1. Evaluating Stormwater Management Devices— the Role of Life Cycle Assessment Robbie Andrew 1 and Eva-Terezia Vesely 2 1 NZ Centre for Ecological Economics, Palmerston North 2 Landcare Research, Auckland

2. Summary Life cycle assessment (LCA) Rain gardens Site Analysis Conclusions / Future work

3. Today’s Purpose Address the following: General perception is that rain gardens are more env friendly Is LCA the tool for the job? Indirect effects and impacts are often ignored

4. Life Cycle Assessment (1) “Cradle to Grave” ISO 14040 series

5. LCA: Sounds useful… An objective approach ISO 14040 Direct and Indirect impacts Bottom-up International data gathering effort

6. LCA: But… Assumes linearity –Production of 2kg of product impacts environment twice as much as production of 1kg System boundary critical –Conclusions can strongly depend on how much you include in the analysis

7. The 3 Stages of LCA Goal and Scope Definition Inventory Analysis Impact Assessment

8. An Application Goal: To compare the life-cycle environmental impact of a rain garden with that of an equivalent conventional stormwater device

10. Study Site North Shore City Design incomplete: difficulties with sloping terrain  Cost

11. Raingarden: Life Cycle Screenshot from GaBi 4

12. Raingarden: Production

13. Raingarden: Use

14. Raingarden: Disposal

15. This is a Work in Progress Much of initial work complete Data collection to continue Monitoring data to be used Impact Assessment Conclusions / Future Work

16. Acknowledgements Surya Pandey and Robyn Simcock of Landcare Research Barbara Nebel of Forest Research Foundation for Research, Science, and Technology