In the Mediterranean region, climate change is likely to generate an increase in water demand and the deterioration of its quality. The adoption of precision viticulture and the best available techniques aiming at sustainable production, minimizing the impact on natural resources and reducing production costs, has therefore been a goal of winegrowers. In this work, the water footprint (WFP) in the wine sector was evaluated, from the vineyard to the bottle, through the implementation of a methodology based on field experiments and life cycle assessment (LCA) on two Portuguese case studies. Regarding direct water footprint, it ranged from 366 to 899 L/FU (0.75 L bottle), with green water being the most significant component, representing more than 50% of the overall water footprint. The approach used in the current study revealed that although more than 97.5% of the water footprint is associated with vineyard, the winery stage is responsible for more than 75% of the global warming potential indicator. A linear correlation between the carbon footprint and the indirect blue water footprint was also observed for both case studies. Climate change is expected to cause an earlier and prolonged water stress period, resulting in an increase of about 40% to 82% of blue WFP.

In the Mediterranean region, water scarcity has already prompted concern in the wine sector due to the strong impact it has on vineyard productivity and wine quality. Water footprint is an indicator that takes account of all the water involved in the creation of a product and may help producers to identify hotspots, and reduce water consumption and the corresponding production costs. In recent years several studies have been reported on wine water footprint determination, but mostly focused on the viticulture phase or assuming no grey water footprint at the winery since it has a treatment system. In the framework of the WineWaterFootprint project a medium-size winery was monitored, with direct measurements, regarding determination of the blue and grey components of water footprint. The determined winery water footprint ranged from 9.6 to 12.7 L of water per wine bottle of 0.75 L, the wastewater produced being responsible for about 98%, which means that the grey component cannot be disregarded. The developed scenarios show that a potential reduction of 87% in winery water footprint can be obtained with almost no investment. The challenge of reducing the grey footprint is not in technology development, but rather in the proper maintenance and monitoring of treatment systems.

After being used as soil cover, polyethylene film is burned with the cultural remains or incorporated into the soil, since its removal from the field entails labor costs. An alternative to avoid this problem is to replace the polyethylene with bioplastic, because after use the bioplastic can be incorporated into the soil. This study therefore evaluated the biodegradability of polyethylene and bioplastic in soil by means of mass loss, C-CO2 release and bacterial counting. In order to estimate the loss of mass, polyethylene and bioplastic samples were placed in nylon bags (2 mm) and buried at 0.20 m depth of soil and the films were periodically weighed (30, 60, 90 and 120 days) to evaluate the loss Of mass. The C-CO2 emissions and the bacterial colony forming unit count were determined in soil samples incubated with polyethylene, bioplastic and cellulose. The biodegradation of the bioplastic estimated by the loss of mass was 37% and of the polyethylene was 1.2%. The release of C‑CO2 and the number of bacteria were higher in the soils incubated with cellulose and bioplastic.

ISHS III International Symposium on Horticulture in Europe - SHE2016 The role of mulching materials on Lactuca sativa production - Brazil case study