LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

GROUP 2, SESSION A: CARBON OR WATER FOOTPRINTS, SOIL, BIODIVERSITY 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
67. Food production in Brazil: challenges for water footprint
accounting
Leda Coltro
Institute of Food Technology – ITAL/CETEA, Brazil, E-mail: ledacolt@ital.sp.gov.br
Due to the increasing pollution of the rivers as a consequence of industrial and agricultural activities, the
importance of evaluating water use throughout the production chains in order to identify hot spots and then
to implement improvements for water use reduction has gained more and more attention. That is why in the
last decade water use methodologies have being developed by several researchers (Chapagain, Hoekstra,
2007; Milá i Canals.et al. 2009; Ridout, Pfister, 2010). So, nowadays there are more than 30 methodologies
to account water use in the life cycle of products or processes.
In 2009, International Organization for Standardization – ISO launched the discussion on a new standard -
ISO 14046 on the subject “Water footprint – Requirements and guidelines”. This standard has the aim of
harmonising the water footprint criteria adopted to account the use of this resource, as well as the consistency
with carbon footprint and other LCA approaches among others (ISO, 2012). By June 2012 the standard
was submitted as a vote for CD (committee draft) by SC5 members and it is planned to be published in 2013-
2014. According to ISO 14046, the water footprint can be represented by one or more parameters which
quantify the environmental impacts of a process, a product or an organisation related to water as follow: 1)
the water footprint indicator result (single impact category); 2) the water footprint profile (several indicator
results) and 3) the water footprint parameter (weighted result).
ISO 14046 will establish what must be done, but not how to do it. So, the several methodologies for water
footprint should follow the requirements of this standard. Despite many questions must be solved until the
publication of this standard, one requirement already established by ISO 14046 is that even the single indicator
category should consider both the quantity and quality of water resources.
Brazil has 12% of freshwater available in the world. However, approx. 74% of this water is in the Amazon
hydrographical region, while the main food producing regions are located at Paraná, São Francisco, Atlântico
Leste, Atlântico Sul and Atlântico Sudeste hydrological regions that have only 12.9% of the freshwater
available in Brazil.
The Brazilian System for Controlling the Water Resources – SINGREH has an information system on water
quantity well established, being the Brazilian Water Agency – ANA responsible for approx. 30% of the controlling
points (ANA, 2007). Nevertheless, the water quality control is made only by approx. 12% of this
amount of control points (Table 1).
Concerning water quality, only four basic quality parameters are controlled by ANA which are not proper to
evaluate the water quality. However, the state and municipal environmental agencies from Minas Gerais,
Paraná, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul and São Paulo control a higher number of quality
parameters for some of their main rivers (Table 1) (IBGE, 2010).
It is possible to conclude that the main challenges to account the water footprint of Brazilian food products
are: 1) lack of quality data for many Brazilian rivers, and 2) many of quality water data are kept by the state
and municipal environmental agencies as private data. So, much work should be done in order to get reliable
water footprint of Brazilian products.
References
Agência Nacional de Águas – ANA, 2007. Evolução da rede hidrometereológica nacional. v. 1, n.1, 15p.
Chapagain, A.K., Hoekstra, A.Y., 2007. The water footprint of coffee and tea consumption in the Netherlands.
Ecological Economics 64, 109 – 118.
ISO - International Organization for Standardization. ISO/CD 14046: Water footprint – Requirements and
guidelines, 2012. (Working Draft 2)
Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística – IBGE. Indicadores de desenvolvimento sustentável Brasil
2010. Rio de Janeiro. 442p.
Milá i Canals, L., Chenoweth, J., Chapagain, A., Orr, S., Antón, A., Cliff, R., 2009. Assessing freshwater use
impacts in LCA. Part I – inventory modeling and characterization factors for the main impact pathways.
Int. J. LCA, 14, 28-42.
Ridoutt, B.G., Pfister, S., 2010. A revised approach to water footprinting to make transparent the consumption
and production on global freshwater scarcity. Global Environ. Change, 20, 113-120.
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