Life Cycle Assessment of Groundwater Supply System in a Hyper-arid Region of India

Abstract

This paper addresses the life cycle assessment (LCA) of groundwater supply system in hyper-arid region of Bikaner block in the state of Rajasthan, India. The key objective of this research is to address potential environmental impacts of groundwater extraction for irrigation purpose and sustainable management of groundwater in water scarce regions. To assess the impact of groundwater extraction, the functional unit of the study has been taken as one kiloliter of freshwater withdrawal using submersible water pumps for irrigation purpose. The primary data for the water withdrawal and energy consumption are collected through semi-structured interview conducted among the end users in the region. The energy and material flow modelling of the ground water system have been developed using Umberto NXT Universal and Ecoinvent dataset v3.0. The environmental impact assessment is carried out using well-known ReCiPe method. It is observed from the analysis that copper used in equipment of ground water supply system and energy consumption for ground water extraction generate significant impacts to the environment. The results thus obtained are very helpful in decision making and to formulate a suitable ground water development/withdrawal policy while dealing with different environmental issues of groundwater management.