Water footprint (WF) is a newly developed idea that indicates impacts of freshwater appropriation and wastewater discharge. The textile industry is one of the oldest, longest and most complicated industrial chains in the world's manufacturing industries. However, the textile industry is also water intensive. In this paper, we applied a bottom-up approach to estimate the direct blue water footprint (WFdir,blue) and direct grey water footprint (WFdir,grey) of China's textile industry at sector level based on WF methodology. The results showed that WFdir,blue of China's textile industry had an increasing trend from 2001 to 2010. The annual WFdir,blue surpassed 0.92 Gm3/yr (giga cubic meter a year) since 2004 and rose to peak value of 1.09 Gm3/yr in 2007. The original and residuary WFdir,grey (both were calculated based on the concentration of chemical oxygen demand (CODCr)) of China's textile industry had a similar variation trend with that of WFdir,blue. Among the three sub-sectors of China's textile industry, the manufacture of textiles sector's annual WFdir,blue and WFdir,grey were much larger than those of the manufacture of textile wearing apparel, footware and caps sector and the manufacture of chemical fibers sector. The intensities of WFdir,blue and WFresdir,grey of China's textile industry were year by year decreasing through the efforts of issuing restriction policies on freshwater use and wastewater generation and discharge, and popularization of water saving and wastewater treatment technologies.
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Research Article|
October 24 2013
Blue and grey water footprint of textile industry in China
Laili Wang;
Laili Wang
1Fashion & Art Design Institute, Donghua University, Room 1004, 3rd Teaching Building, No. 1882 West Yan'an Road, Changning District, Shanghai 200051, China
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Xuemei Ding;
Xuemei Ding
1Fashion & Art Design Institute, Donghua University, Room 1004, 3rd Teaching Building, No. 1882 West Yan'an Road, Changning District, Shanghai 200051, China
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Xiongying Wu
2Shanghai Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau of PRC, Room 1-2506, No. 1208 Minsheng Road, Pudong New Area, Shanghai 200135, China
E-mail: [email protected]
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Water Sci Technol (2013) 68 (11): 2485–2491.
Article history
Received:
May 13 2013
Accepted:
August 27 2013
Citation
Laili Wang, Xuemei Ding, Xiongying Wu; Blue and grey water footprint of textile industry in China. Water Sci Technol 1 December 2013; 68 (11): 2485–2491. doi: https://doi.org/10.2166/wst.2013.532
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