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Understanding potential health risks associated with biofuel production is critical to sustainably combating energy insecurity and climate change. However, the specific health impacts associated with biorefinery-related emissions are not yet well characterized. We evaluated the relationship between respiratory emergency department (ED) visits (2011–2015) and residential exposure to biorefineries by comparing 15 biorefinery sites to 15 control areas across New York (NY) State. We further examined these associations by biorefinery types (e.g., corn, wood, or soybean), seasons, and lower respiratory disease subtypes. We measured biorefinery exposure using residential proximity in a cross-sectional study and estimation of biorefinery emission via AERMOD-simulated modeling. After controlling for multiple confounders, we consistently found that respiratory ED visit rates among residents living within 10 km of biorefineries were significantly higher (rate ratios (RRs) range from 1.03 to 3.64) than those in control areas across our two types of exposure indices. This relationship held across biorefinery types (higher in corn and soybean biorefineries), seasons (higher in spring and winter), air pollutant types (highest for NO2), and respiratory subtypes (highest for emphysema). Further research is needed to confirm our findings.
Eun Kyung Lee; Xiaobo Xue Romeiko; Wangjian Zhang; Beth J. Feingold; Haider A. Khwaja; Xuesong Zhang; Shao Lin. Residential Proximity to Biorefinery Sources of Air Pollution and Respiratory Diseases in New York State. Environmental Science & Technology 2021, 55, 10035 -10045.
AMA StyleEun Kyung Lee, Xiaobo Xue Romeiko, Wangjian Zhang, Beth J. Feingold, Haider A. Khwaja, Xuesong Zhang, Shao Lin. Residential Proximity to Biorefinery Sources of Air Pollution and Respiratory Diseases in New York State. Environmental Science & Technology. 2021; 55 (14):10035-10045.
Chicago/Turabian StyleEun Kyung Lee; Xiaobo Xue Romeiko; Wangjian Zhang; Beth J. Feingold; Haider A. Khwaja; Xuesong Zhang; Shao Lin. 2021. "Residential Proximity to Biorefinery Sources of Air Pollution and Respiratory Diseases in New York State." Environmental Science & Technology 55, no. 14: 10035-10045.
Addressing food loss and waste (FLW) globally is critical for both improving food security and mitigating environmental pollution. While there are numerous studies addressing FLW in terms of nutrition, food security, food safety, public health and the economy, there is only a small body of life cycle assessment (LCA) research aimed at understanding impacts from FLW. We conducted a literature review of LCA studies focused on FLW in the food supply chain (FSC) to ascertain the state of the science and identify the research gaps. We identified 22 original research articles that met our search criteria and spanned the four stages of LCA. Regarding the goal and scope, there were a dearth of studies focused on the top of the waste hierarchy (prevention). Further, we identified a research gap in studies that accounted for avoided production from food waste management in the overall LCA and distinguished between avoidable and unavoidable waste streams. LCA studies to date largely used a mass-basis as the functional unit and were limited in terms of spatial and temporal specificity. Within the life cycle inventory, most of the studies were conducted in Europe and only one study in the US. In addition, some of the studies lack data transparency. The life cycle impact assessment phase showed that most of the studies only assess global warming potential with fewer studies evaluating energy, water demand and human toxicity. Lastly, within life cycle interpretation more than half of the studies focus on at least one of the three types of uncertainties supporting more informed policy decision making.
Yetunde Omolayo; Beth J. Feingold; Roni A. Neff; Xiaobo Xue Romeiko. Life cycle assessment of food loss and waste in the food supply chain. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 2020, 164, 105119 .
AMA StyleYetunde Omolayo, Beth J. Feingold, Roni A. Neff, Xiaobo Xue Romeiko. Life cycle assessment of food loss and waste in the food supply chain. Resources, Conservation and Recycling. 2020; 164 ():105119.
Chicago/Turabian StyleYetunde Omolayo; Beth J. Feingold; Roni A. Neff; Xiaobo Xue Romeiko. 2020. "Life cycle assessment of food loss and waste in the food supply chain." Resources, Conservation and Recycling 164, no. : 105119.
Understanding spatially and temporally explicit life cycle environmental impacts is critical for designing sustainable supply chains for biofuel and animal sectors. However, annual life cycle environmental impacts of crop production at county scale are lacking. To address this knowledge gap, this study used a combination of Environmental Policy Integrated Climate and process-based life cycle assessment models to quantify life cycle global warming (GWP), eutrophication (EU) and acidification (AD) impacts of soybean production in nearly 1,000 Midwest counties yr-1 over 9 years. Sequentially, a machine learning approach was applied to identify the top influential factors among soil, climate and farming practices, which drive the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of life cycle environmental impacts. The results indicated that significant variations existed in life cycle GWP, EU and AD among counties and across years. Life cycle GWP impacts ranged from -11.4 to 22.0 kg CO2-eq. kg soybean-1, whereas life cycle EU and AD impacts varied by factors of 302 and 44, respectively. Nitrogen application rates, temperature in March and soil texture were the top influencing factors for life cycle GWP impacts. In contrast, soil organic content and nitrogen application rate were the top influencing factors for life cycle EU and AD impacts.
Xiaobo Xue Romeiko; Eun Kyung Lee; Yetunde Sorunmu; Xuesong Zhang. Spatially and Temporally Explicit Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Soybean Production in the U.S. Midwest. Environmental Science & Technology 2020, 54, 4758 -4768.
AMA StyleXiaobo Xue Romeiko, Eun Kyung Lee, Yetunde Sorunmu, Xuesong Zhang. Spatially and Temporally Explicit Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Soybean Production in the U.S. Midwest. Environmental Science & Technology. 2020; 54 (8):4758-4768.
Chicago/Turabian StyleXiaobo Xue Romeiko; Eun Kyung Lee; Yetunde Sorunmu; Xuesong Zhang. 2020. "Spatially and Temporally Explicit Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Soybean Production in the U.S. Midwest." Environmental Science & Technology 54, no. 8: 4758-4768.
Agriculture ranks as one of the top contributors to global warming and nutrient pollution. Quantifying life cycle environmental impacts from agricultural production serves as a scientific foundation for forming effective remediation strategies. However, methods capable of accurately and efficiently calculating spatially explicit life cycle global warming (GW) and eutrophication (EU) impacts at the county scale over a geographic region are lacking. The objective of this study was to determine the most efficient and accurate model for estimating spatially explicit life cycle GW and EU impacts at the county scale, with corn production in the U.S.’s Midwest region as a case study. This study compared the predictive accuracies and efficiencies of five distinct supervised machine learning (ML) algorithms, testing various sample sizes and feature selections. The results indicated that the gradient boosting regression tree model built with approximately 4000 records of monthly weather features yielded the highest predictive accuracy with cross-validation (CV) values of 0.8 for the life cycle GW impacts. The gradient boosting regression tree model built with nearly 6000 records of monthly weather features showed the highest predictive accuracy with CV values of 0.87 for the life cycle EU impacts based on all modeling scenarios. Moreover, predictive accuracy was improved at the cost of simulation time. The gradient boosting regression tree model required the longest training time. ML algorithms demonstrated to be one million times faster than the traditional process-based model with high predictive accuracy. This indicates that ML can serve as an alternative surrogate of process-based models to estimate life-cycle environmental impacts, capturing large geographic areas and timeframes.
Xiaobo Xue Romeiko; Zhijian Guo; Yulei Pang; Eun Kyung Lee; Xuesong Zhang. Comparing Machine Learning Approaches for Predicting Spatially Explicit Life Cycle Global Warming and Eutrophication Impacts from Corn Production. Sustainability 2020, 12, 1481 .
AMA StyleXiaobo Xue Romeiko, Zhijian Guo, Yulei Pang, Eun Kyung Lee, Xuesong Zhang. Comparing Machine Learning Approaches for Predicting Spatially Explicit Life Cycle Global Warming and Eutrophication Impacts from Corn Production. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (4):1481.
Chicago/Turabian StyleXiaobo Xue Romeiko; Zhijian Guo; Yulei Pang; Eun Kyung Lee; Xuesong Zhang. 2020. "Comparing Machine Learning Approaches for Predicting Spatially Explicit Life Cycle Global Warming and Eutrophication Impacts from Corn Production." Sustainability 12, no. 4: 1481.
Energy shortage and climate change call for sustainable water and wastewater infrastructure capable of simultaneously recovering energy, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, and protecting public health. Although energy and greenhouse gas emissions of water and wastewater infrastructure are extensively studied, the human health impacts of innovative infrastructure designed under the principles of decentralization and resource recovery are not fully understood. In order to fill this knowledge gap, this study assesses and compares the health impacts of three representative systems by integrating life cycle and microbial risk assessment approaches. This study found that the decentralized system options, such as on-site septic tank and composting or urine diverting toilets, presented much lower life cycle cancer and noncancer impacts than the centralized system. The microbial risks of decentralized systems options were also lower than those of the centralized system. Moreover, life cycle cancer and noncancer impacts contributed to approximately 95% of total health impacts, while microbial risks were associated with the remaining 5%. Additionally, the variability and sensitivity assessment indicated that reducing energy use of wastewater treatment and water distribution is effective in mitigating total health damages of the centralized system, while reducing energy use of water treatment is effective in mitigating total health damages of the decentralized systems.
Xiaobo Xue Romeiko. Assessing Health Impacts of Conventional Centralized and Emerging Resource Recovery-Oriented Decentralized Water Systems. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2020, 17, 973 .
AMA StyleXiaobo Xue Romeiko. Assessing Health Impacts of Conventional Centralized and Emerging Resource Recovery-Oriented Decentralized Water Systems. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2020; 17 (3):973.
Chicago/Turabian StyleXiaobo Xue Romeiko. 2020. "Assessing Health Impacts of Conventional Centralized and Emerging Resource Recovery-Oriented Decentralized Water Systems." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17, no. 3: 973.
Climate change is exacerbating environmental pollution from crop production. Spatially and temporally explicit estimates of life-cycle environmental impacts are therefore needed for suggesting location and time relevant environmental mitigations strategies. Emission factors and process-based mechanism models are popular approaches used to estimate life-cycle environmental impacts. However, emission factors are often incapable of describing spatial and temporal heterogeneity of agricultural emissions, whereas process-based mechanistic models, capable of capturing the heterogeneity, tend to be very complicated and time-consuming. Efficient prediction of life-cycle environmental impacts from agricultural production is lacking. This study develops a rapid predictive model to quantify life-cycle global warming (GW) and eutrophication (EU) impacts of corn production using a novel machine learning approach. We used the boosted regression tree (BRT) model to estimate future life-cycle environmental impacts of corn production in U.S. Midwest counties under four emissions scenarios for years 2022–2100. Results from BRT models indicate that the cross-validation (R2) for predicting life cycle GW and EU impacts ranged from 0.78 to 0.82, respectively. Furthermore, results show that future life-cycle GW and EU impacts of corn production will increase in magnitude under all four emissions scenarios, with the highest environmental impacts shown under the high-emissions scenario. Moreover, this study found that changes in precipitation and temperature played a significant role in influencing the spatial heterogeneity in all life-cycle impacts across Midwest counties. The BRT model results indicate that machine learning can be a useful tool for predicting spatially and temporally explicit future life-cycle environmental impacts associated with corn production under different climate scenarios.
Eun Kyung Lee; Wang-Jian Zhang; Xue-Song Zhang; Paul R. Adler; Shao Lin; Beth J. Feingold; Haider A. Khwaja; Xiaobo X. Romeiko. Projecting life-cycle environmental impacts of corn production in the U.S. Midwest under future climate scenarios using a machine learning approach. Science of The Total Environment 2020, 714, 136697 .
AMA StyleEun Kyung Lee, Wang-Jian Zhang, Xue-Song Zhang, Paul R. Adler, Shao Lin, Beth J. Feingold, Haider A. Khwaja, Xiaobo X. Romeiko. Projecting life-cycle environmental impacts of corn production in the U.S. Midwest under future climate scenarios using a machine learning approach. Science of The Total Environment. 2020; 714 ():136697.
Chicago/Turabian StyleEun Kyung Lee; Wang-Jian Zhang; Xue-Song Zhang; Paul R. Adler; Shao Lin; Beth J. Feingold; Haider A. Khwaja; Xiaobo X. Romeiko. 2020. "Projecting life-cycle environmental impacts of corn production in the U.S. Midwest under future climate scenarios using a machine learning approach." Science of The Total Environment 714, no. : 136697.
The fruit preservation industry in developing countries is growing rapidly and presents unique opportunities for promoting environmental sustainability. However, very few life cycle assessment studies have evaluated the environmental performances of current production technologies in developing countries. This study represents the first life cycle assessment to compare two common production lines of the preserved plum industry in Southern China and suggested strategies for improving their environmental performances. The first line, commonly adopted by medium-sized plants, included washing, osmotic treatment, blanching, superheated steam coupled with far-infrared radiation for drying, packaging and wastewater treatment stages. The second line, commonly utilized by small-sized plants, consisted of washing, osmotic treatment, drying by natural ventilation, packaging and wastewater treatment stages. The comparison suggested that the first production line resulted in higher fossil fuel depletion, ozone depletion, human health noncancer, respiratory and ecotoxicity impacts than the second production line. In contrast, the second production line resulted in higher photochemical formation, global warming, acidification, human health cancer and eutrophication impacts. Electricity and wastewater treatment, together, were the dominating contributors to most of the life cycle environmental impact categories. The sensitivity analyses suggested that the life cycle global warming impacts were most sensitive to electricity use, while the wastewater amount ranked as the most influential factor for the life cycle eutrophication impacts. In addition, the scenario analyses indicated that upgrading the activated sludge process to a membrane bioreactor process, for in-plant wastewater treatment, alone would increase life cycle fossil fuel depletion, photochemical formation, acidification and respiratory impacts. However, the combinational adoption of a membrane bioreactor process and electricity derived from wind or lignocellulosic biomass can significantly reduce life cycle environmental impacts of the plum preservation plants.
Xiaobo Xue Romeiko; Shao Lin; Guoping Huang. Life cycle assessment of preserved plum production in Southern China. Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy 2019, 22, 197 -209.
AMA StyleXiaobo Xue Romeiko, Shao Lin, Guoping Huang. Life cycle assessment of preserved plum production in Southern China. Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy. 2019; 22 (1):197-209.
Chicago/Turabian StyleXiaobo Xue Romeiko; Shao Lin; Guoping Huang. 2019. "Life cycle assessment of preserved plum production in Southern China." Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy 22, no. 1: 197-209.
Resource recovery based wastewater services, capable of converting wastewater into clean water, energy, and fertilizer, begun to gain global attention. However, Water Footprints (WFs) of resource recovery based wastewater systems remain unknown. This study provided the first assessment on WFs of resource recovery based wastewater systems. A process-based approach was used to estimate WFs of five representative wastewater systems were including a conventional once-through system (BAU) and four resource recovery based systems. The analyses found that BAU presented the highest total WF, with a median value of 15.9 m3/household/day. In contrast, composting toilet and septic system (CT-SS) showed the lowest total WF, with a median value of 3.4 m3/household/day. The indirect WF and direct grey WFs each contributed to approximately half of total WF for BAU. For four resource recovery based systems, indirect WFs ranked as a dominating contributor, resulting in more than 75% of their total WFs. The WFs of all five systems presented significant variability, mainly because of the embedded variations in electricity’s water intensities, electricity consumption during various treatment stages, and effluent quality. The sensitivity analyses indicated that water intensity of electricity was the most influential parameter for total WFs for all five systems. In addition, the comparison across life cycle energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, eutrophication and WF indicators suggested environmental tradeoffs existed among resource recovery based systems.
Xiaobo Xue Romeiko. Comprehensive water footprint assessment of conventional and four alternative resource recovery based wastewater service options. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 2019, 151, 104458 .
AMA StyleXiaobo Xue Romeiko. Comprehensive water footprint assessment of conventional and four alternative resource recovery based wastewater service options. Resources, Conservation and Recycling. 2019; 151 ():104458.
Chicago/Turabian StyleXiaobo Xue Romeiko. 2019. "Comprehensive water footprint assessment of conventional and four alternative resource recovery based wastewater service options." Resources, Conservation and Recycling 151, no. : 104458.
The demand for biobased products, such as food, fuel, and chemicals, has been continuously increasing. Meanwhile, agricultural production, serving as the primary stage of biobased products, is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and nutrient releases. Environmental impacts of agricultural production influenced by farming practices, soil properties, and climate conditions, are often site-specific and time dependent. Although assessing spatially and temporally explicit environmental releases and impacts are required to inform a sustainable trajectory for agricultural production, such analyses are largely lacking. This study provides site-specific analysis of on-farm and supply chain emissions from corn production to demonstrate the spatio-temporal variability of environmental impacts in the U.S. Midwest states. Using process-based life cycle assessment (LCA) and the physically-based Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) agroecosystem model, we estimated county-level life cycle environmental release inventories from corn production in 12 U.S. Midwest states for the period of 2000–2008. Based on the Tool for Reduction and Assessment of Chemicals and Other Environmental Impacts (TRACI) impact assessment model, we quantified the corresponding life cycle global warming (GW), eutrophication (EU) and acidification (AD) impacts of corn. The results show that life cycle GW, EU and AD of corn production varied by factors of 4.2, 83.7 and 10.6, respectively, across the Midwest counties over the nine-year span (2000–2008). Life cycle GW impacts of producing 1 kg of corn ranged from −6.4 in Franklin County, Illinois to 20.2 kg CO2-eq. in Perkins County, South Dakota. The life cycle EU impacts also spanned over a wide range of 0.99 g in Morton County, Kansas to 82.9 g N-eq. in Leelanau County, Michigan, whereas life cycle AD impacts ranged from 1.3 in Clermont County, Ohio to 100.7 g SO2-eq. in Perkins County, South Dakota. Moreover, trade-offs existed among life cycle GW, EU and AD impact categories for corn production. The spatial variation analyses showed that key contributors were the different soil types, precipitation, elevation and the amounts of fertilizers applied. These findings provided critical insight into spatio-temporal variations of life cycle environmental impacts of corn production and identified spatial hotspots and top contributors for improving environmental performances of corn production.
Eun Kyung Lee; Xuesong Zhang; Paul R. Adler; Gary S. Kleppel; Xiaobo Xue Romeiko. Spatially and temporally explicit life cycle global warming, eutrophication, and acidification impacts from corn production in the U.S. Midwest. Journal of Cleaner Production 2019, 242, 118465 .
AMA StyleEun Kyung Lee, Xuesong Zhang, Paul R. Adler, Gary S. Kleppel, Xiaobo Xue Romeiko. Spatially and temporally explicit life cycle global warming, eutrophication, and acidification impacts from corn production in the U.S. Midwest. Journal of Cleaner Production. 2019; 242 ():118465.
Chicago/Turabian StyleEun Kyung Lee; Xuesong Zhang; Paul R. Adler; Gary S. Kleppel; Xiaobo Xue Romeiko. 2019. "Spatially and temporally explicit life cycle global warming, eutrophication, and acidification impacts from corn production in the U.S. Midwest." Journal of Cleaner Production 242, no. : 118465.
The Chinese government projected 30% of total consumed potatoes as a staple food (PSF) by 2020. We comprehensively assessed the potential impacts of PSF on rice and flour consumption, rice and wheat planting, energy and nutrient supply, irrigation-water, chemical nitrogen (N), phosphorus pentoxide (P2O5) and potassium oxide (K2O) fertilizer inputs and total greenhouse gases (GHG) emission for potatoes, rice and wheat, by assuming different proportions of potato substitutes for rice and flour. The results showed that per capita, 2.9 ± 0.3 and 4.7 ± 0.5 kg more potatoes per year would enter the Chinese staple-food diet, under the government’s target. PSF consumed are expected to reach 5.2 ± 0.7 Tg yr−1, equivalent to substituting potatoes for 4.2 ± 0.8–8.5 ± 0.8 Tg yr−1 wheat and 5.1 ± 0.9–10.1 ± 1.8 Tg yr−1 rice under different scenarios. While this substitution can increase the nutrient supply index by 63% towards nutrient reference values, it may induce no significant effect on staple-food energy supply with lower chemical fertilizer (except for K2O) and irrigation-water inputs and GHG emissions in different substitution scenarios than the business as usual scenario. The reduction in rice and wheat demands lead to wheat in the North China Plain and early rice decrease by 6.1–11.4% and 12.1–24.1%, respectively. The total GHG reduction is equal to 1.1–9.0% of CO2 equivalent associated with CH4 and N2O emitted from the Chinese agroecosystem in 2005. The saved irrigation water for three crops compared to 2012 reaches the total water use of 17.9 ± 4.9–21.8 ± 5.9 million people in 2015. More N fertilizer, irrigation-water, and GHG can be reduced, if the PSF ratio is increased to 50% together with potato yield improves to the optimal level. Our results implied that the PSF policy is worth doing not only because of the healthier diets, but also to mitigate resource inputs and GHG emissions and it also supports agricultural structure adjustments in the areas of irrigated wheat on the North China Plain and early rice across China, designed to increase the adaptability to climate change.
Bing Gao; Wei Huang; Xiaobo Xue; Yuanchao Hu; Yunfeng Huang; Lan Wang; Shengping Ding; Shenghui Cui. Comprehensive Environmental Assessment of Potato as Staple Food Policy in China. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2019, 16, 2700 .
AMA StyleBing Gao, Wei Huang, Xiaobo Xue, Yuanchao Hu, Yunfeng Huang, Lan Wang, Shengping Ding, Shenghui Cui. Comprehensive Environmental Assessment of Potato as Staple Food Policy in China. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2019; 16 (15):2700.
Chicago/Turabian StyleBing Gao; Wei Huang; Xiaobo Xue; Yuanchao Hu; Yunfeng Huang; Lan Wang; Shengping Ding; Shenghui Cui. 2019. "Comprehensive Environmental Assessment of Potato as Staple Food Policy in China." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 16, no. 15: 2700.
Using reclaimed water from treated wastewater as an irrigation source is gaining popularity in arid and semi-arid areas. However, life cycle assessment studies, utilizing experimental data to analyze the environmental and health impacts of crops irrigated with reclaimed water, are lacking. This study presents the first comparative life cycle assessment of corn, soybean and wheat systems irrigated with groundwater and reclaimed water in Northern China. While the life cycle foreground inventory was based on a combination of experimental and modeling datasets, the life cycle background inventory was compiled with commercially available data packages augmented with Chinese electricity mix data. The life cycle impact analyses were based on the characterization factors from state-of-art life cycle impact assessment models. The analyses indicated that the life cycle global warming impacts of the crop systems ranged from 0.37 to 0.64 kg CO2-eq/kg grain, with reclaimed water irrigated soybean and ground water irrigated wheat exhibiting, respectively, the lowest and highest global warming impacts. Irrigation, farming equipment operation, on-field emissions and fertilizer production ranked as top contributors to the life cycle impacts for corn, soybean, and wheat. The comparative analyses of irrigation sources suggested that significant environmental tradeoffs existed. Replacing groundwater with reclaimed water as the irrigation source significantly decreased life cycle global warming, acidification, ozone depletion, smog formation, and respiratory impacts of corn, soybean and wheat systems. However, replacing groundwater with reclaimed water increased the life cycle noncancer impacts of those systems. Coordinating policies within the water–food–health nexus is required, in order to minimize the environmental tradeoffs, while maximizing the benefits of irrigation with reclaimed water.
Xiaobo Xue Romeiko. A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Crop Systems Irrigated with the Groundwater and Reclaimed Water in Northern China. Sustainability 2019, 11, 2743 .
AMA StyleXiaobo Xue Romeiko. A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Crop Systems Irrigated with the Groundwater and Reclaimed Water in Northern China. Sustainability. 2019; 11 (10):2743.
Chicago/Turabian StyleXiaobo Xue Romeiko. 2019. "A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Crop Systems Irrigated with the Groundwater and Reclaimed Water in Northern China." Sustainability 11, no. 10: 2743.
We compared water and sanitation system options for a coastal community across selected sustainability metrics, including environmental impact (i.e., life cycle eutrophication potential, energy consumption, and global warming potential), equivalent annual cost, and local human health impact. We computed normalized metric scores, which we used to discuss the options' strengths and weaknesses, and conducted sensitivity analysis of the scores to changes in variable and uncertain input parameters. The alternative systems, which combined centralized drinking water with sanitation services based on the concepts of energy and nutrient recovery as well as on-site water reuse, had reduced environmental and local human health impacts and costs than the conventional, centralized option. Of the selected sustainability metrics, the greatest advantages of the alternative community water systems (compared to the conventional system) were in terms of local human health impact and eutrophication potential, despite large, outstanding uncertainties. Of the alternative options, the systems with on-site water reuse and energy recovery technologies had the least local human health impact; however, the cost of these options was highly variable and the energy consumption was comparable to on-site alternatives without water reuse or energy recovery, due to on-site reuse treatment. Future work should aim to reduce the uncertainty in the energy recovery process and explore the health risks associated with less costly, on-site water treatment options.
Mary E. Schoen; Xiaobo Xue; Alison Wood; Troy R. Hawkins; Jay Garland; Nicholas J. Ashbolt. Cost, energy, global warming, eutrophication and local human health impacts of community water and sanitation service options. Water Research 2017, 109, 186 -195.
AMA StyleMary E. Schoen, Xiaobo Xue, Alison Wood, Troy R. Hawkins, Jay Garland, Nicholas J. Ashbolt. Cost, energy, global warming, eutrophication and local human health impacts of community water and sanitation service options. Water Research. 2017; 109 ():186-195.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMary E. Schoen; Xiaobo Xue; Alison Wood; Troy R. Hawkins; Jay Garland; Nicholas J. Ashbolt. 2017. "Cost, energy, global warming, eutrophication and local human health impacts of community water and sanitation service options." Water Research 109, no. : 186-195.
Managing the water-energy-nutrient nexus for the built environment requires, in part, a full system analysis of energy consumption, global warming and eutrophication potentials of municipal water services. As an example, we evaluated the life cycle energy use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and aqueous nutrient releases of the whole anthropogenic municipal water cycle starting from raw water extraction to wastewater treatment and reuse/discharge for five municipal water and wastewater systems. The assessed options included conventional centralized services and four alternative options following the principles of source-separation and water fit-for-purpose. The comparative life cycle assessment identified that centralized drinking water supply coupled with blackwater energy recovery and on-site greywater treatment and reuse was the most energy- and carbon-efficient water service system evaluated, while the conventional (drinking water and sewerage) centralized system ranked as the most energy- and carbon-intensive system. The electricity generated from blackwater and food residuals co-digestion was estimated to offset at least 40% of life cycle energy consumption for water/waste services. The dry composting toilet option demonstrated the lowest life cycle eutrophication potential. The nutrients in wastewater effluent are the dominating contributors for the eutrophication potential for the assessed system configurations. Among the parameters for which variability and sensitivity were evaluated, the carbon intensity of the local electricity grid and the efficiency of electricity production by the co-digestion with the energy recovery process were the most important for determining the relative global warming potential results.
Xiaobo Xue; Troy R. Hawkins; Mary E. Schoen; Jay Garland; Nicholas J. Ashbolt. Comparing the Life Cycle Energy Consumption, Global Warming and Eutrophication Potentials of Several Water and Waste Service Options. Water 2016, 8, 154 .
AMA StyleXiaobo Xue, Troy R. Hawkins, Mary E. Schoen, Jay Garland, Nicholas J. Ashbolt. Comparing the Life Cycle Energy Consumption, Global Warming and Eutrophication Potentials of Several Water and Waste Service Options. Water. 2016; 8 (4):154.
Chicago/Turabian StyleXiaobo Xue; Troy R. Hawkins; Mary E. Schoen; Jay Garland; Nicholas J. Ashbolt. 2016. "Comparing the Life Cycle Energy Consumption, Global Warming and Eutrophication Potentials of Several Water and Waste Service Options." Water 8, no. 4: 154.