Page 266 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

252 R.K. Rosenbaum et al.

market or to the exacerbation of tensions between nations. The World Water
Council described the problem well by stating: “There is a water crisis today. But
the crisis is not about having too little water to satisfy our needs. It is a crisis of
managing water so badly that billions of people—and the environment—suffer
badly”. In addition to the current mismanagement of the water, which is strongly
linked to a competing demand for human uses and ecosystems for a limited
renewable resource, the human demand is only increasing, namely due to a growing
population and changing diets (with increasing meat consumption). Water avail-
ability is also changing due to climate change, aggravating droughts and flooding
and hence further increasing the gap between the demand and availability in many
highly populated regions around the world. Since the problems associated with
water are dependent on where and when water is available, as well as in which
quality, it is these aspects that also need to be considered when we assess potential
impacts of human freshwater use on the environment (including human health) in
LCA.

10.15.2 Environmental Mechanism

Before diving into the assessment of potential impacts associated with water, some
concepts are important to establish first.
• Types of water use: Water can be used in many different manners and the term
water use represents a generic term encompassing any type of use. Consumptive
and degradative use are the two main types of use and all other types of use
(borrowing, turbinated, cooling, etc.) can generally be defined by one or a
combination of the following three terms:
– Water withdrawal: “anthropogenic removal of water from any water body or
from any drainage basin either permanently or temporarily” (ISO 2014)
– Consumptive use/water consumption: water use where water is evaporated,
integrated in a product or released in a different location then the source
– Degradative use/water degradation: Water that is withdrawn and released in
the same location, but with a degraded quality. This includes all forms of
pollution: organic, inorganic, thermal, etc. (ISO 2014)
• Sources of water: Different sources of water should be distinguished as impacts
from using them will often differ. In general, the following main sources are
differentiated: surface water, groundwater, rainwater, wastewater and sea water.
Some more specific descriptions can include brackish water (saline water with
lower salinity than sea water, generally between 1000 and 10,000 mg/l) or fossil
water (non-renewable groundwater)
• Water availability: when used as an indicator, this describes the “extent to which
humans and ecosystems have sufficient water resources for their needs”, with a
note that “Water quality can also influence availability, e.g. if quality is not