Characteristics of International Standard and Trends of Development and Application of Water Footprint

Abstract

Water risk is forefront concerns in the world. Many negative impacts related with water use such as pollution and shortage have been emerged internationally. Water footprint is a metric that quantifies the potential environmental impacts related to water considering the life cycle of products or organizations. Water footprint is now paid attentions to share the reliable information in terms of current situation of water related environmental performance effectively. Many of research including the activities by Water Footprint Network development have been carried out for the development of inventory database and impact assessment method. International standard（ISO14046）describing the principles and requirements of water footprint have been published in 2014. This article summarized the present status of the activities relating water footprint including the development of database, applications to case studies and the characteristics of international standard.