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Assessing freshwater use impacts in LCA: Part I—inventory modelling and characterisation factors for the main impact pathways

  • WATER USE IN LCA
  • Published:
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Background, aim and scope

Freshwater is a basic resource for humans; however, its link to human health is seldom related to lack of physical access to sufficient freshwater, but rather to poor distribution and access to safe water supplies. On the other hand, freshwater availability for aquatic ecosystems is often reduced due to competition with human uses, potentially leading to impacts on ecosystem quality. This paper summarises how this specific resource use can be dealt with in life cycle analysis (LCA).

Main features

The main quantifiable impact pathways linking freshwater use to the available supply are identified, leading to definition of the flows requiring quantification in the life cycle inventory (LCI).

Results

The LCI needs to distinguish between and quantify evaporative and non-evaporative uses of ‘blue’ and ‘green’ water, along with land use changes leading to changes in the availability of freshwater. Suitable indicators are suggested for the two main impact pathways [namely freshwater ecosystem impact (FEI) and freshwater depletion (FD)], and operational characterisation factors are provided for a range of countries and situations. For FEI, indicators relating current freshwater use to the available freshwater resources (with and without specific consideration of water ecosystem requirements) are suggested. For FD, the parameters required for evaluation of the commonly used abiotic depletion potentials are explored.

Discussion

An important value judgement when dealing with water use impacts is the omission or consideration of non-evaporative uses of water as impacting ecosystems. We suggest considering only evaporative uses as a default procedure, although more precautionary approaches (e.g. an ‘Egalitarian’ approach) may also include non-evaporative uses. Variation in seasonal river flows is not captured in the approach suggested for FEI, even though abstractions during droughts may have dramatic consequences for ecosystems; this has been considered beyond the scope of LCA.

Conclusions

The approach suggested here improves the representation of impacts associated with freshwater use in LCA. The information required by the approach is generally available to LCA practitioners

Recommendations and perspectives

The widespread use of the approach suggested here will require some development (and consensus) by LCI database developers. Linking the suggested midpoint indicators for FEI to a damage approach will require further analysis of the relationship between FEI indicators and ecosystem health.

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Notes

  1. A practical application to illustrate the suggested methodology is offered in the second part of this paper: Milà i Canals L, Chapagain AK, Orr S, Chenoweth J (in preparation) Assessing freshwater use impacts in LCA. Part II: case study for broccoli production in the UK and Spain.

  2. Differences in albedo between different crops may be relevant for global modeling, but are outside the scope of LCA.

  3. Flow refers here to the element listed in a LCI, i.e. ‘elementary flow’, and not to the type of resource as in ‘flow, fund or stock’.

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Acknowledgements

Dr Vladimir Smakhtin and Prof Ramón Llamas have provided very useful input to this paper. Dr. Milà i Canals has been funded by the RELU project RES-224-25-0044 (http://www.bangor.ac.uk/relu), and also acknowledges support from GIRO CT (http://www.giroct.net) during the elaboration of this paper. The authors appreciate the useful comments provided by two anonymous reviewers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unilever – Safety & Environmental Assurance Centre, Colworth Park, Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire, MK44 1LQ, UK

    Llorenç Milà i Canals

  2. Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, Surrey, UK

    Llorenç Milà i Canals, Jonathan Chenoweth & Roland Clift

  3. WWF-UK, Panda House, Weyside Park, Godalming, GU7 1XR, Surrey, UK

    Ashok Chapagain & Stuart Orr

  4. IRTA, ctra. Cabrils, km 2, 08348, Cabrils (Barcelona), Spain

    Assumpció Antón

Authors
  1. Llorenç Milà i Canals
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  2. Jonathan Chenoweth
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  3. Ashok Chapagain
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  4. Stuart Orr
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  5. Assumpció Antón
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  6. Roland Clift
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Correspondence to Llorenç Milà i Canals.

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Preamble

In this series of two papers, the methodological aspects related to the assessment of freshwater resources use in LCA are discussed (Part I) and the operational method and characterisation factors suggested are illustrated for a case study of broccoli produced in the UK and Spain (Part II).

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Table A-1

Values for WRPC and WUPR for world countries (DOC 190 KB)

Table A-2

Values for WSI for the main world river basins (kindly provided by V. Smakhtin) (DOC 101 KB)

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Milà i Canals, L., Chenoweth, J., Chapagain, A. et al. Assessing freshwater use impacts in LCA: Part I—inventory modelling and characterisation factors for the main impact pathways. Int J Life Cycle Assess 14, 28–42 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-008-0030-z

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