Water Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment as approaches to assess potential impacts of products on water consumption. Key learning points from pilot studies on tea and margarine

Jefferies, Donna; Muñoz, Iván; Hodges, Juliet E.N.; King, Vanessa; Martinez-Aldaya, Maite; Ercin, Ertug; Canals, Llorenç Milà i; Hoekstra, Arjen Ysbert

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.04.015

Cited by 182 publications

(105 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Water scarcity is one important environmental challenge the agriculture sector is facing due to the high direct bearing on cropping activities [4][5][6][7][8]. This challenge is all the greater because the problems associated with water availability may appear sooner than expected, particularly in food and environmental issues, such as climate change [9][10][11][12][13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Green and Blue Water Footprints in the Supply Chain of Cocoa Production: A Case Study in the Northeast of Colombia

Naranjo-Merino¹,

Ortíz-Rodriguez

Villamizar-G

2017

Sustainability

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Abstract:Cocoa is an important commercial crop in the tropics, and estimating the water footprint to target areas of improvement is a worthwhile effort. The main goal of this paper was to assess the regional green and blue water footprints (WF) of cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) production in the department of Norte de Santander, Colombia. Water footprint assessment was based on the Water Footprint Assessment Manual. The results show that the green water footprint was about 13,189 m 3 /ton, and the blue water footprint was 5687 m 3 /ton. The WF proposed method can be a good approximation for the uses of water for different crops, but weather conditions and hydrological modeling must be considered in extreme conditions, which would permit a much more detailed analysis for a region. This study allowed us to provide data on the cocoa water footprint, principally concentrating on elevated grain production in the department of Norte de Santander, Colombia. In addition, some of these results may positively contribute to water resource management improvement, especially regarding food security and water scarcity, both at the local and national levels. Therefore, the cocoa production process was analyzed from agronomic practices in settled crops, through the primary processing of the grain, to the procedures of grain selection and packaging. Thus, taking into consideration that most cocoa crops produced in Colombia are not irrigated, it is possible to implement productivity enhancement programs.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Green and Blue Water Footprints in the Supply Chain of Cocoa Production: A Case Study in the Northeast of Colombia

Naranjo-Merino¹,

Ortíz-Rodriguez

Villamizar-G

2017

Sustainability

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“…Based on the average number of processing issued Naibaho (1996: 154) and H-Kittikun et al (2000: 7), the national standard of water use in the PKS unit is equal to 1.1 to 1.2 m 3 / ton of FFB. In addition, the amount of blue water in the extraction of CPO is larger than the value blue water that has been analyzed by Jefferies, et al (2012), i.e. 2.9 m 3 / ton of production.…”

Section: Blue Water Footprint Of Cpo and Kernelmentioning

confidence: 82%

Strategies to Reduce Water Footprint in Palm Oil Production: A Case of PTP Mitra Ogan, Baturaja, South Sumatra

Kospa

Lulofs²,

Asdak

et al. 2017

MATEC Web Conf.

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Abstract. The massive expansion of palm oil industry in Indonesia has triggered environmental issues including water-related problems which have become an important concern. Regarding the issues, sustainable practice standard has been set up as a requirement for palm oil to enter global market. Inevitably, water consumption in this sector is very crucial to be analyzed. One of the methods that can be used as a tool for sustainable appropriation of fresh water resources is water footprint analysis. The primary aim of this study was to formulate the strategies to reduce the water footprint in the palm oil production based on the best practice criteria. Both quantitative and qualitative research was conducted to get the value blue water (volume of surface or groundwater evaporated) and grey water (dilution volume to dilute pollutants according to agreed water quality standards). The values of water footprint in palm oil production obtained were used to represent the existing water use and were utilized as the basis for formulating strategies in reducing water use in the palm oil milling processes which was compared with the best practice criteria. The result showed that the blue water of CPO was 109.6 m 3 /ton and the grey water was 537.7 m 3 /ton, while the blue water of palm kernel was 62,4 m 3 /ton and grey water was 306,2 m 3 /ton. The value indicated that there was an inefficient use of water in the production of palm oil. The use of steam accumulator has been proposed to reduce the use of blue water by optimizing the steam supply. Besides, the reuse of water from fat-pit pond for pressing purposes, or recovery of condensate water as dilution water in the press unit which will affect the amount of wastewater discharged can be done as the strategies in reducing both blue and grey water, as well as reuse of cooling water turbines.

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“…The component of water scarcity is central to this method and as such, green water which is considered negligible contributor is left out in the computation of this WF. Interestingly, a water stress characterisation factor is incorporated in this method (Ridoutt andPfister, 2010 andJefferies et al, 2012). Water scarcity is of importance especially to dry regions of the world and as droughts are becoming frequent and persistent possibly due to climate change, water footprint focusing on scarcity will become even more important as we go forward into the future.…”

Section: Stress-weighted Wf:-mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The life cycle assessment water footprint measurement was done by Jefferies, et al (2012) who was concerned with the impact of water use throughout the life cycle of a product. At impact level assessment, the LCA and WF address the same issue hence the combining of the methodologies.…”

Section: Life Cycle Assessment Wf:-mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At impact level assessment, the LCA and WF address the same issue hence the combining of the methodologies. Impact on water resources across the life cycle of tea and margarine was assessed by adding the production WF and consumption which is basically the WF as described by Hoekstra et al (2011), Supply chain WF which is amount of water at a specific business unit to prepare commodity for marketing, Operational WF which comprises freshwater needed to produce a commodity at a specific business unit and the Consumer WF which is the direct and indirect water needed to use the commodity (Jefferies et al, 2012). It can be noticed that though the method tries to trace the impact of a commodity from production to final consumption, the leaving out of grey water in calculating the WF is the weakest link of an otherwise comprehensive assessment.…”

Section: Life Cycle Assessment Wf:-mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Review of Methodologies of Water Footprint.

Takawira.¹

2017

IJAR

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Water Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment as approaches to assess potential impacts of products on water consumption. Key learning points from pilot studies on tea and margarine

Cited by 182 publications

References 19 publications

Assessing Green and Blue Water Footprints in the Supply Chain of Cocoa Production: A Case Study in the Northeast of Colombia

Assessing Green and Blue Water Footprints in the Supply Chain of Cocoa Production: A Case Study in the Northeast of Colombia

Strategies to Reduce Water Footprint in Palm Oil Production: A Case of PTP Mitra Ogan, Baturaja, South Sumatra

Review of Methodologies of Water Footprint.

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