Site-specific behaviour analysis of the LANCA model for assessing the impact of change of use on soil quality: comparison between Spanish and French soils

Life Cycle Assessment method need factors, called, Characterization Factors (CF), to transform consumptions and emissions into environmental impacts. LANCA model is recommended by European Commission to calculate CFs for the environmental impact category "Land Use" of 5 soil quality indicators: erosion potential, filtration reduction potential, physical-chemical filtration reduction potential, groundwater regeneration reduction potential and biotic production reduction potential. Default CFs, according to the model, are provided on national base and land use type. LANCA model permits the CFs calculation also by site-specific parameters. The aim of this thesis was to evaluate which of three grouping methods (national base, FAO GEZ (Global Ecological Zones) classification, clay percentage) gives more significant CFs groups. This means maximising difference among groups and minimizing difference within a group. To do this, 48 sampling sites were randomly selected so that the sites belonged to two countries, Spain and France, and fall in 3 FAO GEZ (subtropical dry forest, temperate mountain system, temperate oceanic forest). Then, CFs were calculated, ANOVA analysis was carried out and the variance within each group and between the different groups, for various grouping methods (country, FAO GEZ and clay percentage), was studied. From the study it emerged that the FAO GEZ grouping is the one that gives more significant groups for four out of five soil quality indicators. Concluding, although nationality is the LANCA default method to define generic CFs for “Land Use”, this thesis results show that FAO GEZ could offer a more suitable classification method. The larger significance of the FAO GEZ grouping is probably due to the fact that it already classifies climate, vegetation and it also linked with soil characteristics while nationality can bring together zones very different in term of climate, vegetation and soil.