Gray Water Footprint: Taking Quality, Quantity, and Time Effect into Consideration

Water footprint is a research hotspot in the field of water resource. Gray water footprint is important in the assessment of environmental effects on water resource. In this short communication, a new gray water footprint assessment method was proposed as: WFgray(α, β, ϒ). Here α is an index for water quality effect assessment; β is an index for water quantity effect assessment; ϒ is an index for time effect assessment. This model takes water quality, quantity, and time effect into consideration. We firmly believe that this method will contribute to the development of water footprint assessment. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014