Assessment method of environmental risks associated with hidden water resource flows in global supply chains

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15H05342
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Design and evaluation of sustainable and environmental conscious system
• Research Institution: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
• Principal Investigator: Motoshita Masaharu 国立研究開発法人産業技術総合研究所, エネルギー・環境領域, 研究グループ付 (50371084)
• Research Collaborator: NANSAI Keisuke ; ONO Yuya ; PFISTER Stephan ; BERGER Markus ; FINKBEINER Matthias ; BOULAY Anne-Marie
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: ウォーターフットプリント / 水資源 / サプライチェーン / ライフサイクルアセスメント / 国際産業連関分析

Outline of Final Research Achievements

According to prospect of water supply and balance, around 40% of world population will suffer from water deficit by 2050. To tackle this water crisis, we developed a method to account water volume and assess impacts on the environment along supply chain of products/services consumed in Japan (So called water footprinting). Water footprinting reveals that 60% of the total water consumption for production of products/services consumed in Japan occurs outside Japan. Besides, this high dependency results in about 50 times larger impact on the environment in other countries than those in Japan.

Free Research Field

環境工学、ライフサイクルアセスメント、ウォーターフットプリント、環境影響評価、持続可能性評価