Land use in LCA

α). Four different formulae are presented: a linear and a non-linear one for local damage, and a linear and a non-linear one for regional damage. The local linear function bears most resemblance to the IVAM formula for occupation: EDPlocal = 1 – (Socc / Sregion). The regional function includes the land use pattern already established in the region. The linear function is: EDPregion = dSlost / dLi = b (a constant to be established empirically), Li being the fraction of land already used for this purpose. The non linear functions are more precise but also include a value judgement: Köllner points out that a parking lot in an already species poor area comes out worse than the same parking lot in a species rich region. The choice is thus made to give a heavier weight to interventions in already stressed areas. The argument may also go to another direction: interventions in undisturbed sites might be considered more undesirable since the loss is larger than in already spoiled areas. When adopting this characterisation method, one must be aware of and agree with this choice. Köllner then adds the local and regional scores to one total EDP score, based on equal weighting factors. EDP factors are used for both transformation and occupation. Köllner treats transformation as a specific type of occupation by using a “transformation time” to express it in m2.year units. Next to that a “restoration time” is used for the land to get back to the original state after termination of the activity, also leading to a m2.year occupation. NB the recovery is assumed to be complete, i.e. de situation before equals the recovered situation. For both transformation and restoration an EDP is used which is halfway between the original and occupied one. Thus, transformation and occupation are made into one intervention. Theoretically there is nothing against this, it even has certain advantages as discussed above. In this case however, Köllner ignores the allocation problem, which makes it highly questionable: the whole of the transformation as well as restoration are implicitly allocated to the functional unit under study.