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Ground cover management (GCM) is an important agricultural practice used to reduce weed growth, erosion and runoff, and improve soil fertility. In the present study, an approach to account for GCM is proposed in the modeling of pesticide emissions to evaluate the environmental sustainability of agricultural practices. As a starting point, we include a cover crop compartment in the mass balance of calculating initial (within minutes after application) and secondary (including additional processes) pesticide emission fractions. The following parameters were considered: (i) cover crop occupation between the rows of main field crops, (ii) cover crop canopy density, and (iii) cover crop family. Two modalities of cover crop occupation and cover crop canopy density were tested for two crop growth stages, using scenarios without cover crops as control. From that, emission fractions and related ecotoxicity impacts were estimated for pesticides applied to tomato production in Martinique (French West Indies) and to grapevine cultivation in the Loire Valley (France). Our results demonstrate that, on average, the presence of a cover crop reduced the pesticide emission fraction reaching field soil by a factor of 3 compared with bare soil, independently of field crop and its growth stage, and cover crop occupation and density. When considering cover exported from the field, ecotoxicity impacts were reduced by approximately 65% and 90%, compared with bare soil for grapevine and tomato, respectively, regardless of the emission distribution used. Because additional processes may influence emission distributions under GCM, such as runoff, leaching, or preferential flow, further research is required to incorporate these processes consistently in our proposed GCM approach. Considering GCM in pesticide emission modeling highlights the potential of soil cover to reduce pesticide emissions to field soil and related freshwater ecotoxicity. Furthermore, the consideration of GCM as common farming practice allows the modeling of pesticide emissions in intercropping systems. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2021;00:1–15. © 2021 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).

There is an urgent need for agriculture in general, and for viticulture in particular, to reduce their impacts on the environment. Doing so requires an approach that supports transitioning to more environmentally friendly practices. Involving farmers and agricultural advisors is key to lifting technical, economic, and social barriers to this transition. Participatory methods can help to consider specific contexts and concerns, but few suitable tools are available. We developed a methodological framework to address both environmental and economic dimensions at the field and farm scales in three participatory ecodesign workshops with winegrowers. We applied our framework to the ecodesign of pathways of technical operations in the Middle Loire Valley, France. The first two workshops focused on the field scale, and group interactions were facilitated using a serious game and a “live” assessment of the environmental performance of the ecodesigned system. The third workshop focused on implementation at farm level. The aggregated environmental impact of the ecodesigned farm decreased by 4%, while the economic performance of its four pathways of technical operations improved. We showed that combining environmental and economic assessment tools, suitable for use in participatory workshops, addresses most mechanisms for and barriers to changing practices at the farm scale. The typology of activities at the farm scale allows farm characteristics and the diversity of production systems to be represented in the ecodesign without over-complicating the process. The use of farm maps takes advantage of the collective expertise of the group and increases participant involvement. This process highlighted the need to continue to extend the scope and criteria of ecodesign to decrease environmental impacts even more. Here, we show for the first time the need to quantify the influence of a farm’s environmental practices on its economic performance to reduce the perception of risk and facilitate adoption of these practices.

Purpose Current field emission modelling and toxicity characterisation of pesticides suffer from several shortcomings like mismatches between LCI databases and LCIA methods, missing characterisation factors, missing environmental compartments, and environmental impact pathways. The OLCA-Pest project was implemented to address these aspects and to operationalise the assessment of pesticides in LCA. Based on this effort, we propose an approach to integrate pesticide emissions into LCI databases. Methods The PestLCI Consensus Model has been developed in order to estimate emission fractions to different environmental compartments. The initial distribution fractions should be linked to the compartments air, agricultural soil, natural soil, and freshwater. Emissions to off-field surfaces are hereby distributed between agricultural soil, natural soil, and freshwater by using surface cover data. Deposition on the crop surface should be recorded in an emission compartment crop with 13 sub-compartments for crop archetypes for both food and non-food uses. Default emission fractions are provided to calculate the emission fractions for different pesticide application scenarios. Results and discussion A sensitivity analysis shows the effects of the application technique, drift reduction, crop and development stage, field width, and buffer zone on the initial distribution fractions of field-applied pesticides. Recommendations are given for the implementation of a set of default initial distribution fractions into LCI databases, for the organisation of metadata, and for the modelling of pesticide residues in food along the supply chain (processing, storage). Priorities for further research are: improving the modelling of pesticide secondary emissions, further extending emission modeling (e.g. additional application techniques, including cover crops), considering metal-based pesticides in emission models, and systematically assessing human health impacts associated with pesticide residues in food crops. Conclusions The proposed approach allows to preserve the mass balance of the pesticide emitted after application, to make a consistent assessment of ecotoxicity and human toxicity, to define a clear and consistent interface between the LCI and LCIA phases, to estimate initial emission distribution fractions based on existing data, to document metadata transparently and efficiently within crop datasets, and to model the removal of pesticide residues in food during processing.

International audience; Purpose : The paper shows how three tools based on life cycle assessment (LCA) were created for an eco-design approach in viticulture, how these tools contributed to the reduction of environmental impacts of technical management routes (TMR), and how they have been used in real-life conditions during workshops organized with two different groups of winegrowers and extension officers in this purpose. This paper is among the first to explore the use of LCA in participatory approaches in agriculture.Methods : The eco-design approach contains two main phases: (i) suggestion of more eco-efficient solutions by the participants based on their understanding of LCA results of a TMR and (ii) eco-design of the TMR based on initial operations from the case study and alternative operations generated during the previous phase. Three challenges have been identified to use LCA in this approach: (i) making LCA results understandable for participants, (ii) enabling easy manipulation of LCI data and modularity of LCA results, and (iii) need for live LCA results during the collective design process. Three tools have been created to fulfil these objectives: (i) a specific format to display LCA results during workshops, (ii) a “serious game” to build new TMRs, and (iii) a simplified calculation tool to evaluate TMRs.Results and discussion : Four out of the five case studies explored with these tools were actually improved at the end of the participatory eco-design approach. The specific format used to display LCA results helped identifying the most impactful operations within initial TMRs. The “serious game” stimulated discussions between participants about alternative operations. Representing unit operations with cards was successful to engage participants in the eco-design process. Finally, eco-design parameters available in the “live” LCA tool allowed participants to improve consistency of unit operations with reality and to discuss how to optimize these parameters in order to both reduce environmental impacts and meet the (agronomic, economic, and organizational) requirements of winegrowers. Several limits concerning the use of weighting and single score and the system boundaries are highlighted.Conclusions : The created tools made it possible to guide discussions towards improving the most impactful practices while allowing other practice changes to be integrated. The proposed approach and the challenges identified for the creation of the tools seem relevant for transposition to other agricultural production sectors. However, while the annual and plot/field scale is interesting for engaging farmers in the production process, larger temporal and geographic scales can help to better integrate certain decision criteria.

International audience; Greater use of life cycle assessment (LCA) by agents of change will be needed to inform environmental improvements in agriculture, but the complexity of LCA can be a barrier. More accessible LCA tools customised for agriculture are emerging, but their effectiveness has not been considered. The aim of the work was to understand how tool features influence effectiveness and to propose criteria for effectiveness, for informing the design and evaluation of tools. We define 'customised' tools as those that focus on the life cycle phases and aspects of most relevance for the particular sector (in this case agriculture), and that parameterise practice variables to enable evaluation of practice alternatives. A theoretical framework for the role of tools in agricultural practice change was first used to define the desired objectives of LCA tools: i) to engage agricultural agents of change by catering to their needs, being accessible and being easy to use, ii) to generate information that users can interpret for informing environmental improvements, and iii) to generate information that can align with the wider decision making context. A desktop review of 14 LCA customised agriculture tools identified the features that influence these objectives: tool purpose, mode of access, ease of use, results presentation, degree of practice parameterisation, capacity for regionalised analysis, system scope, impact categories assessed, and alignment with other assessment frameworks. From this, a set of effectiveness criteria for customised LCA tools was developed. A few criteria from amongst this set will be challenges for future tool development: the balance between analysis capacity and ease of use, enabling regionalised analysis, and the presentation of results in a way that aids interpretation for informing environmental improvements.

Contexte : La viticulture est très exigeante en intrants. La viticulture biologique est souvent considérée comme un système durable, mais elle a des impacts environnementaux. L’analyse du cycle de vie (ACV) permet de discriminer les itinéraires viticoles. Objectif : Notre article présente et discute l’intérêt de l’ACV pour évaluer, comparer et améliorer les itinéraires viticoles biologiques par une comparaison (i) des inventaires des pratiques, (ii) des inventaires du cycle de vie (ICV) et (iii) des ACV. Matériel et méthodes : Huit cas ont été étudiés dans trois régions viticoles françaises et deux années. L’ICV et l’ACV ont été calculés, cinq impacts ont été sélectionnés par corrélations (changement climatique, eutrophisation de l’eau douce, écotoxicité terrestre, acidification terrestre, eutrophisation marine). Résultats et discussion : des différences importantes entre les cas pour les pratiques et les quantités d’intrants ont été observées et l’étude des impacts sur le changement climatique a révélé la hiérarchie d’importance des opérations notamment mécaniques et un classement différent pour des impacts au kg de raisin et à l’ha de vigne. Les défis de l’ACV sont de mieux prendre en compte le soufre et le cuivre ; enrichir les bases de données sur les engrais organiques ; et construire des indicateurs de biodiversité. Conclusion : L’ACV est meilleure que les inventaires des pratiques pour évaluer la viticulture biologique., Background: Viticulture is very demanding in inputs. Organic viticulture is often seen as a sustainable system but has also environmental impacts. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is able to discriminate vineyard managements. Aims: Our study explores the interest of LCA to assess, compare and improve organic vineyard management routes through a comparison of information given by practices inventories, Life Cycle Inventories (LCIs) and LCA. LCA methodological challenges are also discussed. Material and methods: Eight cases were studied in three French wine regions and two years. LCI and Life Cycle Impact Assessments (LCIAs) were calculated, five impacts were selected by correlation (climate change, fresh water eutrophication, terrestrial ecotoxicity, terrestrial acidification, marine eutrophication). Results and discussion: Practices and quantity of inputs were contrasted among the cases. The study of impacts on climate change revealed the hierarchy of importance of operations and a different ranking of cases for the functional units Ha and Kg. The LCIAs showed major differences between cases for some impacts and their drivers. LCIA and LCI permitted to account for the life cycle dimension of the impacts and for the toxicity and persistence of pesticides. The challenges of organic vineyard LCA are to (i) better consider sulphur and copper, (ii) enrich databases on organic fertilizer, and (iii) build an LCA indicator of biodiversity impact. Conclusion: LCA is better than practices inventories and LCI to assess organic viticulture.

International audience; Purpose : Improving the environmental performances of viticulture practices is particularly complicated during unfavorable climatic conditions because of the need for fungal and other pest pressure and the variability of phytosanitary control methods available for winegrowers. However, winegrowers wish to improve the environmental performances of their practices regardless of climatic conditions. The objective of the study was to quantify the variability in environmental impacts due to climatic variations, and changes in viticulture practices induced by climatic variability. Methods : Life cycle assessment was used to evaluate the environmental impacts of viticulture technical management routes (TMR) implemented on five plots in the Loire Valley for the Chenin Blanc grape variety. These TMRs are representative of the range of practices used in the region, including intensive conventional practices to moderate organic practices. The study covered two different years of production (2011 and 2013) under contrasting climatic conditions. The first year (2011) was hot and dry, which are favorable conditions for viticulture, while the second year (2013) was cold and humid, which are unfavorable conditions. Results and discussion : During the unfavorable year, the number of phytosanitary treatments and soil maintenance interventions increased for most of the studied TMRs. This meant that the inter-annual variability in environmental impact was significant, depending on the type of TMR, with differences in impacts ranging from 19% to more than 40% between 2011 and 2013. Managing environmental impacts was found to be more difficult for the organic systems when climatic conditions are unfavorable (in 2013). The non-organic TMRs showed less variation in environmental impacts than the organic TMRs between the 2 years studied. Conclusions : This study shows the importance of taking into account inter-annual variability in environmental assessments of viticulture systems. Indeed, winegrowers do not respond the same way to climate variability mainly with regard to plant protection and soil maintenance. Viticulture is very sensitive to inter-annual climate variations due to the parasitic pressure variability. The different production systems do not give to winegrowers the same possibilities for adapting practices to limit their impact on the environment.

International audience; Consumer demand and state incentives in certain EU countries are driving the rapid development of organic viticulture. However, compared with conventional viticulture, it has shown higher interannual variability in its environmental impacts. Improved understanding of this variability would help organic winegrowers better address their environmental impacts.This two-part study examined interannual variability of environmental impacts of four vineyards with contrasting pedoclimatic and technical production conditions. First, life cycle assessments were performed on each of these four vineyards for two contrasted years in terms of both climate and pest and disease pressure. Next, for one of these vineyards located in Mediterranean conditions, life cycle assessments were completed on a chronosequence of six consecutive years. Life cycle assessments of organic wine grapes were calculated based on detailed inventories of data from the eight real vineyard situations. Interannual variations were considered to be the deviation between the impact results of two production years. In all the vineyards, diesel combustion was the main impact contributor. For the four vineyards, the impacts that varied most were generally freshwater ecotoxicity, soil ecotoxicity, marine eutrophication, freshwater eutrophication and metal depletion. The intensity/range of interannual variations differed between plots. The main agricultural operations contributing to impact variations were from disease management of climate-related disease pressures. The 6-year chronosequence analysis showed that certain years were very similar in terms of impact results. The impact that varied most was surprisingly terrestrial acidification. The chronosequence analysis brought to light that the choice of active ingredient could be a greater source of impact variations than interannual climatic conditions and disease pressure. This study provides an overview of the hotspots and variability of organic viticulture environmental impacts in contrasted climate years and a climatic chronosequence. The main pathways for environmental performance improvements are (i) reducing fuel consumption by either limiting the number of operations, using more fuel-efficient machines or different energy sources or/and adjusting tractor speed; (ii) reducing the doses and emissions of copper products and choosing the less impacting types of copper; and (iii) limiting nitrogen and heavy metal emissions through the choice of fertiliser type and management.

Aims: Using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), this study aims to compare the environmental impacts of two different viticultural technical management routes (TMRs); integrated and organic) and to identify the operations that contribute the most to the impacts.Methods and results: LCA impact scores were expressed in two functional units: 1 ha of cultivated area and 1 kg of collected grape. We studied all operations from field preparation before planting to the end-of-life of the vine. Inputs and outputs were transformed into potential environmental impacts thanks to SALCA™ (V1.02) and USETox™ (V1.03) methods. Plant protection treatments were a major cause of impact for both TMRs for fuel-related impact categories. For both TMRs, the main contributors to natural resource depletion and freshwater ecotoxicity were trellis system installation and background heavy metal emissions, respectively.Conclusion: This study shows that the studied organic TMR has higher impact scores than the integrated TMR for all the chosen impact categories except eutrophication. However, the chosen TMRs are only typical of integrated and organic viticulture in Loire Valley and some emission models (heavy metal, fuel-related emissions, and nitrogen emissions) have to be improved in order to better assess the environmental impacts of viticulture. Soil quality should also be integrated to LCA results in viticulture because this lack may be a disadvantage for organic viticulture.Significance and impact of study: This study is among the first to compare LCA results of an integrated and an organic TMR.

Purpose Consumption of high quantities of pesticides in viticulture emphasizes the importance of including pesticide emissions and impacts hereof in viticulture LCAs. This paper addresses the lack of inventory models and characterization factors suited for the quantification of emissions and ecotoxicological impacts of pesticides applied to viticulture. The paper presents (i) a tailored version of PestLCI 2.0, (ii) corresponding characterization factors for freshwater ecotoxicity characterization and (iii) result comparison with other inventory approaches. The purpose of this paper is hence to present a viticulture customized version of PestLCI 2.0 and illustrate the application of this customized version on a viticulture case study. Methods The customization of the PestLCI 2.0 model for viticulture includes (i) addition of 29 pesticide active ingredients commonly used in vineyards, (ii) addition of 9 viticulture type specific spraying equipment and accounting the number of rows treated in one pass, and (iii) accounting for mixed canopy (vine/cover crop) pesticide interception. Applying USEtox™, the PestLCI 2.0 customization is further supported by the calculation of freshwater ecotoxicity characterization factors for active ingredients relevant for viticulture. Case studies on three different vineyard technical management routes illustrate the application of the inventory model. The inventory and freshwater ecotoxicity results are compared to two existing simplified emission modelling approaches. Results and discussion The assessment results show considerably different emission fractions, quantities emitted and freshwater ecotoxicity impacts between the different active ingredient applications. Three out of 21 active ingredients dominate the overall freshwater ecotoxicity: Aclonifen, Fluopicolide and Cymoxanil. The comparison with two simplified emission modelling approaches, considering field soil and air as part of the ecosphere, shows that PestLCI 2.0 yields considerable lower emissions and, consequently, lower freshwater ecotoxicity. The sensitivity analyses reveal the importance of soil and climate characteristics, canopies (vine and cover crop) development and sprayer type on the emission results. These parameters should therefore be obtained with site-specific data, while literature or generic data that are acceptable inputs for parameters whose uncertainties have less influence on the result. Conclusions Important specificities of viticulture have been added to the state-of-the-art inventory model PestLCI 2.0. They cover vertically trained vineyards, the most common vineyard training form; they are relevant for other perennial or bush crops provided equipment, shape of the canopy and pesticide active ingredients stay in the range of available options. A similar and compatible model is needed for inorganic pesticide active ingredients emission quantification, especially for organic viticulture impacts accounting.