Abstract
The building sector is one of the major consumers of water resources, according to the United Nations Environmental Program, buildings and their associated industry consume 30% of the fresh water available worldwide. Optimizing this resource usage is a key factor and makes it necessary to analyze it with environmental and economic indicators, so that the magnitude of the impact can be qualified and quantified, and covering all the building life cycle. The analysis includes the first stage, the project conception, follows with the assessment of raw materials and its manufacture, continues with the use and maintenance, and finalizes with the demolition of the building. The water consumed in all those processes or Virtual Water (VW) can be the key to the reduction of the built environment impact. Because the total water consumption of a building includes not only the water that has been required off-site to manufacture the materials used, as well as the water embodied in the production of energy, also the direct water used in the building needs to be studied. This together can be considered the building water footprint (WF). A methodology based on the quantity surveying of the building project which includes materials and machinery is used for the inventory. The WF quantification is treated similarly to a project budget. A case study of a residential building in Huelva, Spain is evaluated. The most impacting stage is the use followed by the construction, being other stages less significant.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
ACCD (2018) Andalusia Government (2018) Andalusia Construction Cost Database (ACCD). https://www.juntadeandalucia.es/organismos/fomentoyvivienda/areas/vivienda-rehabilitacion/planes-instrumentos/paginas/ACCD-sept-2017.html. Accessed 11 January 2019
Adalberth K (1997) Energy use during the life cycle of buildings: a method. Build Environ 32(4):317–320
Alba-RodrÃguez MD, MartÃnez-Rocamora A, González-Vallejo P, et al (2017) Building rehabilitation versus demolition and new construction: Economic and environmental assessment. Environ Impact Assess Rev 66:115–126. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.EIAR.2017.06.002
Allan JA (1993) Fortunately, there are substitutes for water otherwise our hydropolitical futures would be impossible. Priorities for water resources allocation and management. Overseas Development Administration, London, UK, pp 13–26
Bardhan S (2011) Assessment of water resource consumption in building construction in India. In: Brebbia CA, Villacampa Esteve Y (eds) Ecosytems and sustainable development, vol. VIII. WIT press, pp 93–101
Beltran MJ, Velazquez E (2015) The political ecology of virtual water and water footprint. Reflections on the need for a critical analysis of virtual water flow indicators in the economy. J CritAl Econ 20:second half
Blengini GA (2009) Life cycle of buildings, demolition and recycling potential: A case study in Turin, Italy. Building and Environment, 44:319–330
Blengini GA, Di Carlo, T (2010) The changing role of life cycle phases, subsystems and materials in the LCA of low energy buildings. Energy Build 42:869–880
Buyle M, Braet J, Audenaert A (2013) Life cycle assessment in the construction sector: A review. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 26:379–388. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2013.05.001
CE3X (2012) CE3X v2.3—Energy certification program for existing buildings. IDAE Guide: CE3 X Existing Buildings Energy Rating User Manual, 2012
Chang Y, Huang Z, Ries R, Masanet E (2016) The embodied air pollutant emissions and water footprints of buildings in China: a quantification using disaggregated input-output life cycle inventory model. J Clean Prod 113:274–284
Chastas P, Theodosiou T, Kontoleon KJ, Bikas D (2018) Normalising and assessing carbon emissions in the building sector: A review on the embodied CO2emissions of residential buildings. Build Environ 130:212–226
Crawford RH, Pullen S (2011) Life cycle water analysis of a residential building and its occupants. Build Res Inf 39(6):589–602
CSI/CSC (2016) Construction Specifications Institute/Construction Specifications Canada. Masterformat Manual of Practice (MP2-1). Alexandria, Va
Cubillo F, Moreno T, Ortega S (2008) Microcomponents and explanatory factors of domestic water consumption in the Community of Madrid. No. 4. R&D&I notebooks. Elizabeth II Canal. Madrid
Department of Housing, Public Works and Transport of the Basque Government. 2012. ‘BDEU in the Basque Country’
Ecoinvent Centre (2013) Ecoinvent database v3 ecoinvent report. www.ecoinvent.org. Accessed 30 December 2018
ECO-Platform (www.eco-platform.org/)
European Commission (2007) Comisión Europea- SecretarÃa General. 2007. GuÃa para la Estrategia Europea de Desarrollo Sostenible, 2007
European Parliament—Council of the European Union (2003). Integrated product policy. Development of the environmental life cycle concept. COM, Brussels, Belgium
Férriz Papà JA (2012) Water consumption in buildings: Embebed water in construction materials
Frischknecht R, Jungbluth N, Althaus H-J, Doka G, Dones R, Heck T, Hellweg S, Hischier R, Nemecek T, Rebitzer G (2005) The Ecoinvent database: overview and methodological framework (7 pp). Int J Life Cycle Assess 10(1):3–9
Freire-Guerrero A, Marrero-Meléndez M (2015) Ecological footprint in indirect costs of construction, pp 969–80 in Proceedings of the II International congress on sustainable construction and eco-efficient solutions : Seville 25–27 May 2015
Freire Guerrero A, Alba RodrÃguez M (2019) Desirée, Marrero Meléndez, Madelyn:A budget for the ecological footprint of buildings is possible: a case study using the dwelling construction cost database of Andalusia. En: Sustainable Cities and Society 51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2019.101737
Gleick PH (2013) The world’s water, Volume 8. The biennial report on freshwater resources. Island Press, Washington, DC
Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) (2008) The dollars and sense of green buildings 2008: Building the business case for green buildings in Australia. GBCA, Melbourne, VIC
González-Vallejo P, Marrero M, SolÃs-Guzmán J (2015) The ecological footprint of dwelling construction in Spain. Ecol Ind 52:75–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.11.016
González-Vallejo P, SolÃs-Guzmán J, Llácer R, Marrero M (2015) The construction of residential buildings in Spain in the period 2007–2010 and their impact according to the Indicator Ecological Footprint. Cons Rep 67(539): https://doi.org/10.3989/ic.14.017
Guggemos AA, Horvath A (2005) Comparison of the environmental effects of buildings with steel and concrete structure. J Infrastructure Syst 11:93–101
Hardy L, Garrido A (2010) Analysis and evaluation of the relationships between water and energy in Spain, Virtual Water Papers
Hoekstra AY, Hung PQ (2002) ‘Virtual water trade A quantification of virtual water flows between nations in relation to international crop trade. Value Water Res Rep Ser 11:166
Hoekstra AY (2008) The water footprint of food. Water Food 109:49–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-799968-5.00007-5
IDAE (2011) Institute for diversification and energy savings: ‘CO2/CO2 Emission Factors
IETcc (2012) Catalogue of constructive elements of the CTE. Eduardo Torroja Institute of Construction Sciences (IETcc)’. Retrieved http://www.codigotecnico.org/web/recursos/aplicaciones/contenido/texto_0012.html
INE (2019) National institute of statistics [Data file]. Recovered from http://www.ine.es
ISO (1994) ISO/TR 14177. International organization for standardization, ISO. classification of information in the construction industry. ISO/TR 14177:1994. Switzerland: ISO, 1994
ISO (2011) ISO-15686-1:2011. International Organization for Standardization, ISO. Buildings and constructed assets— Service life planning—Part 1: General principles and framework. Switzerland: ISO, 2011
ISO Standard (2006) Norma AERNOR, 2006. UNE-EN ISO 14040:2006. Madrid AENOR 2006. Gestión ambiental. Análisis de ciclo de vida. Principios y marco de referencia.: AENOR, 2006
ISO Standard, 2015. Norma AERNOR, 2015. UNE-EN ISO 14046:2015. AENOR 2015.Environmental management. Water Footprint. Principles, requirements, and guidelines. Madrid: AENOR, 2015
Jones AR (1987) CI/SfB Construction Indexing Manual. Royal institute of British architects RIBA, London, UK
Knoeri C, Sanyé-Mengual E, Althaus H-J (2013) Recycled and conventional concrete comparative ACL for structural applications Int J Life cycle assessment, 909–918, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-012-0544-2
Kua HW, Maghimai M (2017) The revised anti-concrete steel debate: built-in global warming potential and energy analysis based on attributional and consequent outlook for the J Ind life cycle Ecol, 21:82–100. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12409
Larralde L (2014) Evaluation of the Ecological Footprint of the building in the residential sector of Mexico. Master’s Degree Work. University of Seville, Spain
Maciel T, Stumpf M, Kern A (2016) Management system proposal for planning and controlling construction waste. Propuesta de un sistema de planificación y control de residuos en la construcción. Rev Ing construcción 31:105–116. https://doi.org/10.4067/s0718-50732016000200004
Marrero M, Ramirez-De-Arellano A (2010) The building cost system in Andalusia: application to construction and demolition waste management. Constr Manag Econ 28(5):495–507
Marrero M, Freire Guerrero A, SolÃs Guzmán J, Rivero Camacho C (2014) Study of the ecological footprint of the transformation of land use. Safety and Environment. Mapfre Foundation 2000(136):6–14
Marrero M, Puerto M, Rivero-Camacho C, et al (2017) Assessing the economic impact and ecological footprint of construction and demolition waste during the urbanization of rural land. Resour Conserv Recycl 117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2016.10.020
Marrero M, Rivero-Camacho C, Desirée Alba-RodrÃguez M (2020) What Are We Discarding during the Life Cycle of a Building? Case Studies of Social Housing in Andalusia, Spain. Waste Manag 102:391–403
MartÃnez-Rocamora A, SolÃs-Guzmán J, Marrero M (2016) LCA databases focused on construction materials: A review. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 58:565–573. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.12.243
MartÃnez-Rocamora A, SolÃs-Guzmán J, Marrero M (2016) Toward the Ecological Footprint of the use and maintenance phase of buildings: Utility consumption and cleaning tasks. Ecol Indic 69:66–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.04.007
MartÃnez Rocamora A, SolÃs-Guzmán J, Marrero M (2017) Ecological footprint of the use and maintenance phase of buildings: Maintenance tasks and final results. Energy Build 155. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2017.09.038
McCormack M, Treloar GJ, Palmowski L, Crawford R (2007) Modelling direct and indirect water requirements of construction. Build Res Inform 35(2):156–162
Meng J, Chen GQ, Shao L, Li JS, Tang HS, Hayat T, Alsaedi A, Asaadi F (2014) Virtual water accounting for building: case study for E-town, Beijing. J Clean Prod 68:7–15
Ministry of the Environment and Planning of the Territory, Community of Madrid (2007) ‘BPCM Madrid’
Ministry of Presilence (2008) Royal Decree 105/2008, of 1 February, regulating the production and management of construction and demolition waste. Official journal official gazette of the state, n. 38. Spain, 2008. Available in: https://www.boe.es/buscar/pdf/2008/BOE-A-2008-2486-consolidado.pdf
Ministry of Infrastructure, Territory and Environment (2014) BDC-IVE Valencia. https://www.five.es/basedatos/Visualizador/Base14/index.htm
Naredo Pérez JM (coord.) (2009) Virtual water and hydrological footprint in the Community of Madrid. R&D&I Notebooks, Cnal de Isabel II, Madrid
Official College of Quantity Surveyors (2012) Technical Architects and Building Engineers of Guadalajara. 2012. ‘PRECIOCENTRO of Guadalajara’
Omniclass (2012) A strategy for classifying the built environment—Table 13: Spaces by function
REE (2014–2018) The Spanish electric system/The Spanish Electric System
Rivero Camacho C, Muñoz Sanguinetti C, Marrero Meléndez M (2018) Calculation of the Ecological Footprint in the life cycle for the urbanization phase of a housing complex in Chile, under the ARDITEC model. In Interdisciplinary congress of research in architecture, design, city and territory, Chile, pp 82–99
Rivero Camacho C (2020) Estudio de huellas en el ciclo de vida del edificio residencial. Tesis doctoral
Rivero et al (2020) Rivero-Camacho, Cristina, MartÃn-Del-RÃo, Juan Jesús, SolÃs-Guzmán, Jaime, Marrero, Madelyn, 2020. Ecological Footprint of the life cycle of buildings
RodrÃguez de Lucio A, Perea B, Larrea P, Sevilla J, Falkner A (2010) The Spanish electric model in 2030. Scenarios and alternatives
Royal Degree (314/2006) March 17, which approves the Technical Building Code. Consolidated text with amendments to RD 1371/2007 of 19 October and correction of BOE errors of 25 January 2008. Spain. Revision in force since September 13, 2013. Official Gazette of the State, 28 March 2006, No. 74, pp. 11816–11831. Accessed 16 April 2015. Available at: http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2006/03/28/pdfs/A11816-11831.pdf Samadpour P, Faryadi Sh (2008) Determination of ecological footprints of dense and high-rise districts, case study of Elahie neighbourhood, Tehran. J Environmental Stud 34(45):63–72
Pérez R, RocÃo M, Desirée AR, Meléndez M (2017) Systems of water supply and sanitation for domestic use. Water Footprint and Carbon Footprint Evaluation: First Results. Comunicación en congreso. IV International Congress on Construction and Building Research. - Santa Cruz de Tenerife, España. 2017
Pérez R, RocÃo M, RodrÃguez A, Desirée M, Raúl C, Guzmán S, Marrero Meléndez M (2019a) HEREVEA Tool for Economic and Environmental Impact Evaluation for Sustainable Planning Policy in Housing Renovation. En: Sustainability 11(10):2852–2871. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11102852
Pérez R, RocÃo M, RodrÃguez A, Desirée M, Marrero Meléndez M (2019) The water footprint of the naturalization of the cities. Evaluation of the water balance of the city garden. Conferencia Congreso no publicada. The International Society for Ecological Modelling Global Conference 2019. Salzburg Congress Centre, Salzburg, Austria. 2019
Pérez R, RocÃo M, RodrÃguez A, Desirée M, Marrero Meléndez M (2020) The water footprint of city naturalisation. Evaluation of the water balance of city gardens. En: Ecological Modelling. 2020. Vol. 424. Núm. 109031. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2020.109031
Skaar C, Labonnote N, Gradeci K (2018) From zero-emission buildings (ZEBs) to zero-emission neighborhoods (ZEN): an ACL mapping review based on Sustain algorithms. Times 10. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10072405
SEOPAN (2008) Machinery costs manual (in Spanish: Manual de costes de maquinaria). Available:http://www.concretonline.com/pdf/07construcciones/art_tec/SeopanManualCostes.pdf. Accessed 1 July 2016
SIMAPRO Software ACV
SolÃs-Guzmán J, Marrero M, RamÃrez-De-Arellano A (2013) Methodology for determining the ecological footprint of the construction of residential buildings in Andalusia (Spain). Ecol Indic 25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2012.10.008
SolÃs-Guzmán J, Rivero-Camacho C, Alba-RodrÃguez D, MartÃnez-Rocamora A (2018) Carbon footprint estimation tool for residential buildings for non-specialized users: OERCO2 project. Sustain 10. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10051359
Telford T (1991) Civil Engineering Standard Method of Measurement, 3rd edn. LTD, UK, pp 4–39
Trigaux D, Oosterbosch B, De Troyer F, Allacker K (2017) A design tool to assess the demand for heating energy and the associated financial and environmental impact on neighborhoods Energy construction 152:516–523. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2017.07.057
UNE-EN 15804 (2012) Sustainability of construction works - Environmental product declarations - Core rules for the product category of construction products
UNE-EN 15978 (2012) Sustainability of construction works. Assessment of environmental performance of buildings. Calculation Method
UNE-EN ISO 14040 (2006) Environmental management—Life cycle assessment—Principles and framework
UNE-EN ISO 14044 (2006) Environmental management—Life cycle assessment—Requirements and guidelines
UNE-EN 15459-1 (2018) AENOR, 2018. Energy efficiency of buildings. Economic evaluation procedure of the energy systems of buildings. Part 1: Calculation method, Module M1-14. Spanish Association of Standardization and Certification. Madrid, Spain, 2018
UniFormatTM. The Construction Specifications Institute (1998) A uniform classification of construction systems and assemblies. Alexandria, VA’
United Nations Environmental Programme (2006)
Velázquez E, Madrid C, Beltrán MJ (2011) Rethinking concepts of virtual water and water footprint in relation to the production–consumption binomial and the water–energy nexus. Water Resour Manage 25:743–761
Verbeeck G, Chickens H (2010) Building lifecycle inventory: a calculation method. Build Reign Times 45(2010):1037–1041. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2009.10.012
WFN (2011) Water Footprint Network. ISBN: 978-1-84971-279-8
Zabalza BI, Valero CA, Aranda UA (2011) Life cycle assessment of building materials: Comparative analysis of energy and environmental impacts and evaluation of the eco-efficiency improvement potential. Build Environ 46:1133–1140
Acknowledgements
The University of Seville is grateful for funding the research work presented, through a pre-doctoral contract, for the development of the R&D&I program.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rivero-Camacho, C., Marrero, M. (2022). Water Footprint of the Life Cycle of Buildings: Case Study in Andalusia, Spain. In: Ren, J. (eds) Advances of Footprint Family for Sustainable Energy and Industrial Systems. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76441-8_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76441-8_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-76440-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-76441-8
eBook Packages: EnergyEnergy (R0)