Application of Life Cycle Assessment on Water and Environment

Abstract

One of the goals of life cycle assessment is environmental decision-making regarding cleanup of contaminated sites, contaminated water, and water restoration with different methods. Water shortage problems are becoming more serious due to the decrease in rainfall, increase in population, the reduction of water resources and lack of legal framework for water management. Therefore, a proper analysis of the effects and results of the methods used for water purification, groundwater polluting factors, and various water supply processes is necessary, and one of the tools that can perform such an analysis is life cycle assessment. (LCA) is based on a complete understanding of the system from real data. In this research, the analysis of life cycle assessment of wastewater treatment processes, desalination, water footprint has been done considering different water sources. The results of this analysis showed that the most studied topic in the evaluation of the life cycle of wastewater treatment and the most studied type of wastewater was urban wastewater. The least studied subject was river engineering. Among different countries, Iran's share of life cycle assessment studies on water management is the lowest, and due to the importance of life cycle assessment and the environmental impact of various methods and processes on the supply of water needed in the agricultural, drinking and industrial sectors, attention is paid and it requires more studies in this field.

Keywords

• sustainable development
• modeling
• water footprint
• wastewater treatment