Recipient Organization
UNIV OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
4200 CONNECTICUT AVENUE N.W
WASHINGTON,DC 20008
Performing Department
SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING & APPLIED SCIENCE
Non Technical Summary
Currently, 54% of global population resides in cities, and this will increase to 66% by 2050, separating the population from their sources of water, energy, and food. The existing complex systems to supply these essentials are inadequate. Food production, manufacturing and its supply chain, with 10% share of total gross domestic product in the United States, has major negative environmental impacts (e.g., 8% of greenhouse gas emissions; 33.6% of water withdrawals). However, hydroponics and aquaponics recycle water for crop production, provide local solutions to the increasing demand for food and can have a lower carbon footprint. The benefits of hydroponics and aquaponics within cities have not been quantified, so our main goal is to determine whether adopting aquaponics and hydroponics provides environmental, economic and societal benefits in the Washington, DC area. To address this goal, we will perform a life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) of aquaponics and hydroponics systems at UDC's Urban Food Hubs and compare it to traditional farms, which will provide a framework for performing LCSA in similar systems worldwide. Our objectives are: (a) develop the framework, identify gaps in necessary data and required tools for performing the life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle cost (LCC) analysis as well as social life cycle assessment (sLCA), (b) determine and compare parameters relevant to LCA, LCC and sLCA and (c) identify challenges and areas of improvement for components of the aquaponics and hydroponics systems, including optimization for different crop types, changes in water, energy and chemical use, changes in operation and maintenance, modifications in food supply and processing, involvement of community, etc. This project will be the first to demonstrate the value of hydroponics and aquaponics in cities and is necessary to justify the investment of capital and space in areas where competition and prices for space is high.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
50%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Cities (e.g., Washington, DC) are experiencing unprecedented population growth with 66% of the world population living in urban areas by 2050 (Gragg et al., 2018). Many cities are struggling to provide the basic needs especially since climate change induces stress on resources (Gragg et al., 2018). The existing capacity and infrastructure of cities are inadequate to supply energy, water, and food (Gragg et al., 2018; Spiertz, 2009; USDA, 2020). Approximately 795 million people, many of them live in cities, do not get enough food to lead a healthy, productive life (Gragg et al., 2018; Spiertz, 2009; USDA, 2020). Whereas agricultural production has expanded between 2.5 and 3 times in the past 50 years, the cultivated area has increased by only 12% (Gragg et al., 2018; Spiertz, 2009; USDA, 2020). Agriculture accounts for approximately 70-85% of the water footprint, 30% of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), major declines in soil quality and a loss of biodiversity worldwide (Gragg et al., 2018; Spiertz, 2009; USDA, 2020). Thus, cities need solutions to meet the need of energy, water, and food with minimal environmental impacts.Food production and its supply chain constitute ~10% of total US GDP and contribute a major portion to the overall environmental impact e.g., 8% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and 33.6% of water withdrawals (Wu, 2019). Food transportation also contributes to air pollutants and overall climate change with food supply chain generating 9000 ton-km/year per house-hold indirect and 3000 ton-km direct CO2-equivalent GHG emissions (Wu, 2019). Furthermore, in the US, overall food quality and retention of health beneficial phytonutrients are compromised during long distance transport of fresh fruits and vegetables. Thus, locally grown food programs and operations have received special attention for urban areas (Wu, 2019). Closed-loop, recirculating water systems like hydro- and aquaponics food production in controlled-environment, especially for fresh fruits and vegetable, require significantly less water from external sources compared to current traditional field-based systems. The locally grown food will create employment opportunities to local communities. Thus, they have potential to provide solutions to the increasing demand for fresh produce, economic development, sustainability, and urban agriculture.Aquaponic and hydroponic systems require water and energy inputs and may generate a limited amount of organic (crop and fish tank solids) and waste. Though environmental impacts of such systems have been evaluated, the economic and societal impacts of such systems in connection with environmental impacts (Wu et al., 2019) have never been addressed before. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is widely used to evaluate these types of complex systems, but new frameworks and tools are needed specially the integration of social and economic benefits. Case studies show the vital role played by stakeholder involvement in clarifying issues, priorities, and values. Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) can provide adequate parameters and decision matrix to adopt aquaponics and hydroponics in the urban environment. UDC operates several aquaponics, hydroponics and land farming systems in the Washington, DC region. A life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) of these UDC systems can provide provide a framework and model to build a more comprehensive model suitable for community and regional planners, such as Sustainable DC or Sustainable Baltimore programs, to use in leading future policy, planning and implementation efforts in the region. This project addresses several NIFA and Sustainable DC objectives. In general, LCSA is emerging as an important tool for supporting the development of policies (Albertí et al., 2017; Costa et al., 2019; Fauzi et al., 2019). However, citizen understanding of environmental sustainability issues related to food production may be limited. This project will provide necessary tool to make informed decisions in several areas:NIFA Objectives:1. Achieve food security and fight hunger: Life cycle assessment, which incorporates environmental, economic, and social impact assessments, is referred to here as life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA). This inclusive structure integrates and values the non-technical aspects of agricultural sustainability and food security (Gava et al., 2019; Keairns et al., 2016). By comparing food production under traditional, hydroponic, and aquaponic systems, and encompassing economic and social values, this project will contribute to food security (production, accessibility and affordability) achievement by providing data-driven evidence of the sustainability of these three agricultural systems when operating in urban CEAs.2. Mitigate climate change impacts: LCSA identifies best agricultural practices (or its parts and components) that provide crucial mitigation-focused information given the emerging need for agro-infrastructures for challenges posed by climate change (e.g. global warming potential of different practices). By understanding the relative performance of food production options, UDC can play an important role by supporting more environmentally sustainable decisions. Moreover, life cycle cost (LCC) and social LCA can identify design and operational features by which farming options may be optimized to maximize food production in limited space with minimal energy and water footprint. Farms could decide to adopt selected mitigation strategies to adjust to climate change, while providing cost effective and locally sustainable benefit to communities.3. Improve and increase the production of goods and services from working lands while protecting natural resources and the environment: The life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) "aims to understanding and evaluates the magnitude and significance of the potential environmental impacts of a product system throughout the life cycle of a product". LCA will measure direct and indirect impact including eutrophication, ecotoxicity, global warming, ozone depletion, acidification etc. Thus, this project will generate information on how these food production systems can affect the natural resources and the environment.The Sustainable DC Initiatives:LCA concerning food systems have some issues with the methodology used which call for future developments (Cucurachi et al., 2019). Some specific studies and their analyses are limited to environmental impacts of individual products and diets or focused on a limited set of key foods (e.g., beef or staple crops); and on a limited set of impact categories, in particular on climate change. Since our study will include LCA, LCC, and sLCA, we will be able to incorporate data that can support development of policies of the following Sustainable DC Initiatives:• Increase the number of Green-Economy jobs 5-fold: The potential benefits of a new urban based food supply chain will be identified in this project.• Increase the number of Green-Economy small businesses 3-fold: The hydroponic and aquaponics urban food production systems can be adopted in roof or other available limited spaces, many entrepreneurs could use this project's outcome as decision matrix.• Bring locally grown food within a quarter mile of 75% of DC residents: This project will address economic, social impacts and environmental impacts, improved adoption of aquaponics and hydroponics is expected based on the results of this project.• Achieve zero waste through reduced consumption and reuse (aquaponics and hydroponics recirculate water, and waste generated from aquaculture provides nutrients for plant growth,. Aquaponics and hydroponics systems can be sources of renewable energy (e.g., solar energy).• Captured rainwater and runoff from at least 75% of the landscape: rainwater collected from CEA structures can be used for aquaponics and hydroponics systems after appropriate pre-treatment.
Project Methods
A comprehensive list (e.g., sizes of farms, types of crops, amounts of crops grown, revenue generated, water use, energy used, chemicals/fertilizers used, equipment used with operation time, sensor used, materials used to build the systems, people employed, people served etc) will be developed by the students to collect specific data from the representative sites of aquaponics, hydroponics and traditional farm at different UDC sites. One aquaponics and another hydroponics systems will be identified and will be operated by the undergraduate and graduate students to grow lettuce and tomato. In addition to the crops grown by the students, when UDC's other hydroponic and aquaponic systems are in operation during this three-year project, then the students will also collect data during that time to complement the analysis and findings of LCSA project. Thus, the combination of Life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle cost (LCC) analysis and social life cycle assessment (sLCA) will be used to compare various aquaponics, hydroponics and traditional farming systems present at UDC.The data collected on the comprehensive list developed will be used as input to LCA modeling software SIMAPRO. The input to the model will be inventory of materials, chemicals, and energy usages during the construction and operation phase of the aquaponics, hydroponics and traditional farms of UDC. The typical output expected of LCA will be direct and indirect impact of various impact categories including eutrophication, ecotoxicity, human health toxicity, global warming, ozone depletion, acidification, smog formation, respiratory effects, fossil-fuel depletion. For LCC analysis, activities (e.g. food/crops grown, water used etc) causing direct costs or benefits to the decision maker during the economic life of aquaponics and hydroponics will be identified in quantifiable monetary units. An excel based modeling tool will be developed for LCC. The typical input to the LCC model will be economic values or inventories of all the materials, chemicals, energy usages, and services during the construction and operation of an aquaponics and hydroponic systems. The expected outcome of the LCC analysis will be economic value of urban farming systems for the duration of construction and operation phase with new modifications proposed to meet food target. SLCA will identify the social aspects of the aquaponics systems (e.g. people employed, community served, people get benefitted, perspectives of urban farming etc. A scientific survey questions will be developed and implemented and will involve different stake holders of the aquaponics and hydroponic system. Combination of LCA, LCC and SLCA will be used to assess the effectiveness of the current and new aquaponics and hydroponics at UDC farms and will compare with LCA findings of other studies. For LCA, all activities which are considered part of the "Life Cycle" will be considered and collected (e.g. chemicals used, electricity used, etc). Specially how addition of new or required crop types or process changes maximize food production can impact the life cycle cost together with life cycle impacts will be very valuable for sustainability of any decisions made for aquaponics and hydroponics.Goal and scope definition of LCSA The LCSA in this study will consider all life cycle stages necessary for crop production until they are harvested. The impacts from products' distribution will be excluded, considering that consumers will pick up such products from UDC greenhouses. Two functional units will be used:a) 1 kg of edible fresh production, to define the function of providing instantly available food to the local market/population. It will consider the whole plant in the case of leafy greens (lettuce, spinach, arugula and chard) but only fruits when assessing tomatoes, beans and pepper. The stem, leaves, and roots will be accounted as residual biomass.b) 1 kcal of nutritional value, which is the product of the yield of a specific crop cycle (kg) and the crop's nutritional value in kcal/kg. Data will be retrieved from USDA's FoodData Central databaseThe system boundaries will consider two subsystems: a) infrastructure (greenhouse structure, rainwater harvesting system and auxiliary equipment) and b) operation and maintenance (fertilizers and their emissions into water and substrate). The description of the three methods of SLCA has been elaborated below:8.1 Environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) MethodsThe life cycle assessment (LCA) method will be used evaluate the environmental performance of 3 different crop production systems (traditional, hydroponics, and aquaponics) for three years. LCA is a standardized method defined in ISO 14040 that is used to determine the environmental performance of products throughout their life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials to the end of life.8.1.1 Life Cycle inventory The life cycle inventory will include data related to greenhouse structure, water provision, and auxiliary equipment. Data will be collected from existing UDC's greenhouses operations, from existing literature, and measured directly.8.1.2 Environmental Impact Assessment For the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), the software SimaPro 9.1 will be used.8.1.3 Eco-efficiency Assessment Method An eco-efficiency analysis, considering the carbon footprint of the crop cycles will also be performed. Considering ecoefficiency assessment method a "quantitative management tool which enables the study of life-cycle environmental impacts of a product system along with its product system value for a stakeholder". To represent the environmental performance of the crop cycles in this bi-dimensional tool, the climate change indicator (kg·CO2eq/kg) will be used.8.2 Life cycle costing (LCC) MethodsLCC will be used to determine the estimated financial impacts of building and maintaining the aquaponics and hydroponic systems. Activities causing direct costs or benefits to the decisionmaker during the economic life of the investment, as a result of the investment (aquaponics and hydroponics) will be considered and will be expressed into monetary units (e.g., dollars etc.).8.3 Social life cycle assessment (sLCA) MethodsTo evaluate the social and socio-economic impacts of the different crop production systems the social life cycle assessment (sLCA) method will be applied. sLCA, one of the three components of the life cycle sustainability assessment, will assess both positive and negative impacts associated with the life cycle of three crop production systems (traditional, hydroponics, and aquaponics). sLCA aims to assess social impacts of any product throughout their lifecycle, which may include raw materials and energy usage, production, distributing, use, and disposal phase. UNEP/SETAC guidelines will be followed to conduct sLCA of different production system.Similar to the LCA, sLCA will also consider life cycle stages associated with crop production until they are harvested. The impacts from products' distribution will be excluded, considering that consumers will pick up such products from UDC greenhouses. The system boundaries will take into account two subsystems: a) infrastructure (greenhouse structure, rainwater harvesting system and auxiliary equipment) and b) operation (fertilizers and their emissions into water and substrate). Functional units of sLCA will also be in line with that of the LCA.