Progresses for Assessing the Impact of Freshwater Consumption in LCA

Abstract

Synopsis: Increasing demand on freshwater due to population and economic growth in the world may cause severe effects on human and ecosystem. Particularly, available amount of freshwater resource is very limited but essential for living things. In this context, freshwater consumption related to products and systems has attracted considerable attention in LCA. The same amount of freshwater consumption will lead to different results in every area due to the abundance of water resource and socio/economic conditions. Therefore, methodologies for assessing the effects of freshwater consumption are necessary in LCA. State of the art methodologies for midpoint and endpoint assessment of freshwater consumption are introduced in this article. More progresses （like consideration of temporal factor and consumption rate, expansion of target endpoints） are expected for further improvement of reliability and preciseness of assessment results, but developed methodologies are applicable to specific assessment of products as feasibility studies. Feedbacks through feasibility studies will be useful to sophisticate methodologies and essential to fill the gaps between available and necessary information for inventory analysis and impact assessment.