Environmental systems analysis of urban water systems – historical account of published work in scientific journals/ Miljösystemanalys av urbana vattensystem – historik av publicerade verk i vetenskapliga tidskrifter

This paper is a literature review of environmental systems analysis studies – adopting the LCA (life-cycle assessment) approach – of urban water and wastewater systems. Both with respect to the number of scientific journals referred to and the time-period of publication, the scope has been limited. The time period considered is 2000–2014, and the number of journals referred to, is 12. Of the 93 papers found, 51 focus on wastewater treatment. Over one-third of the publications (35 of 93) have a focus on a city, region or country in Europe, with Spain topping the list with 10 of these. As far as the origin of the publications is concerned, Spain is numero uno again with 14. Four papers adopt a dual scope (as far as sub-systems within the urban water system are concerned), while 12 of them are pan-systemic. As far as sub-scopes are concerned, within wastewater treatment, there are 12 publications dealing with treatment technologies. About 39 % (38 publications) are comparative analyses – among different processes/options/approaches or among different single case studies. The country being focused in (in a case study) is different from the country from which the publication originates (country in which the university/institute to which the first author belongs, is located) in 7 publications. The set of 93 papers is by no means comprehensive as all possible journals in which papers using LCA as a tool to study urban water systems, have not been browsed through. Also, such publications from before year-2000 have not been taken into consideration. However, one may still conclude that looking at urban water systems as a whole (holistically) is gradually becoming more common. Further, a lot of potential research in this field is expected and urgently needed in the developing world.