The Water Use in Life Cycle Assessment (WULCA), a working group of the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative, has been working for 2 years to reach a consensus-based approach for water scarcity footprints.
WULCA have agreed to a recommended method, dubbed AWARE which is based on the quantification of the relative available water remaining per area once the demand of humans and aquatic ecosystems has been met. This answers the questions, “What is the potential to deprive another user when consumer water in this area?” The measure can be used to calculate water scarcity footprints.