Get Sust! Issue 28

Water, water – it really IS everywhere

There’s a lot of attention on the embodied energy of building materials, but have you ever wondered about ‘embodied water’?

Researchers in Australia have - and their studies suggest that embodied water is many times greater than the volume of water used during a building’s life. With water shortages likely to grow in significance around the world due to climate change, this is an issue that needs further attention.

The team, working at Deakin University, Victoria, looked at 17 non-residential case studies in Australia and found that embodied water could be as much as 20 kilolitres per m2 of gross floor area, but that water required during the construction process was minimal. The buildings studied include examples from the health, education and commercial sectors; and the team looked at the embodied water of the structure, substructure, finishes, roof and services - with some surprising results.

Learn more:

•

Find out which materials had the highest embodied water, and why, by reading ‘Modelling direct and indirect water requirements of construction’, by Michael McCormack at al, in Building Research & Information, Volume 35, Issue 2 March 2007 , pages 156 - 162. See http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09613210601125383.