Water supply and sustainability: life cycle assessment of water collection, treatment and distribution service

PURPOSE: The aim of the present paper is to describe the development of a life cycle assessment study of the service of potable water supply in Sicily, Italy. The analysis considers the stages of collection, treatment and distribution of potable water through the regional network, whilst the use stage of water is not included. METHODS: The selection of a methodological pattern coherently with the requirements of an environmental label, such as the EPDs, aims at allowing comparability among different studies. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The analysis shows the shares of impacts along the life cycle chain, i.e. outputs by well fields and spring groups, purification and desalination plants, water losses in the waterworks, electrical consumption of waterworks systems and impacts of network maintenance. With regard to global warming potential (GWP), the impact of purification plants represents a 6–7 % share of the total, whilst desalination is at 74 %. Water losses in the waterworks show an impact of 15–17 %; the contribution owing to electrical consumption of waterworks systems and network maintenance results to be 3 %. Desalination plants represent the major contribution to all impact categories considered. CONCLUSIONS: In respect to management issues, the most relevant impact categories resulted to be GWP, non-renewable energy resources and water consumption. Since the results for non-renewable energy resources are strictly connected to GWP emissions, carbon footprint and water footprint can be profitably used as single-issue indicators without the risk of burden shifting in studies aiming to evaluate the impact of potable water distribution.