The Environmental Footprint of the Public Water Supply and Wastewater Treatment Systems in the United States

Abstract Submission: The withdrawal, treatment, distribution, and use of water, as well as associated wastewater, involves considerable energy consumption, water consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions. This study quantifies the Scope 1 and Scope 2 environmental footprints associated with public water supply and wastewater systems across the United States, providing comprehensive and spatially detailed insights into the environmental impact and differences between US communities provisioning and handling of water and wastewater. We employ a unique bottom-up methodology, focusing on infrastructure-level datasets to derive community-level energy consumption, water consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions associated with water supply and wastewater services across the entire contiguous US. We account for indirect water consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by linking water and wastewater infrastructure to the power plants that provide them electricity, thus providing a more holistic understanding of the environmental footprint of water and wastewater systems. With distinctive climates, population densities, water service infrastructure challenges, and water availability differences between the US regions, the water and wastewater systems of the Eastern US have a more significant environmental footprint than that of the Western US. As communities and businesses strive to improve the efficiency and sustainability of their water services, the study's emphasis on the interdependency of energy and water can help inform future climate and infrastructure policies.

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