title: Critical insights for a sustainability framework to address integrated community water services: Technical metrics and approaches.
abstract: Planning for sustainable community water systems requires a comprehensive understanding and assessment of the integrated source-drinking-wastewater systems over their life-cycles. Although traditional life cycle assessment and similar tools (e.g. footprints and emergy) have been applied to elements of these water services (i.e. water resources, drinking water, stormwater or wastewater treatment alone), we argue for the importance of developing and combining the system-based tools and metrics in order to holistically evaluate the complete water service system based on the concept of integrated resource management. We analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of key system-based tools and metrics, and discuss future directions to identify more sustainable municipal water services. Such efforts may include the need for novel metrics that address system adaptability to future changes and infrastructure robustness. Caution is also necessary when coupling fundamentally different tools so to avoid misunderstanding and consequently misleading decision-making.
authors: Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Engineering (ORISE), National Risk Management Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 26 West Martin Luther King Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45268, USA. Electronic address: Xue.Xiaobo@epa.gov.
authors: Xiaobo
authors: X
authors: Xue
authors: Soller Environmental, 312 NE 82nd St., Seattle, WA 98115, USA. Electronic address: mschoen@sollerenvironmental.com.
authors: Mary E
authors: ME
authors: Schoen
authors: National Risk Management Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 26 West Martin Luther King Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45268, USA. Electronic address: Ma.Cissy@epa.gov.
authors: Xin Cissy
authors: XC
authors: Ma
authors: National Risk Management Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 26 West Martin Luther King Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45268, USA. Electronic address: thawkins@enviance.com.
authors: Troy R
authors: TR
authors: Hawkins
authors: National Exposure Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 26 West Martin Luther King Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45268, USA. Electronic address: ashbolt@ualberta.ca.
authors: Nicholas J
authors: NJ
authors: Ashbolt
authors: National Exposure Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 26 West Martin Luther King Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45268, USA. Electronic address: Cashdollar.Jennifer@epa.gov.
authors: Jennifer
authors: J
authors: Cashdollar
authors: National Exposure Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 26 West Martin Luther King Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45268, USA. Electronic address: Garland.Jay@epa.gov.
authors: Jay
authors: J
authors: Garland
mesh_terms: D002958:City Planning; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods*; D062066:Water Resources / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D014881:Water Supply / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
keywords: Environment; Integrated water management; Sustainability; System analysis; Water services