Abstract
Water supplies around the globe are growing complex and include more intense treatment methods than just decades ago. Now, desalination
of seawater and wastewater reuse
for both non-potable and potable water
supply have become common practice in many places. LCA has been used to assess the potentials and reveal hotspots among the possible technologies and scenarios
for water supplies of the future. LCA studies have been used to support decisions in the planning
of urban water systems
and some important findings include documentation of reduced environmental impact from desalination of brackish water over sea water, the significant impacts from changed drinking water
quality and reduced environmental burden from wastewater reuse instead of desalination. Some of the main challenges in conducting LCAs of water supply systems
are their complexity and diversity, requiring very large data collection
efforts, with multiple sources of information, many of them not public and requiring cooperation. Important for product and system LCAs
with substantial water use, it is emphasized that standard life cycle inventory databases do not reflect the significant variance in environmental impacts of water supply across locations and technologies.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Life Cycle Assessment: Theory and Practice |
Publisher | Springer |
Publication date | 2018 |
Pages | 835-860 |
Chapter | 33 |
ISBN (Print) | 9783319564746 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2018 |