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Water Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment: Complementary Strengths in Analyzing Water Use along Supply Chains

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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 December 2022) | Viewed by 29114

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Markus Berger

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Guest Editor

Institute of Environmental Technology, Technische Universität Berlin, 10623 Berlin, Germany
Interests: life cycle assessment; water footprint
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Winnie Gerbens-Leenes

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Guest Editor

Integrated Research on Energy, Environment and Society (IREES, Groningen, The Netherlands), University of Groningen, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands
Interests: water footprint; energy; sustainability
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Considering that 4 billion people are living in water-stressed regions and that global water use is predicted to increase continuously, the analysis of water consumption and pollution along supply chains is of great relevance. Since 2002, researchers from the water footprint (WF) community have been analyzing the global freshwater appropriation of products while companies and nations are differentiating between the consumption of green water (precipitation), blue water (ground and surface water), and gray water (theoretical amount of freshwater needed to dilute polluted water to meet accepted water quality standards). In parallel, water is an emerging field of research in life cycle assessment (LCA), which aims at assessing the local impacts of water consumption and pollution in combination with those of greenhouse gas emissions, land use changes, etc. Since the beginning of these research efforts, there has been a persistent debate regarding the orientation of the water footprint.

WF scientists have put the focus on the volumetric analysis of water consumption and pollution, arguing that water is a global resource which is virtually traded worldwide via goods and products. Subsequently, the sustainability of water consumption can be assessed comparing consumption with water availability in a specific basin taking environmental flow requirements into account. Efforts from the LCA community to go beyond volumetric analysis and to assess the resulting local impacts of water consumption and pollution on human health or biodiversity have partly been considered as “meaningless” or even “complete madness”. Vice versa, the LCA community argued that volumetric footprints can be “irrelevant” or even “misleading” as consequences of water consumption strongly depend on local scarcity and other parameters. Even though scientific disputes can be fruitful, this disagreement has led to a separation of the two research communities in the past 10 years.

In this Special Issue, we invite researchers and stakeholders representing the WF and LCA communities to submit methodological work, reviews, as well as case studies to illustrate the complementary strengths of both approaches. We especially encourage researchers from both communities to cooperate and submit common papers in order to tackle the increasing global water challenge together.

Dr. Markus Berger
Dr. Winnie Gerbens-Leenes
Guest Editors

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.

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Keywords

water footprint
life cycle assessment
water use
water consumption
water pollution
supply chain

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Editorial

Jump to: Research, Other

6 pages, 219 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperEditorial

Water Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment: The Complementary Strengths of Analyzing Global Freshwater Appropriation and Resulting Local Impacts

by Winnie Gerbens-Leenes, Markus Berger and John Anthony Allan

Water 2021, 13(6), 803; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13060803 - 15 Mar 2021

Cited by 30 | Viewed by 8743

Abstract

Considering that 4 billion people are living in water-stressed regions and that global water consumption is predicted to increase continuously [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment: Complementary Strengths in Analyzing Water Use along Supply Chains)

Research

Jump to: Editorial, Other

32 pages, 6724 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Water Footprint Calculation, Effluent Characteristics and Pollution Impact Assessment of Leather Industry in Bangladesh

by Sumaya Humayra, Laila Hossain, Selim Reza Hasan and Mohidus Samad Khan

Water 2023, 15(3), 378; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15030378 - 17 Jan 2023

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 8293

Abstract

Leather processing industries consume high volumes of water and chemicals and release effluents into the environment that pollute the surface water and may cause harm to human health. Leather processing involves different wet processing stages such as soaking, liming, chrome tanning, rechroming, neutralization, fatliqouring and dyeing. The pollution generated from the leather processing stages varies in volume, nature and concentrations. Qualitative and quantitative assessments of effluents generated from different stages of leather processing can be useful to understand the stagewise and overall water pollution of leather wet processing and to design and plan pollution abatement initiatives. Water footprints (WF) can help in understanding the total water consumption and water pollution caused by the leather sector. The objectives of this research are to assess the characteristics of effluents generated from different stages of leather processing, calculate the water footprint (WF) and analyze the pollution load of the Bangladesh leather sector. To perform experimental analyses, effluent samples were collected from the following leather processing stages: soaking, liming, deliming and bating, pickling and tanning, wet back, rechroming, neutralization, retanning, dyeing and fatliqouring from four leather processing factories. The key pollution indicating parameters, such as pH, chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD), total dissolved solid (TDS) and total suspended solid (TSS) of the effluent samples were analyzed. The experimental study showed that almost 52% effluents generate from beam house and tan yard operations, and about 48% effluents generate from post tanning operations. Due to the presence of high amounts of salt, insecticides and bactericides, the effluent generated from the soaking stage contains high BOD and TDS. On the other hand, effluent generated from liming contains the highest amounts of BOD, COD, TDS, and TSS. The reduction or segregation of soaking and liming effluents will be effective in improving the environmental performance of the wet processing of leather. To assess the total water footprint of the leather sector, the water footprint of feed crops and raw hides were calculated, along with the water footprint of the leather processing stages. The water footprints of bovine and ovine crust leather were found to be 34,000 m³/ton and 17,300 m³/ton, respectively. The blue water footprint is higher in soaking, liming and finishing. The green water footprint of leather is mainly contributed by feed crops of farming animals. The grey water footprint was found higher in the soaking, liming, fatliqouring and dyeing stages. About 97% of the water footprints of tanneries are contributed by the wet processing stages. The grey water footprint is the most significant part of the total water footprint of the leather sector, which indicates the impact of high water pollution by the leather processing stages. This study can help to understand the overall scenario of water consumption and water pollution caused by the leather sector in Bangladesh. This study can also be useful in designing sustainable leather products by reducing the total water footprint per unit of leather goods. The systematic approach of this study could be useful for other countries in leather processing. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment: Complementary Strengths in Analyzing Water Use along Supply Chains)

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23 pages, 5005 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Fresh Water Use in Florida: Trends and Drivers

by Almando Morain and Aavudai Anandhi

Water 2022, 14(22), 3726; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14223726 - 17 Nov 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4032

Abstract

Water quality and quantity are critical issues as the Florida’s population grows. This paper analyzed water use regionally (central, north, and south Florida) as well as in rural and urban areas in Florida from 2005 to 2015 using three indicators (total water use, agriculture water use, and per capita water use). Eight (8) water-consuming categories, such as aquaculture, livestock, irrigation, public supply, thermoelectric power, mining, industrial self-supply, and domestic self-supply, were considered for total water use. Per capita water use used public supply category and agricultural water use used aquaculture, livestock, and irrigation categories. Linear regression analysis was used to observe the relationship between population and water use. The highest water use was recorded in south Florida, while the lowest was in north Florida. Water use per capita was higher in urban areas. Irrigation water use was higher among the eight water use categories. Many drivers influencing Florida water use were identified through literature review and causal loop diagram was developed. Some (e.g., household size, land use/land cover change, urbanization, agriculture, population, income, climate change, tourism, and industry) may cause an increase in water use, while others (e.g., pricing systems, conservation methods, education, and technology) may cause a decrease in water use. Overall, this research addresses the need of understanding water use trends and the drivers affecting those trends, which are important to determine whether a water conservation plan is needed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment: Complementary Strengths in Analyzing Water Use along Supply Chains)

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21 pages, 5513 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Study on Water and Salt Transport, and Balance Analysis in Sand Dune–Wasteland–Lake Systems of Hetao Oases, Upper Reaches of the Yellow River Basin

by Guoshuai Wang, Haibin Shi, Xianyue Li, Jianwen Yan, Qingfeng Miao, Zhen Li and Takeo Akae

Water 2020, 12(12), 3454; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12123454 - 9 Dec 2020

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2463

Abstract

Desert oases are important parts of maintaining ecohydrology. However, irrigation water diverted from the Yellow River carries a large amount of salt into the desert oases in the Hetao plain. It is of the utmost importance to determine the characteristics of water and salt transport. Research was carried out in the Hetao plain of Inner Mongolia. Three methods, i.e., water-table fluctuation (WTF), soil hydrodynamics, and solute dynamics, were combined to build a water and salt balance model to reveal the relationship of water and salt transport in sand dune–wasteland–lake systems. Results showed that groundwater level had a typical seasonal-fluctuation pattern, and the groundwater transport direction in the sand dune–wasteland–lake system changed during different periods. During the crop-growth period (5 May–27 October), the average evapotranspiration values of the sand dune, wasteland–sand dune junction, and wasteland were 31–42% of the reference evapotranspiration. The water consumption of sand dune was 1.95 times that of the wasteland–sand dune junction, and 1.88 times that of wasteland. Water loss of the lake was 761.25–869.05 mm (5 May–27 October). The lake is facing the risk of drying up. The vertical salt transport of groundwater at the sand-dune site was 1.13 times that at the wasteland–sand dune junction site, and 1.82 times that at the wasteland site. Of the groundwater salt of the sand dune, 54% was accumulated in the groundwater of the wasteland–sand dune junction. Of the groundwater salt of the wasteland–sand dune junction, 53% was accumulated in wasteland groundwater, and the remaining 47% was accumulated in the lake. Salt storage of the 1 m soil layer of the sand dune was 85% that of the wasteland–sand dune junction, and 82% that of the wasteland. Research results provide a theoretical basis for the ecohydrology of the Hetao plain. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment: Complementary Strengths in Analyzing Water Use along Supply Chains)

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