A substantial reduction in the environmental impacts related to the construction and operation of agricultural buildings is needed to adapt to the continuing development of agriculture. The life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology used to quantify the environmental impact of different processes involved in the production and therefore has been increasingly applied to assess the environmental burden. However, most LCA-related research studies have focused on the overall environmental impact of the entire system without considering the energy load of the agricultural buildings. By integrating the LCA tool with other design tools such as the building energy simulation (BES), the identification of environmental hotspots and the mitigation options become possible during the design process. Thus, the objective of the paper was to identify the current integration approaches used to combine BES and LCA results to assess the environmental impact of different heating systems such as absorption heat pump (AHP) using energy from thermal effluent, electricity-powered heat pump and kerosene-powered boilers used in a conventional multi-span Korean greenhouse. The assessment result revealed that the environmental impact caused using a kerosene-powered boiler is largest in terms of the acidification potential (AP), global warming potential (GWP) and Eutrophication Potential (EP) of 1.15 × 10⁰ kg SO₂-eq, 1.13 × 10² kg CO₂-eq and 1.62 × 10⁻¹ kg PO₄-eq, respectively. Detailed analysis of the result showed that the main contributor for greenhouse gas emission was caused by the type, amount and source of energy used to heat the greenhouse, which contributed to a maximum of 86.59% for case 1, 96.69% for case 2 and a maximum of 96.47% for case 3, depending on the type of greenhouse gas being considered.

A Venlo-type greenhouse with a continuous roof vent (CR-Venlo greenhouse) was proposed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, South Korea (2019) for natural ventilation even during summers. It is ventilated through the buoyancy effect of the heated air using the high eave elevation. However, the CR-Venlo greenhouse was not distributed domestically, and its ventilation efficiency was not quantitatively evaluated. We aimed to analyze the natural ventilation efficiency of the greenhouse according to the eave height, using computational-fluid-dynamics. The simulation model was analyzed for hot summer conditions. The target greenhouse is ventilated only through the roof vent with all roof windows open; therefore, the air introduced through the roof window is easily exhausted. To evaluate the efficiency of ventilation, the external air entering through the roof window was calculated and evaluated. The amount of incoming air varied greatly with the location of the span and average temperature of the greenhouse; The temperature of the crop zone decreased lognormally with increasing height of the eave. Moreover, the ventilation efficiency of CR-Venlo greenhouse could be increased by improving the ventilation structure such as a shape, position or combination of roof window.

The internal rearing environment of livestock houses has become an important issue in the last few years due to the rapid increase in meat consumption. As the number of days of heat waves increase continuously, problems caused by abnormal weather changes steadily occurred. Thus, the main goal of this study is to develop a technology that can automatically calculate heat stress for livestock by considering weather forecast data. Specifically, a web-based heat stress forecasting system for the evaluation of heat stress in broilers was developed. The field experiments were carried out at the selected broiler house to measure and analyze the external weather, the internal environment, and the ventilation flow rate of fans used in tunnel ventilation. The developed model was validated by comparing the field and simulated thermal environment values. Based on a reliable model, Land-Atmosphere Modeling Package (LAMP) weather forecast data was used to show the stress index on the internal rearing environment with a heat stress index suitable for South Korea. When the users input the farm location, structure and equipment, and rearing information, users responded after receiving heat stress from the broiler raised in a mechanically ventilated broiler house.

Ammonia (NH₃) from pig houses contributes to air-quality degradation and odor, yet farm-level emissions are highly sensitive to housing design, slurry chemistry and management. This study developed and validated a minute-resolution dynamic model for indoor NH₃ concentration and house-level emission in a mechanically ventilated finishing pig house. Volatilization from the slurry surface was computed from total ammonia nitrogen (TAN), pH and temperature using established mass-transfer formulations, and coupled between two zones (pit headspace and room airspace) via advection and diffusion across the slatted-floor open area. Over one production cycle, key drivers and indoor NH₃ were monitored; discrete TAN observations were upsampled to minute resolution by linear interpolation. Model coefficients were optimized by a genetic algorithm with chronological 70/30 splits for calibration and validation in the grower and finisher phases, respectively. The calibrated model reproduced minute-scale dynamics (validation RMSE 1.53–1.76 ppm, R² 0.87–0.88; MAPE 9.95–10.87%). Sobol’s global sensitivity analysis identified ventilation rate as the dominant driver of indoor concentration, and TAN and slurry pH as the principal drivers of emissions. The model provides decision support for minute-scale monitoring and management, and can be integrated with factor-control methods and ICT-based supervisory systems.