Dairy production in the US at the national scale is a distributed production
system that entails great geographic diversity with respect to inputs and
outputs. Milk therefore represents an interesting case study to develop and
test spatialized life cycle approaches for both inventory and impact
assessment.
The study is to be used by the U.S. dairy industry to create a baseline of
water footprint, helping that industry and its constituent milk producers to
identify areas to target for improvement, explore the changes in impact
associated with new management scenarios, and document those
improvements.
The result showed that water stress is 146 liters in competition per kg milk
consumed and 121 liter in competition per kg milk at farm gate (water
consumption is 225 liters per kg milk consumed and 181 liters of water
consumed per kg milk at farm gate).

water footprint; water use; spatialization; dairy; milk