Environmental assessment of date (Phoenix doctylifera) production in Iran by life cycle assessment

Environmental indicators have been considered as a main element of environmental impact assessments because of their role on decision and policy making in different fields of special environmental management. The present study was conducted in order to evaluate date (Phoenix doctylifera) production in viewpoint of environmental indicators using life cycle assessment method. The required information was collected by questionnaire and interview with farmers and experts in Khuzestan Province, Iran. The SimaPro Software was used to calculate 11 different environmental indicators for producing one Tonne of the produced date. Diesel fuel, pesticides and nitrogen fertilizer had the highest shares in the studied environmental indicators.