Estimating direct and indirect withdrawals of water for manufacturing consumer goods

Water is critical to healthy economic, social, and environmental systems. However, existing domestic water use data are limiting. Typically, only water withdrawals are available for broad end-use categories. These data do not reflect process-specific information needed to meaningfully assess life cycle water uses. Existing use patterns, such as supply chain impacts, are not clear, limiting opportunities to manage water more efficiently. We allocated national inventories of water withdrawals to all 426 economic sectors for input-output life cycle assessment (EIO-LCA).