whether a dataset is suitable for the purpose of a particular LCA study. To further improve the representativeness of the datasets, an environmental farm monitoring network is required.

en
Year
2005
en
Country
  • CH
Organization
  • Agroscope (CH)
Data keywords
  • meta information
en
Agriculture keywords
  • agriculture
  • supply chain
  • farm
en
Data topic
  • information systems
  • modeling
en
SO
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT
Document type

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Institutions 10 co-publis
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    e-ROSA - e-infrastructure Roadmap for Open Science in Agriculture has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 730988.
    Disclaimer: The sole responsibility of the material published in this website lies with the authors. The European Union is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.