• Energy Research
• 11. Sustainability close

The characteristic “high input and output” in protected production has caused some environmental and ecological issues. Hence, emergy-based sustainability assessments are necessary and valuable. However, traditional emergy analysis is time consuming, tedious, and inefficient. Such disadvantages can be addressed by the integration of emergy analysis with information technology. This paper reports the development of the emergy-based sustainability decision assessment system (ESDAS) for protected grape cultivation systems. This system was established by first analyzing the business process, users, and requirements through survey, and the findings of which were used to design the system’s function, architecture, database, model base, and knowledge base with a combination of emergy methods. The results showed that ESDAS passed the system test and achieved the real-time calculation of emergy data and the automatization of emergy analysis. Therefore, this research is a beneficial attempt to apply information technology in improving the efficiency of sustainability assessments. The results also revealed that the protected grape cultivation system is characterized by a heavy dependence on purchased and non-renewable resource emergy, lower emergy yield ratio, higher emergy investment rate and environmental loading ratio, and lower emergy sustainability index. Some suggestions were made to improve the sustainability of the protected grape system.

The characteristic “high input and output” in protected production has caused some environmental and ecological issues. Hence, emergy-based sustainability assessments are necessary and valuable. However, traditional emergy analysis is time consuming, tedious, and inefficient. Such disadvantages can be addressed by the integration of emergy analysis with information technology. This paper reports the development of the emergy-based sustainability decision assessment system (ESDAS) for protected grape cultivation systems. This system was established by first analyzing the business process, users, and requirements through survey, and the findings of which were used to design the system’s function, architecture, database, model base, and knowledge base with a combination of emergy methods. The results showed that ESDAS passed the system test and achieved the real-time calculation of emergy data and the automatization of emergy analysis. Therefore, this research is a beneficial attempt to apply information technology in improving the efficiency of sustainability assessments. The results also revealed that the protected grape cultivation system is characterized by a heavy dependence on purchased and non-renewable resource emergy, lower emergy yield ratio, higher emergy investment rate and environmental loading ratio, and lower emergy sustainability index. Some suggestions were made to improve the sustainability of the protected grape system.

Abstract Anthropogenic material and energy flows are considered to be the major cause of many environmental problems humans face today. In order to measure material and energy flows, and to mitigate related problems, the technique of material flow and energy flow analysis has been conceived. The aim of this article is to use material and energy flow accounting approaches to quantify the amount of biomass that is available, but that so far has not been used for energy purposes in Slovakia and the Czech Republic and to calculate how much consumed fossil fuels and corresponding CO2 emissions can be saved by utilising this biomass. Based on the findings presented, 3544 kt/yr of the total unused biomass in Slovakia could replace 53 PJ/yr of energy from fossil fuels and 6294 kt/yr of the total unused biomass in the Czech Republic could replace 91 PJ/yr of energy. Such replacement could contribute to a decrease in total CO2 emissions by 9.2% in Slovakia and by 5.4% in the Czech Republic and thus contribute to an environmental improvement with respect to climate change.

Abstract Anthropogenic material and energy flows are considered to be the major cause of many environmental problems humans face today. In order to measure material and energy flows, and to mitigate related problems, the technique of material flow and energy flow analysis has been conceived. The aim of this article is to use material and energy flow accounting approaches to quantify the amount of biomass that is available, but that so far has not been used for energy purposes in Slovakia and the Czech Republic and to calculate how much consumed fossil fuels and corresponding CO2 emissions can be saved by utilising this biomass. Based on the findings presented, 3544 kt/yr of the total unused biomass in Slovakia could replace 53 PJ/yr of energy from fossil fuels and 6294 kt/yr of the total unused biomass in the Czech Republic could replace 91 PJ/yr of energy. Such replacement could contribute to a decrease in total CO2 emissions by 9.2% in Slovakia and by 5.4% in the Czech Republic and thus contribute to an environmental improvement with respect to climate change.