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Global spatial analysis of toxic emissions to freshwater: operationalization for LCA

  • LCIA OF IMPACTS ON HUMAN HEALTH AND ECOSYSTEMS
  • Published:
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

There is increasing interest in using fate and exposure models to spatially differentiate the impacts of chemical emissions. This work aims at exploring the operationalization in life cycle assessment (LCA) of spatially differentiated models for toxic emissions into freshwater. We analyse and compare the variability of fate and exposure factors at high resolution with aggregated factors at different levels of lower resolution.

Methods

We developed a spatially resolved fate and exposure characterization model and factors for toxic emissions into freshwater with global coverage at 0.5° × 0.5° resolution, extending a global hydrological model to account for removal processes, namely chemical and biological degradation, sedimentation, and volatilization. We analysed the variation in fate and exposure factors for water ingestion, identifying the main factors of influence. We then developed archetypes for ecosystems and human fate and exposure. Using a case study of emissions of arsenic from red mud disposal as a waste from alumina production, we tested practical solutions to apply spatial characterization factors aggregated at different resolution in LCA, comparing archetype-based with region-based approaches.

Results and discussion

World maps show up to 5 orders of magnitude variation for chemical fate in fresh water across all 0.5° × 0.5° grid cells and up to 15 orders of magnitude for human intake fractions. The freshwater residence time to the sea and the equivalent depth—over all downstream cells—were the most influential landscape parameters. They were used to define four freshwater landscape archetypes. These archetypes capture variation in fate well, better than country or continent-aggregated values, but are not able to reflect variation in intake fraction. The case study on arsenic from alumina production shows that the determination of industry-specific weighted average represents a pragmatic way to account for sector-specific location of emissions. The population-weighted approach is primarily applicable for emissions that are related to population density, such as household emissions.

Conclusions

The developed global freshwater model demonstrates large spatial variations in fate and exposure. Archetypes for fate in fresh water provide substantial reductions in variability compared to country or continental averages, but are more difficult to apply to LCA than rural or urban archetypes for air emissions. The 0.5° × 0.5° grid model and the fate archetypes may also be used in the context of ecological scenarios to identify hotspots. In practice, population-weighted and sector-specific average characterization factors may represent the most operational way to account for specific distribution patterns of toxic emissions in LCA.

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Notes

  1. Tap water was assumed to be treated to remove the particulate fraction. In this work, we use a fixed fraction of substance dissolved in freshwater, since there is no global dataset presently available for water chemistry or total suspended solids to account for the spatial variation of this parameter worldwide.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Cedric Wannaz for his support for the use of the ArcGIS software and Yan Dong for discussions on metal speciation, as well as Francis Gasser and Dr. Yoshihide Wada for providing spatialized hydrological data.

Funding

This work is financially supported by the project Life Cycle Impact Assessment Methods for Improved Sustainability Characterisation of Technologies (LC-IMPACT), contract no. 243827, funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme, as well as by the International Aluminium Institute through a grant given to University of Michigan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Quantis, Innovation Park, EPFL, Bâtiment D, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Anna Kounina & Olivier Jolliet

  2. Research Group on the Economics and Management of the Environment, EDCE, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Anna Kounina

  3. CIRAIG, École Polytechnique of Montréal, Montréal, QC, H3C 3A7, Canada

    Manuele Margni

  4. School of Public Health, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Andrew D. Henderson

  5. Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    Olivier Jolliet

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  1. Anna Kounina
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  2. Manuele Margni
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  3. Andrew D. Henderson
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  4. Olivier Jolliet
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Correspondence to Olivier Jolliet.

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Responsible editor: Ralph K. Rosenbaum

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Kounina, A., Margni, M., Henderson, A.D. et al. Global spatial analysis of toxic emissions to freshwater: operationalization for LCA. Int J Life Cycle Assess 24, 501–517 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-018-1476-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-018-1476-2

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