Print Email Facebook Twitter Considering the Fate of Evaporated Water across Basin Boundaries - Implications for Water Footprinting Title Considering the Fate of Evaporated Water across Basin Boundaries - Implications for Water Footprinting Author Link, Andreas (Technical University of Berlin) Berger, Markus (Technical University of Berlin) van der Ent, R.J. (TU Delft Water Resources; Universiteit Utrecht) Eisner, Stephanie (Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research) Finkbeiner, Matthias (Technical University of Berlin) Date 2021 Abstract Water consumption along value chains of goods and services has increased globally and led to increased attention on water footprinting. Most global water consumption is accounted for by evaporation (E), which is connected via bridges of atmospheric moisture transport to other regions on Earth. However, the resultant source-receptor relationships between different drainage basins have not yet been considered in water footprinting. Based on a previously developed data set on the fate of land evaporation, we aim to close this gap by using comprehensive information on evaporation recycling in water footprinting for the first time. By considering both basin internal evaporation recycling (BIER; >5% in 2% of the world's basins) and basin external evaporation recycling (BEER; >50% in 37% of the world's basins), we were able to use three types of water inventories (basin internal, basin external, and transboundary inventories), which imply different evaluation perspectives in water footprinting. Drawing on recently developed impact assessment methods, we produced characterization models for assessing the impacts of blue and green water evaporation on blue water availability for all evaluation perspectives. The results show that the negative effects of evaporation in the originating basins are counteracted (and partly overcompensated) by the positive effects of reprecipitation in receiving basins. By aggregating them, combined net impacts can be determined. While we argue that these offset results should not be used as a standalone evaluation, the water footprint community should consider atmospheric moisture recycling in future standards and guidelines. Subject atmospheric moistureevaporation recyclinglife cycle assessmentlife cycle impact assessmentwater consumptionwater footprintWAVE To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:c9f3639c-bc69-463d-9d28-27b2a38b4fa8 DOI https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.0c04526 Embargo date 2022-01-15 ISSN 0013-936X Source Environmental Science & Technology (Washington), 55 (15), 10231-10242 Bibliographical note Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public. Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2021 Andreas Link, Markus Berger, R.J. van der Ent, Stephanie Eisner, Matthias Finkbeiner Files PDF acs.est.0c04526.pdf 6.82 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:c9f3639c-bc69-463d-9d28-27b2a38b4fa8/datastream/OBJ/view