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Water Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment: Methods and Tools for the Strategic Management of Water Related Impacts

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A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Use and Scarcity".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2021) | Viewed by 12089

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Alessandro Manzardo

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Guest Editor

CESQA Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
Interests: life cycle assessment; environmental footprints; sustainability assessment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Correct water use and management is a global issue at the center of international debate caused by the pressures that climate change, world population growth, and industrial processes have placed on the availability of water resources. Within this context, private companies and public authorities are urged to take action and adopt tools and methods for the sustainable management of water.

One of the tools recognized to support better water use and management is the water footprint. Introduced almost 20 years ago, recent development of the method has taken place within the framework of life-cycle assessment (LCA) to support the quantification of the potential environmental impacts related to water.

The aim of this Special Issue is to present the latest research concerning the water footprint to support decision-making processes. New approaches, such as the organizational water footprint, new and/or original applications of multi-criteria decision-making analysis methods, and other approaches to support the definition of effective strategies and plans to reduce water use and improve water management will be considered for publication in this Special Issue.

Dr. Alessandro Manzardo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

water footprint
life-cycle assessment
water efficiency
water saving
decision-making
organizational water footprint

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 3344 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Organizational Water Footprint to Support Decision Making: a Case Study for a German Technological Solutions Provider for the Plumbing Industry

by Silvia Forin, Jutta Gossmann, Christoph Weis, Daniel Thylmann, Jonas Bunsen, Markus Berger and Matthias Finkbeiner

Water 2020, 12(3), 847; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12030847 - 17 Mar 2020

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4071

Abstract

With water scarcity representing an increasing threat to humans, the environment and the economy, companies are interested in exploring how their operations and supply chains affect water resources globally. To allow for systematically compiling the water footprint at the company level, the organizational water footprint method based on ISO 14046 and ISO/TS 14072 was developed. This paper presents the first complete organizational water scarcity footprint case study carried out for Neoperl GmbH, a German company that offers innovative solutions regarding drinking water for the plumbing industry. The cradle-to-gate assessment for one year includes, besides facility-based production activities, purchased materials, electricity and fuels, and supporting activities, such as company vehicles and infrastructure. Neoperl’s total freshwater consumption amounts to approximately 110,000 m³, 96% thereof being attributable to the supply chain, with freshwater consumption through purchased metals playing the predominant role. Metals (mainly stainless steel and brass) are major hotspots, also when considering the water scarcity-related local impacts resulting from freshwater consumption, which mainly affect China and Chile. These results can be used to improve the company’s supply chain water use in cooperation with internal and external stakeholders by means of, e.g., sustainable purchase strategies or eco-design options to substitute water intensive materials. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment: Methods and Tools for the Strategic Management of Water Related Impacts)

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16 pages, 1216 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Inter-Regional Agricultural Virtual Water Flow in China Based on Volumetric and Impact-Oriented Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) Approach

by Yingying Ren, Kai Huang, Yajuan Yu and Jingru Hu

Water 2020, 12(1), 251; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12010251 - 16 Jan 2020

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2825

Abstract

Virtual water trading is an effective strategy to alleviate water shortage. Several different methods have been developed to achieve quantitative description and evaluation of virtual water, which can be broadly divided into volumetric and impact-oriented water footprint approaches. The former focuses on the consumption of water resources, while the latter puts greater emphasis on assessing the water use impacts. Based on the volumetric and impact-oriented water footprint, this paper conducted a comprehensive study on the virtual water flow of agricultural products among regions in China. The results show that different water footprint evaluation methods have different tendencies in evaluating virtual water flow. Volumetric virtual water mainly flows from northwest and northeast China to north and east China, while impact-oriented virtual water mainly flows from northwest and central south China to east and north China. Northwest China is the largest net export region of agricultural virtual water, and it is dominated by direct water consumption. In addition, we compared the net export volume of virtual water and the water shortage situation among regions in China. North China, where the water shortage is very serious, mainly relies on external water sources, while northwest China, which also faces a water shortage problem, exports a large amount of virtual water to external sources. The findings of this study highlight the importance of taking full account of the response measures in both cases when formulating policies. In other words, the virtual water strategy should consider water quantity and water quality simultaneously. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment: Methods and Tools for the Strategic Management of Water Related Impacts)

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11 pages, 4232 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Bridging the Data Gap in the Water Scarcity Footprint by Using Crop-Specific AWARE Factors

by Anne-Marie Boulay, Léo Lenoir and Alessandro Manzardo

Water 2019, 11(12), 2634; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11122634 - 13 Dec 2019

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 4594

Abstract

The assessment of the water scarcity footprint of products emerged as an important step in supporting water management strategies. Among others, the AWARE methodology was published as a consensus-based indicator to perform such an assessment at a watershed level and monthly scale. The need to adopt such a detailed resolution, however, collides with the availability of data, so that general year and country-wide factors are commonly used. The objective of this study is to develop and verify the applicability of 26 crop-specific water scarcity characterization factors to help assess the water scarcity footprint when data and information availability is limited. To do so, a weighted average consumption approach was adopted, starting from local AWARE characterization factors and local crop-specific water consumption. The resulting factors, ranging from 0.19 m³/ton eq for “other perennial crop” in Brunei to 9997 m³/ton eq for “other annual crop” in Mauritania, illustrate the large variability of potential water scarcity impacts. Factors were applied to the water consumption of selected crops to assess their water scarcity footprint. The results of the study confirmed that the use of crop-specific factors is recommended as they are a better proxy of water scarcity in a region when compared to their national generic counterparts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment: Methods and Tools for the Strategic Management of Water Related Impacts)

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