Skip to main content

Water Analysis Tool for Energy Resources (WATER)

Water sustainability is an integral part of the environmental sustainability. Water use, water quality, and the demand on water resource for bioenergy production can have potential impacts to food, feed, and fiber production and to our social well-being. With the support from United State Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory is developing a life cycle water use assessment tool for biofuels production at the national scale with multiple spatial resolutions. This open-access web-based model – WATER (Water Assessment Tool for Energy Resources) – ties hydrologic cycle to energy production supply chain with a focus on feedstock production and biorefinery conversion stages. The model employs water footprint accounting to quantify the consumption of blue water, green water, and grey water in the fuel production at regional, state, and county resolution for the entire United States. Direct and indirect water uses are considered, which includes electricity generation and petroleum fuel and natural gas production. It is capable of simulating future climate scenarios. Currently, WATER includes biofuel produced from corn grain, corn stover, switchgrass, miscanthus, and soybean. The model is designed to allow for evaluation of production pathways at the region where the specific feedstock grown; for comparison of biorefinery locations based on water sustainability metric, and for analysis of the interplay of policy, feedstock, pathway, and location factors and the trade-offs among environmental, economic, and social impacts.

Author(s)
May Wu
Contact Person
May Wu
Contact Organization
Argonne National Laboratory
Contact Phone
Contact Email
Publication Date
DOI is live on OSTI.
Project Title
Impact of Projected Biofuel Production on Water Use and Water Quality
WBS Project Number
4.2.1.10