W10 AM Life Cycle Approaches to Water Resources
Wednesday, 16 November 2005: 8:00 AM - 11:40 AM in 341-342

(FLI-1118-775793) Improving Our Ability to Assess the Sustainability of Freshwater Resources Through The Use Of Life Cycle Analysis.

Flint, R.W.¹, ¹ Five E's Unlimited, Washington, DC, USA

ABSTRACT- Water resources management is one of the most important challenges the U.S. faces. While experts discuss links between water shortages, erratic weather conditions, and population growth, there is mounting evidence that land development patterns can exacerbate problems with water quality and quantity. Water supply is no longer just a U.S. western issue. We are drinking, irrigating, and using water faster than precipitation can replenish groundwater from the Great Plains to Chicago to the Florida Everglades. The demand for good water resources is continuing to increase, with shortfalls potentially leading to social injustices, civil unrest, and human conflict. Sustainable development is the key to water resource quantity and quality, as well as national security, economic health, and societal well-being. Carrying out development activities that are sustainable requires simultaneous, multi-dimensional thinking about the consequences of present actions on future public and environmental health through examination of the connections among environmental, economic, and social concerns when we make choices for action. Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is an investigation which aims to quantify the level of resource used, as well as the wastes produced at every stage of a product's life or process, identifying both direct and indirect environmental impact potentials. Currently, impacts to water resources are generically indicated by quantity of water used without regard to the distinction of use versus consumption, quality of water, location, and nature of the source, etc. To understand how to improve this important impact category it is vital to understand the balance between the indicators which most accurately describe sustainability of water resources and the availability of data for those indicators across our vast economic supply chain. The development of indicators in the context of LCA applying tools like lean-thinking, eco-effectiveness, factor 4/10, industrial ecology, and the environmentally sustainable management systems approach for assessing the sustainability of water resources will be discussed in this presentation. Results of a 2-year initiative that has been targeting the development of sustainable water resource indicators will also be described.

Key words: water resource sustainability, life cycle analysis, sustainability indicators, water impacts