Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM), Department of Environment and Planning, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.
Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM), Department of Environment and Planning, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal; Department of Chemical Engineering, Institute of Technology, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain.
Sci Total Environ. 2018 Jun 1;626:1210-1218. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.01.201. Epub 2018 Feb 19.
The development of methods to assess the potential environmental impact of green water consumption in life cycle assessment has lagged behind those for blue water use, which are now routinely applied in industrial and policy-related studies. This represents a critical gap in the assessment of land-based production systems and the ability to inform policy related to the bio-economy. Combining satellite remote sensing and meteorological data sets, this study develops two new sets of spatially-differentiated and globally applicable characterisation factors (CFs) to assess the environmental impact of green water flows in LCA. One set of CFs addresses the impact of shifts in water vapour flow by evapotranspiration on blue water availability (CFWS) and the other set of CFs addresses moisture recycling within a basin (CFWA). Furthermore, as an additional and optional step, these two indicators are combined into an aggregated green water scarcity indicator, representing the global variability of green water scarcity. The values obtained for CFWA show that there are significant changes in green water flows that were returned to the atmosphere in Alaska (covered by open shrublands) and in some central regions of China (covered by grasslands and barren or sparsely vegetated land), where precipitation levels are lower than 10 mm/yr. The results obtained for CFWS indicate that severe perturbations in surface blue water production occur, particularly in central regions of China (covered by grasslands), the southeast of Australia (covered by evergreen broadleaf forest) and in some central regions of the USA (covered by grassland and evergreen needleleaf forest). The application of the green water scarcity CFs enables the evaluation of the potential environmental impact due to green water consumption by agricultural and forestry products, informing both technical and non-technical audiences and decision-makers for the purpose of strategic planning of land use and to identify green water protection measures.
绿色水资源消耗的潜在环境影响评估方法的发展滞后于蓝水使用方法，后者现在已广泛应用于工业和政策相关研究中。这代表了对基于陆地的生产系统的评估以及为生物经济提供政策建议的能力方面的一个关键差距。本研究结合卫星遥感和气象数据集，开发了两套新的、具有空间差异和全球适用性的特征化因子（CF），以评估生命周期评估中绿色水流的环境影响。一套 CF 用于评估因蒸散导致的水汽流转移对蓝水供应的影响（CFWS），另一套 CF 用于评估流域内的水分再循环（CFWA）。此外，作为一个额外的可选步骤，这两个指标可以组合成一个综合的绿色水资源稀缺性指标，代表绿色水资源稀缺性的全球变化。CFWA 的值表明，在阿拉斯加（被开阔灌丛覆盖）和中国中部地区（被草原和荒漠或稀疏植被覆盖），绿色水资源返回大气的流量发生了显著变化，这些地区的降水量低于 10 毫米/年。CFWS 的结果表明，地表蓝水资源生产出现严重干扰，特别是在中国中部地区（被草原覆盖）、澳大利亚东南部（被常绿阔叶林覆盖）和美国中部一些地区（被草原和常绿针叶林覆盖）。绿色水资源稀缺性 CF 的应用使我们能够评估农业和林业产品因绿色水资源消耗而带来的潜在环境影响，为技术和非技术受众以及决策者提供信息，以便为土地利用的战略规划提供参考，并确定绿色水资源保护措施。
