Production weighted water use impact characterisation factors for the global mining industry

摘要: Abstract Methods for quantifying the impacts of water use within life cycle assessment have developed significantly over past decade. These methods account local differences in hydrology and contexts through regionally specific impact characterisation factors. However, few studies applied these to mining industry so there is limited understanding regarding how spatial boundaries may affect assessments industry's consumptive impacts. To address this, we production weighted factors 25 mineral metal commodities based upon distribution global mine across watersheds nations. Our results indicate that using national average ‘Water Stress Index’ (WSI) would overestimate 67% operations when compared watershed WSI values. Comparatively, ‘Available Water Remaining’ (AWaRe) 60% In absence scale inventory data, benefit from developing alternative reflecting commodity watersheds. The also provide an indication being mined highly stressed or scarce regions.