Categorizing water for LCA inventory

Abstract

Purpose As impact assessment methods for water use in LCA evolve, so must inventory methods. Water categories that consider water quality must be defined within life cycle inventory. The method presented here aims to establish water categories by source, quality parameter and user. Materials and methods Water users were first identified based on their water quality requirements. A list of parameters was then defined, and thresholds for these parameters were determined for each user. The thresholds were based on international standards, country regulations, recommendations and industry standards. Three different water sources were selected: surface water (including seawater), groundwater and rainwater. Based on the quality and water sources, categories were created by grouping user requirements according to the level of microbial or toxic contamination that the user can tolerate (high, medium or low). Results and discussion Seventeen water categories were created: eight for surface water, eight for groundwater and one for rainwater. Each category was defined according to 136 quality parameters (11 conventional parameters, 38 specific inorganic contaminants and 87 specific organic contaminants) and the users for which it can be of use.Conclusions A set of elementary flows is proposed in order to support a water inventory method oriented towards functionality. This can be used to assess potential water use impacts caused by a loss of functionality for human users.

Quantifying the human impact on water resources: a critical review of the water footprint concept

“…In an attempt to provide water footprint methods with an improved ability to quantify environmental impact and to complement existing LCA methodologies, several studies have been published in recent years proposing various ways to integrate water footprints into LCA inventories Bayart et al, 2010;Boulay et al, 2011a;Milà i Canals et al, 2009;Berger and Finkbeiner, 2010). LCA, a technique which originates from the field of industrial ecology, is a tool capable of measuring the combined effect of several environmental impacts of products across their supply chain (from cradle to grave) (Finnveden et al, 2009).…”

“…Some LCA applications also explicitly quantify potential health impacts (Boulay et al, 2011b;Motoshita et al, 2011), ecosystem impacts (Milà i Canals et al, 2009, and resource depletion impacts (Milà i Canals et al, 2009;) whereas others do not. Approaches focusing on comprehensive water quality assessment also exist which consider the potential water use impacts caused by a loss of functionality (due to water quality impairment) for human users (Boulay et al, 2011a). Important dilemmas also exist with respect to whether the final impact category indicator will be chosen at midpoint (problem-oriented with more specific scientific focus) or endpoint (damage-oriented, which is easier for consumers to understand) (Kounina et al, 2013) and with respect to which scarcity indicator to use in order to account for local water scarcity (Berger and Finkbeiner, 2012).…”

Review of methods addressing freshwater use in life cycle inventory and impact assessment

“…The reviewed inventory methods differ widely in their objective and level of detail. Some focus on defining water categories to allow quality to be considered (Vince 2007;Bayart 2008;Boulay et al 2011a), and others, on providing inventory tools for organizations WBCSD 2010), integrating the effects of direct water use and of land occupation and transformation on water availability in a comprehensive methodology (Milà i Canals et al 2009), or providing detailed hydrological modeling and classification of freshwater use data in specific sectors (e.g., Australian red meat sector) (Peters et al 2010). Boulay et al (2011a) was built on Vince's (2007) and Bayart's (2008) methods.…”

“…LCIA methods applied the amount of freshwater used without characterization factor to address the impacts. Recently, new methodologies were developed which propose freshwater use inventory schemes (Boulay et al 2011a;Peters et al 2010;WBCSD 2010) and assess the potential environmental impacts of freshwater use considering various cause-effect relationships (Milà i Canals et al 2009;Motoshita et al 2010b;Pfister et al 2009).…”

Water Footprint of Cities: A Review and Suggestions for Future Research

“…The latter two are tracking freshwater consumptive use whereas ecoinvent currently tracks withdrawals [86,90]. In regards to water resources, LCA research is working towards standardizing the quantification of impacts to water resources, such as distinguishing between withdrawals and consumptive use, and the effect of water degradation [85,91]. In comparison with the LCA, the WFA takes a macro approach for assessing impacts and making overall sustainability recommendations.…”