Towards Sustainable Use of Natural Resources

Doctoral Thesis of Thomas Sonderegger

Resources related to biomass provision are of high interest since food provision is essential and these resources are under pressure. Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) aims at integrating impacts on different natural resources (e.g. metals and minerals, water, soil) in order to avoid burden shifting from the impact on one natural resource to another. However, no method or a method set exists that consistently addresses all natural resource categories. This gap should be closed by providing a framework for LCIA on resources related to biomass provision and developing operational indicators. The focus is on land and soil resources, trying to group existing approaches and different impacts into one indicator. The developed framework shall also serve as a blueprint for other natural resources. The developed indicators will be used to assess impacts of global agriculture as a case study. While LCIA quantifies impacts on the environment, criticality methods have been used to assess the risks related to the limitation of natural resource supply from a user perspective (e.g. a company or a local or regional economy). These criticality assessments have been focusing on metals but also renewable resources may become a limiting factor when overused. Choosing again a resource with relation to biomass provision, a water criticality method is developed to test and discuss the usefulness of this other perspective on natural resource use.