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The importance of including water footprints in life cycle assessments

Authors:

Zaid Thanawala

Sr. Sustainability Scientist

zaidmt@gmail.com

Introduction:

Fresh water is a finite and depleting resource that helps supports all life on Earth. It is critical for agriculture, domestic use and manufacturing. It is an invaluable resource for survival, development and balance. Increase in world population, has resulted in an increase in fresh water demand globally. Demand in fresh water along with limited availability, highlights its importance and need for sustainable management. Fresh water availability impacts everything from biodiversity to energy and food production. Fresh water is a key component for energy production, economic progression and agriculture. It is an input in the manufacturing process of goods and also important for the provision of certain services thus influencing the feasibility of industries (Boscariol, 2010)

  (Contestabile, 2018)

. 70% of the worlds fresh water is used for irrigation. As an example, 1 kg of wheat requires approximately 1000 liters of water (Singh, 2018)

. Industries require fresh water for activities like harvesting raw material, cleaning and cooling. The presence of fresh water can determine industrial site selection  (Boscariol, 2010)

. Fresh water ecosystems provide vital ecosystem services that are crucial for maintaining biodiversity and natural processes (Apostolaki et al., 2019)

.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) serves as a recognized tool in environmental management, enabling the evaluation of the environmental impacts associated with products from their inception to their disposal (Lundquist et al., 2000)

. Typically, LCA focuses on the energy consumption and the emissions of greenhouse gases and harmful substances throughout a product's life. However, the consideration of freshwater usage during this cycle often receives insufficient attention (Koehler, 2008)

 (Boulay et al., 2011)

. LCA has traditionally been applied to industrial products that typically require minimal water during their production processes (Huang & Chen, 2013)

. Fresh water is a critical step in LCAs. The benefit of including fresh water in LCAs is highlighted by its importance on the health of human beings, ecosystem and resource availability. With every decade, the lack of water becomes a pressing issue, understanding and assessing the the impacts of water use in life cycles is critical. Not only is it important to assess the quantity of water used but quality matters too. Water quality is an important factor in LCAs because it affects the availability of water for various uses. Poor water quality can lead to toxic impacts rather than water deprivation impacts, which necessitates a focus on water consumption and degradation in assessments (Pradinaud et al., 2019)

. The quantity of water used is equally important, because it influences the environmental downstream associated with water consumption. This is particularly relevant in arid regions where water scarcity can dominate the life-cycle impacts of water-intensive products (Pfister et al., 2009)

. The downstream effects of water use differ based on climatic conditions and scarcity. Therefore, LCAs must incorporate regionalized assessment to accurately reflect these variations (Lévová & Hauschild, 2011)

  (Pfister et al., 2009)

Water foot printing methods are an important topic of discussion within the LCA community because it is important to address the complex nature of water use, quality and scarcity. There is a trade-off between accuracy and applicability, as high-resolution data is often required for complex and advanced methods (Berger & Finkbeiner, 2010)

. Existing LCA methodologies often lack comprehensive assessment schemes for freshwater use, highlighting the need for frameworks that can model the cause-effect relationships of water use and its environmental impacts (Bayart et al., 2010)

This paper provides a summary of available methods for including the water footprints and address the importance of including water footprints in life cycle assessments.