Water Footprint Sustainability Analysis: A Case of the Chlor-alkali/Polyvinyl Chloride Sector in China

Abstract

Water resource conservation and management have been major concerns for industrial sectors. It has been recognized that water availability may be a limiting constraint to the development of water intensive industries, e.g. chlor-alkali sector. The water footprint is a measure of freshwater appropriation underlying a certain production pattern. Three components are the blue, green, and grey water footprint. They have all been applied specifically to trace direct and indirect water use and pollution over production chains as well. Water footprint benchmarks for water-intensive commodities reflect local water scarcity, and some agreement about equitable sharing of the limited available global water resources among different communities and nations. This work will interlink the water footprint of the product and the corresponding production process with water scarcity at the regional level. A framework for water footprint sustainability analysis is proposed. It assesses the sustainability of industrial products by combining with water scarcity index and water footprint at the regional level.