Perforation Potential in Life Cycle Assessment: A Method for the Identification of Land Use Activities in Remote Areas

Anthropogenically land cover modifications and human presence in natural environments are not without consequences to ecological processes. From a conservation perspective, these consequences are worrisome specially when considering the human domination of terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. The recent loss of wilderness areas has been described as catastrophic despite pro-active conservation schemes' efforts to preserve these areas. This thesis proposes a method to characterize a land use in terms of the human pressures in its surroundings, transferring the landscape ecology concept of perforation and dissection to the product perspective of a life cycle assessment. Relying on spatial data of the land use of interest, the Perforation Potential puts the location perspective at the heart of the analysis, and was designed independently of predefined land use classes or biomes borders. The outcome is that one more level of detail regarding the potential impacts of a product's supply chain can be communicated to decision makers. This way, the method allows for more informed decisions to be made, ultimately avoiding harmful consequences to the environment.