EAGLES Framework—Environmental Impact of Agriculture Using Life Cycle Assessment and Expert System

Agriculture faces increasing pressure to meet global food demands while minimizing environmental harm, yet many current practices remain unsustainable. This study develops the EAGLES framework (Environmental Impact of Agriculture using Life Cycle Assessment and Expert System) to address limitations in current sustainability assessment approaches. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) evaluates environmental impacts but is limited by data availability and usability, especially for new users in agriculture. The objective of this study is to address this gap by developing the EAGLES framework, which organizes agricultural LCA data within an expert system (knowledge-based, rule-based) structure to guide the application of LCA phases. The knowledge base is developed from Phase 1 datasets reported in previous work and additional datasets developed as part of this study. ] The rule base uses if–then logic to check if the required data are available and to guide movement across the LCA phases. The framework is designed to support multiple scope types, impact categories, and assessment methods within a single structure. The framework was applied to rice production in Mississippi (2021) to assess marine eutrophication and acidification. The case study results show that the framework enables consistent progression across all LCA phases and produces impact results that can be interpreted using normalization and weighting. A second pathway was applied to assess acidification, demonstrating that the framework can handle multiple impact categories within the same system. By organizing data and linking inventory, impact assessment, and interpretation into a single process, the framework provides a structured and transparent approach for conducting agricultural LCA.