Environmental and social life cycle assessment of urban water systems: The case of Mexico City

The Science of the Total Environment
Maribel García-Sánchez, Leonor Patricia Güereca

Abstract

Mexico City and its metropolitan area have suffered problems of sustainability in the water system. The main goals of this study were to assess the environmental and social impacts of the water system in Mexico City using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), identify the significant impacts and their sources, and provide a new perspective for a sustainable water system in the city. The entire water system was considered, including the following stages: water abstraction and treatment, transport, distribution, use, sewage collection and wastewater treatment. Social Life Cycle Assessment was performed considering the UNEP/SETAC Guidelines for the Social-LCA of products and the water system workers. We used five subcategories (working hours, fair wage, health and safety conditions, social security and professional development) and 30 indicators of labor conditions. The results of LCA show that the processes of abstraction, water treatment, transport and distribution combined to produce between 83.9 and 89.6% of the impacts in four of six categories. However, the transportation stage generates the highest environmental impacts due to energy consumption. The wastewater treatment stage avoids environmental impacts in freshwater eutrophicatio...Continue Reading

Citations

Mar 7, 2021·The Science of the Total Environment·Mohammad El WaliAndrzej Kraslawski
Mar 23, 2021·The Science of the Total Environment·Yang ZhangHuaicheng Guo
Apr 17, 2021·Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management·Sedat GulcimenNigmet Uzal
Nov 12, 2021·Environmental Science and Pollution Research International·Caroline VisentinAntônio Thomé

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