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(34-02) Land use impact assessment improvements; including the ecosystem level in a biodiversity indicator. Lindeijer, Erwin*,1, van der Voet, Ester2, Kok, Irma1, Broers, Joris3, 1 TNO Industrial Technology, Schoemakerstraat 97, P.O. Box PO 6031, Delft, Netherlands2 CML, Einsteinweg 2, PO Box 9518, Leiden, the Netherlands3 RWS DWW, P.O. Box 5044, Delft, the Netherlands ABSTRACT- A next step has being taken in the impact assessment methodology for land use. From three recent LCIA methods on land use elements are integrated to arrive at further methodological improvements. These improvements are: 1. a basic framework for LCIA of land use, discussing recent developments. 2. including the ecosystem level of the definition of biodiversity next to the relative species diversity scores. 3. identifying main methodological choices and showing the different resulting IA scores and their relevance. 4. applying the IA data to a large range of inventory data to improve its usefulness. For the biodiversity indicator, the inclusion of the ecosystem level is presently conceived possible only for the largest type within ecosystem classification, biomes. For the biome level, 2 adjusted factors were applied to include the scarcity and vulnerability of the biome. For the species level, basic formulas on species density relative to a reference were applied, using the Arrhenius standardisation formula for the species-area relationship to scale down reference data to the case level. For the reference state of biodiversity, two options are left open to show the difference in outcome. For the life support indicator biomass, also two options are left open to show their implications. Results of applying these IA data to a large range of inventory data will be presented, including a rough uncertainty assessment, addressing model and data uncertainty. The importance of the two types of uncertainty and the consequences for application of the land use impact assessment method will also be discussed. Key words: life cycle impact assessment, land use, biodiversity, biomass |
