Modeling the Impact of Salinity Variations on Aquatic Environments: Including Negative and Positive Effects in Life Cycle Assessment
Ver/Abrir
Autor/a
Roibás-Rozas, Alba
Núñez, Montserrat
Mosquera-Corral, Anuska
Hospido, Almudena
Fecha de publicación
2022-01-05ISSN
0013-936X
Resumen
Salinity is changing in aquatic systems due to anthropogenic activities (like irrigation or dam management) and climate change. Although there are studies on the effects of salinity variations on individual species, little is known about the effects on overall ecosystems, these impacts being more uncertain in transitional waters such as estuaries or fiords. The few works that do address this topic have considered these impacts using ecotoxicity models. However, these models state that an increase in the concentration of a pollutant generates an increase in the impacts, disregarding the effects of water freshening. The present research work introduces a general framework to address the impacts of salinity variations, including emission-related positive effects. We validated this framework by applying it to an estuarine area in Galicia (northwestern Spain), where sharp drops in the salt concentration have caused mass mortalities of shellfish in recent decades. This research work addresses for the first time the potential effects on the environment derived from a decrease in the concentration of essential substances, where the effects of an emission can also generate positive impacts. Moreover, it is expected that the framework can also be applied to model the environmental impacts of other essential substances in life cycle assessment (LCA), such as metals and macronutrients.
Tipo de documento
Artículo
Versión del documento
Versión aceptada
Lengua
English
Materias (CDU)
574 - Ecología general y biodiversidad
Páginas
47
Publicado por
American Chemical Society
Publicado en
Environmental Science and Technology
Citación
Roibás-Rozas, Alba, Montserrat Núñez, Anuska Mosquera-Corral, and Almudena Hospido. 2022. "Modeling The Impact Of Salinity Variations On Aquatic Environments: Including Negative And Positive Effects In Life Cycle Assessment". Environmental Science & Technology 56 (2): 874–884. doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04656.
Número del acuerdo de la subvención
MINECO/Programa Estatal de I+D+I orientada a los retos de la sociedad/CTQ2017-83225-C2-1-R/ES/ABORDANDO EL TRATAMIENTO/RECUPERACION DE AGUAS RESIDUALES SALINAS PARA ASEGURAR LA DISPONIBILIDAD DE AGUA FUTURA/
Program
Sostenibilitat en Biosistemes
Este ítem aparece en la(s) siguiente(s) colección(ones)
- ARTICLES CIENTÍFICS [2831]
Derechos
Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society