Monthly water stress: The relevance of temporally

explicit water impact assessment in global crop

production

Stephan Pfister and Peter Bayer

ETH Zurich, Institute for Environmental Engineering,
Ecological Systems Design Group
Email contact: pfister@ifu.baug.ethz.ch

LCA XIII, 1Orlando,

October 1, 2013

Overview water stress assessment

(characterization factors)
So far annual water stress factors with global coverage
available
Monthly water scarcity factor from WFN (Mekonnen et al. PLOS 2011) has
factors for 405 major watersheds
No data for Italy and many other arid areas
Linear relation with consumption-to-availability

This work is based on annual water stress index (WSI)

(Pfister et al. ES&T 2009)
Scaling from 0.01 to 1
(water deprivation factor)
Applied in several LCA studies
-> experience of application

Overview water stress assessment

(characterization factors)
So far only annual water stress factors with global coverage
available (based on water use to availablility)
Monthly water scarcity factor from WFN (Mekonnen et al. PLOS 2011) has
factors for 405 major watersheds
No data for Italy and many other arid areas
Linear relation

This work is based on annual water stress index (WSI)

(Pfister et al. ES&T 2009)
Scaling function (0.01 to 1)
(water deprivation factor)
Applied in several LCA studies
-> experience of application

Deriving monthly WSI

Withdrawal-to-availability (WTA) based
Annual Watergap 2 (Alcamo et al. 2003)
Monthly adjustments based on Vorosmarty et al. (2000)

Include inter-annual precipitation variability:

geometric standard deviation (GSDyear) for 30 years
WTA* monthly WTAmonthly GSDyear

Adjust annual WSI function

(exclude factor for monthly precipitation variability)

WSImonthly

1
1 e

9.8 WTA* monthly

1
1
0.01

was -6.4
4

Annual WSI

WSI January

WSI February

WSI March

WSI April

WSI May

10

WSI June

11

WSI July

12

WSI August

13

WSI September

14

WSI October

15

WSI November

16

WSI December

17

Monthly WSI of selected rivers

WSI

Nile

18

Average monthly vs. annual WSI

Original WSI

Average monthly WSI

19

Use weighted monthly vs. annual WSI

Original WSI

Weighted monthly WSI

20

Ratio weighted monthly vs. annual WSI

Monthly resolution reveals higher stress in many watersheds

< 0.5

0.5-1
1-2
>2.0

Weighted monthly WSI

Weighted monthly
/ annual WSI

21

Original WSI

Crop water footprint

Water consumption (WC):
160 crops on monthly and 5 arc
minutes spatial resolution
(Pfister et al. ES&T 2011)

Water footprint (WFP):

WFPmon WCi WSIi
i

WFPyear (WCi ) WSIannual

i

22

Water footprint of a region

Marginal vs. average impact

23

Water footprint of a region (all crops)

Monthly

Annual

24

Conclusions
Temporal resolution is relevant
Mainly for foreground process (global picture does merely change)

Crop choice / plantation dates

Annual use-weighte average maps (sector-specific)

For background processes (incl. uncertainty)

Storage effects /residence time

Dams
Groundwater stocks
Water source (ground surface water) -> different impacts!

Include spatial & temporal resolution induced uncertainty

(variability induced)
25

THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION!

stephan.pfister@ifu.baug.ethz.ch

Paper submitted to J Clean Prod

Characterization maps are published on:
http://www.ifu.ethz.ch/ESD/downloads/

26

www.ifu.ethz.ch/ESD

BACKUP
SLIDES
27, Saint-Malo,
LCA Food 2012
October 2, 2012

Europe
January

February

March

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

28

April

Rhone

Averageww (WSImon)

Rhine
Po

Rhone
Rhine
Po

WSIyear

Nile

Murray

Missouri

Nile
Murray
Missouri

29

UNCERTAINTY WSI (PFISTER & HELLWEG 2011)

30

Pfister et al 2009: Water Stress Index (WSI)

Includes:
Withdrawal-to-availability (WTA)
Variability in precipitation (VF)
= geometric standard deviation (GSD)

Flow regulation (highly regulated = SRF)

VF WTA for SRF
WTA*
VF WTA for non - SRF

Index following logistic function:

WSI

1
1 e

6.4 WTA*

1
1
0.01
31

31