ABOUT

The depletion of water resources and decline in water quality is one of the greatest challenges to meet sustainable development. The quantification of water use is crucial for identifying potential opportunities to reduce water consumption and pollution.


In this context, the water footprint (WF) has been proposed recently as a tool based on life cycle assessment (LCA) for quantifying the potential environmental impacts related to water use. The WF profile is a compilation of impact category indicator results addressing potential environmental impacts related to water consumption and quality degradation.


Although significant methodological advances have been achieved in the last few years to assess the WF profile, existing methods still need improvements, which are even more challenging for forest ecosystems. The case study of eucalypt forest in Central Portugal was selected for validating the methods developed and calculating the WF profile.

GOALS

The WAFLE project aims at improving the WF calculation methods when applied to forests in order to make this tool more robust for supporting decision-making.
The main topics for improvement are:

  • The assessment of the impacts with spatial and temporal differentiation.
  • The assessment of the impacts from green and blue water use, using site-specific emission factors of pollutants.
  • The case study of eucalypt forest in Central Portugal was selected for validating the methods developed and calculating the WF profile.

TEAM

WAFLE team is composed by researchers from CESAM/DAO from the University of Aveiro. Our members are part of LiSAT and the ESP Team.

Ana Cláudia Dias

Coordinator

Luis Arroja

Researcher

Jan Keizer

Researcher

Dalila Serpa

Researcher

Martinho Martins

Researcher

Daniele Costa

Researcher

Paula Quinteiro

Researcher

Diana Vieira

Researcher

Tamíris Costa

Researcher

NEWS

Communications in international meetings

Communications in national meetings

LINKS

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