The base scenarios were defined and notated on the basis of the feedstock regime. For single feedstock, the base case considered the use of cattle manure feedstock. For multiple feedstock scenarios, the base case for small-scale biogas plants (Base SS) and large-scale plants (Base LS) considered the co-digestion of cattle manure-corn silage mixture, and cattle manure-MSW-residues of food industry, respectively. The respective scenarios represent typical pathways in
biogas production and utilization for small and large-scale plants in Germany (Fig. 1). The specified base scenarios provided the datum for evaluation of the environmental and health impacts attributed to the different conversion pathways considered in the study. The analysis considered potential variations in: feedstock type, including, (A) single (Appendix e Table A1) and (B) multiple (Appendix e Table A2) feedstock digestion; (C) biogas utilization pathways (Appendix e Table A3), and; (D) the digestate processing and handling (Appendix e Table A4).