Rice fertilised with urban sewage sludge and possible mitigation strategies: an environmental assessment

摘要: Abstract Among the different cereals, rice plays a relevant role in terms of production and dietary intake. Although highest producers are Asian countries, this crop is also cultivated Europe and, within Europe, Italy most country. There not studies evaluating detail environmental load arising from application urban sewage sludge fields that, being flooded, characterized by anaerobic conditions. The goal study was to evaluate performance cultivation fertilised with Pavia district. Moreover, three mitigation strategies have been proposed evaluated: substitution compost, introduction an additional aeration collection straw. results suggest that main contributors impact methane emissions associated degradation organic matter during flooding period, nitrogen fertilisers, diesel used for field operations. differences among alternative scenarios considerable, suggesting improve possible. In more details, order reduce burdens sludge, two effective possibilities are: compost implementation period cultivation. first option determines improvement all categories analysed, particularly toxicity-related categories, reductions 99.6%, 78.8% 68.7% human toxicity-cancer effects, toxicity-non cancer effects freshwater ecotoxicity, respectively, followed Climate Change (−25.4%) Mineral Fossil Resource Depletion (−19.2%). beneficial Photochemical Oxidant Formation, reduction 9.7% 1.6%, respectively. Concerning category, use standard emission factors estimation involves uncertainty; development country-specific would be instrumental overcoming point weakness. Finally, despite focus on Italian context, proposes strategies, which can applied other systems their impact.