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Environmental Impact of Livestock Production and Mitigation Strategies

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2021) | Viewed by 15101

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Giorgio Provolo

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Guest Editor

Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, The University of Milan, Milan, Italy
Interests: rural buildings and structures; animal welfare; sustainable agriculture; manure management

Dr. Alberto Finzi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
Interests: manure management; nutrients recovery; livestock buildings; ammonia and GHG emissions
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Livestock is an important food source for humans; however, livestock production is considered to be a significant anthropogenic cause of negative environmental impacts. Atmospheric emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and ammonia (NH₃), combined with releases of substances (like nitrates, phosphorus, heavy metals) to water and soil, are the main pollutants linked to livestock activities that negatively affect the environment. The need to address emissions deriving from livestock production is of primary importance to combating climate change and achieving the goals of sustainable development.

Each stage of livestock production (housing, manure storage, manure land application) is characterized by specific emissions, and several solutions can be adopted for their containment.

This Special Issue will highlight these innovative solutions by focusing on (among others):

Techniques or methodologies for monitoring emissions to the atmosphere, water and soil
Economic and social assessments of encouraging farmers to adopt sustainable practices
Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) to assess innovative solutions that increase the sustainability of livestock production
Techniques or management solutions to reduce emissions during housing or field application of livestock effluents
Improving the agronomic use of recycled nutrients. Precision farming and other innovations to increase crop fertilization efficiency.
Alternative uses and new markets for manure valorization
Treatment systems for renewable energy production or to rebalance the nutrient content of livestock manure.

Although several studies have been published on these topics, there is still a need for innovative solutions for a whole system approach to environmental impact assessment and mitigation in livestock farming. The Special Issue will provide a coherent platform for this information.

Prof. Dr. Giorgio Provolo
Dr. Alberto Finzi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
ammonia emissions
waste management
manure treatment
fertilizer value
nutrient recycling
renewable energy
mitigation techniques
climate change
socioeconomic motivators
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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26 pages, 5019 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Agronomic and Environmental Performance of Lemnaminor Cultivated on Agricultural Wastewater Streams—A Practical Approach

by Reindert Devlamynck, Marcella Fernandes de Souza, Evi Michels, Ivona Sigurnjak, Natalia Donoso, Carl Coudron, Jan Leenknegt, Pieter Vermeir, Mia Eeckhout and Erik Meers

Sustainability 2021, 13(3), 1570; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13031570 - 02 Feb 2021

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 3343

Abstract

This study investigated the potential of Lemna minor to valorise agricultural wastewater in protein-rich feed material in order to meet the growing demand for animal feed protein and reduce the excess of nutrients in certain European regions. For this purpose, three pilot-scale systems were monitored for 175 days under outdoor conditions in Flanders. The systems were fed with the effluent of aquaculture (pikeperch production—PP), a mixture of diluted pig manure wastewater (PM), and a synthetic medium (SM). PM showed the highest productivity (6.1 ± 2.5 g DW m⁻² d⁻¹) and N uptake (327 ± 107 mg N m⁻² d⁻¹). PP yielded a similar productivity and both wastewaters resulted in higher productivities than SM. Furthermore, all media showed similar P uptake rates (65–70 P m⁻² d⁻¹). Finally, duckweed had a beneficial amino acid composition for humans (essential amino acid index = 1.1), broilers and pigs. This study also showed that the growing medium had more influence on the productivity of duckweed than on its amino acid composition or protein content, with the latter being only slightly affected by the different media studied. Overall, these results demonstrate that duckweed can effectively remove nutrients from agriculture wastewaters while producing quality protein. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Impact of Livestock Production and Mitigation Strategies)

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11 pages, 2092 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Influence of Treatments and Covers on NH₃ Emissions from Dairy Cow and Buffalo Manure Storage

by Ester Scotto di Perta, Antonio Mautone, Marco Oliva, Elena Cervelli and Stefania Pindozzi

Sustainability 2020, 12(7), 2986; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12072986 - 08 Apr 2020

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2244

Abstract

The storage of livestock manure is responsible for ammonia emissions into the atmosphere. Different natural covers could be used during animal manure storage, but the mitigation effect is influenced by the manure characteristics due to the housing or treatment systems. Starting from cattle and buffalo manure, the objectives of this study were (i) to assess the effect of anaerobic digestion (AD) and solid–liquid separation (SLS) on ammonia emissions during storage as well as natural crust development and (ii) to investigate the reduction in ammonia emissions by using a layer of straw to cover the stored animal manure. Storage conditions were simulated in a small-scale application in a climate-controlled room. Results showed that the higher organic matter content of cow raw slurry facilitated the surface crust formation starting from the first days of storage. AD with SLS increased ammonia emissions (48.5%) due to the increase of the ammoniacal nitrogen content. On the other hand, animal manure covered with a layer of straw showed a 7.3% reduction of ammonia emissions. This study suggests that treatments and covering strategies must be calibrated to different manure types to enhance the mitigation effect. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Impact of Livestock Production and Mitigation Strategies)

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18 pages, 1150 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Technical, Economic, and Environmental Assessment of a Collective Integrated Treatment System for Energy Recovery and Nutrient Removal from Livestock Manure

by Alberto Finzi, Gabriele Mattachini, Daniela Lovarelli, Elisabetta Riva and Giorgio Provolo

Sustainability 2020, 12(7), 2756; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12072756 - 01 Apr 2020

Cited by 24 | Viewed by 2921

Abstract

The aim of this 5-year study was to evaluate the technical, economic, and environmental performances of a collective-based integrated treatment system for bioenergy production and nutrients removal to improve the utilization efficiency and reduce the environmental impact of land applied livestock manure. The study involved 12 livestock production units located in an intensive livestock area designated as nitrate vulnerable zone with large N surplus. The treatment system consisted of an anaerobic digestion unit, a solid–liquid separation system, and a biological N removal process. Atmospheric emissions and nutrient losses in water and soil were examined for the environmental assessment, while estimated crop removal and nutrient utilization efficiencies were used for the agronomic assessment. The integrated treatment system achieved 49% removal efficiency for total solids (TS), 40% for total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), and 41% for total phosphorous (TP). A surplus of 58kWh/t of treated manure was achieved considering the electricity produced by the biogas plant and consumed by the treatment plant and during transportation of raw and treated manure. A profit of 1.61 €/t manure treated and an average reduction of global warming potential by 70% was also achieved. The acidification potential was reduced by almost 50%. The agronomic use of treated manure eliminated the TKN surplus and reduced the TP surplus by 94%. This collective integrated treatment system can be an environmentally and economically sustainable solution for farms to reduce N surplus in intensive livestock production areas. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Impact of Livestock Production and Mitigation Strategies)

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18 pages, 1381 KiB

Open AccessArticle

How the Selection of Training Data and Modeling Approach Affects the Estimation of Ammonia Emissions from a Naturally Ventilated Dairy Barn—Classical Statistics versus Machine Learning

by Sabrina Hempel, Julian Adolphs, Niels Landwehr, David Janke and Thomas Amon

Sustainability 2020, 12(3), 1030; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12031030 - 31 Jan 2020

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 2978

Abstract

Environmental protection efforts can only be effective in the long term with a reliable quantification of pollutant gas emissions as a first step to mitigation. Measurement and analysis strategies must permit the accurate extrapolation of emission values. We systematically analyzed the added value of applying modern machine learning methods in the process of monitoring emissions from naturally ventilated livestock buildings to the atmosphere. We considered almost 40 weeks of hourly emission values from a naturally ventilated dairy cattle barn in Northern Germany. We compared model predictions using 27 different scenarios of temporal sampling, multiple measures of model accuracy, and eight different regression approaches. The error of the predicted emission values with the tested measurement protocols was, on average, well below 20%. The sensitivity of the prediction to the selected training dataset was worse for the ordinary multilinear regression. Gradient boosting and random forests provided the most accurate and robust emission value predictions, accompanied by the second-smallest model errors. Most of the highly ranked scenarios involved six measurement periods, while the scenario with the best overall performance was: One measurement period in summer and three in the transition periods, each lasting for 14 days. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Impact of Livestock Production and Mitigation Strategies)

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Review

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28 pages, 1957 KiB

Open AccessReview

Horticulture and Orchards as New Markets for Manure Valorisation with Less Environmental Impacts

by David Fangueiro, Paula Alvarenga and Rita Fragoso

Sustainability 2021, 13(3), 1436; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13031436 - 29 Jan 2021

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2642

Abstract

Animal manure management is a real challenge to minimize environmental impacts and ensure that this valuable material is efficiently used in a circular economy context. One of the main limitations for larger use of animal manure as fertilizer is the availability of land to receive it in an area close to the farm. Indeed, animal manure is traditionally used for cereals and animal feed growth, but the soil area occupied with these crops might not be enough to receive all the manure produced and/or part of this soil might have nutrient contents, namely phosphorous, that do not permit further application of manure. Hence, extra land used for other agricultural activities might be an option. The main objective of the present review was to analyse the constraints and solutions to increase the use of manure in horticulture and orchards. Emphasis was given to the legal framework for manure utilization in the EU that might stimulate or restrain such a solution. The main characteristics of manure that might limit or stimulate manure reuse were also described, and the potential of some treatments to valorise manure was analysed. Several examples of alternative uses of manure in horticulture and orchards were examined, and the society and farmers’ acceptance of the proposed solution was addressed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Impact of Livestock Production and Mitigation Strategies)

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