Complementarities of Water-Focused Life Cycle Assessment and Water Footprint Assessment
Published on by Markus Pahlow, University of Canterbury - Senior Lecturer
Recently published: a comparison between water-focused LCA and Water Footprint Assessment (WFA). The authors hope that this takes away some of the confusion. Their main conclusion is that LCA and WFA are two different tools, with different purposes. They are basically complementary tools.
The paper says: "Probably the most important difference between both methods is the product-focus of a water-focussed LCA and the water management-focus of WFA. The LCA methodology focuses on the sustainability of products, with a comprehensive approach, whereby water is just one area of attention among others (e.g., carbon footprint, land use). WFA focuses on analyzing the sustainable, efficient and equitable allocation and use of freshwater in both local and global context with either a product, consumption pattern or geographic focus."
Link to the article:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es403928f#!
Complementarities of Water-Focused Life Cycle Assessment and Water Footprint Assessment
Anne-Marie Boulay, Arjen Y. Hoekstra, and Samuel Vionnet
Environmental Science & Technology
DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1021/es403928f