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6B - LCIA - New Impact Categories (WE2/13) The U.S. EPA's history of developing TRACI and a discussion of its potential uses. Bare, Jane1, 1 US EPA, Cincinnati, OH/USA ABSTRACT- TRACI is a modular set of LCIA methods that were developed primarily for the United States to provide the most up-to-date impact assessment techniques to facilitate the characterization of stressors that may have potential effects, including ozone depletion, global warming, acidification, eutrophication, tropospheric ozone (smog) formation, ecotoxicity, human health criteria-related effects, human health cancer effects, human health non-cancer effects, fossil fuel depletion, and land use effects. Applicability to the US is important for many of the categories that have location specific input parameters. In those categories where sophisticated models allowed (e.g., human health cancer and non-cancer) the location related input parameters (e.g., meteorology and geology) a sensitivity analysis was used to determine the relative contribution to variation. For categories such as acidification, empirical models, such as those developed by the US National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program allowed the calculation of site specific characterization factors for the various stressors. In all impact categories, US average characterization factors are available when site specificity is not known. Consistency with previous modeling assumptions (especially of the EPA) was important for every category. The human health cancer and non-cancer categories were heavily based on the assumptions made for the US EPA Risk Assessment Guidance for Superfund and the EPA's Exposure Factors Handbook. When there was no EPA precedent, assumptions and value choices were minimized by the use of midpoint modeling. Key words: Life Cycle Impact Assessment, LCIA, Life Cycle Assessment, Comprehensive Impact Assessment |
