Evaluation of techniques for measuring and assessing environmental impacts of agriculture

3 LIST OF SUBMITTED PUBLICATIONS 5 CONTENTS 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 8 1.0. INTRODUCTION 9 1.1. Background and rationale 9 1.2. Setting the scene 10 1.2.1. A systems perspective of agriculture and the environment 10 1.2.2. Measurement and assessment 13 2.0. DESCRIPTION OF THE RESEARCH 17 2.1. Aims and objectives 17 2.2. Overview of the methodology 18 2.3. Coherence of the submission 19 3.0. DISCUSSION 21 3.1. Setting the context 21 3.2. Review of available tools and techniques 22 3.3. Use of indicators in environmental assessment 25 3.4. Environmental risk assessment of pesticides 28 3.5. Energy use and greenhouse gas emissions 29 3.6. Environmental assessment of sugar beet 31 3.7. Assessing risks to soils and the functions they perform 36 3.8. Assessing the environmental impacts of agricultural policy 38 4.0. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS 41 4.1. Discussion 41 4.2. Summary 44 REFERENCES 45 APPENDIX A. CO-AUTHOR STATEMENT 53 APPENDIX B. OTHER RELATED PUBLICATIONS 55 APPENDIX C. SUBMITTED PUBLICATIONS 57 APPENDIX D. ADDITIONAL PUBLICATIONS 155