Introduction journal of current research
Esraa Elazab, Sherief Sheta, Khaled Tarabieh and Ahmed Eltawil
10 October 2020
Abstract
"Background: Water issues related to scarcity, drought and quality are serious problems in many
countries worldwide. In the building sector; water efficiency has a vital rule in achieving
sustainability. Buildings rating systems are a way to measure the water efficiency in buildings but
most of the rating systems consider only the direct water use and neglect the embodied water.
Objectives: The research aims at evaluating the total water footprint of buildings; in order to analyze
the aspects affecting the sustainability of the project and to configure the best strategies which could
be used to improve water efficiency. Methods: The research adopts the water footprint assessment;
which takes into account direct and indirect water use and the blue and grey WFPs; to assess the
water footprint of a social housing project in Egypt. To account for the indirect water footprint
Athena IE and BEES softwares are used and for direct water LEED V4 water use reduction calculator
is used. Results: The results showed that the direct WFP/ year for one building was found to be 17
times greater than its embodied WFP and there were disparity between the results of the blue, grey,
direct and embodied WFPs. Conclusion: The research showed the importance of considering
embodied water footprint in addition to direct water footprint. The research concluded the
opportunities available for improving the water efficiency in the project"