Comparing the environmental impacts of pasture-based and confinement-based dairy systems in Nova Scotia (Canada) using life cycle assessment
Bibliographic record
Abstract
A life cycle assessment (LCA) of dairy systems in Nova Scotia was conducted to compare environmental impacts of typical pasture and confinement operations. Data on material and energy inputs and outputs of these systems were obtained from local researchers and industry, and life cycle impacts in 11 categories were quantified. Use of concentrate feeds, N fertilizers, transport fuels and electricity were dominant contributors to environmental impacts. Somewhat surprisingly, grazing cows for five months per year (typical of pasture systems in Nova Scotia) had little effect on overall environmental impact. Scenario modelling suggests, however, that prolonged grazing is potentially beneficial. Compared with total confinement, a seven-month grazing scenario performed better in seven of the environmental impact categories evaluated with greatest potential improvements associated with acidification potential, ozone depletion potential, human toxicity and fresh water ecotoxicity. In contrast, land use was the only category in which an increased reliance on pasture is predicted to result in a marked increase in environmental impact.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".