Abstract
Raw milk production in Taiwan has increased year after year, which means that the environmental impact might also be intensified in certain regions. To balance both consumer demand and environmental sustainability, evaluating the potential impact and understanding the causal relationship between production and environment is imperative. This study applied the life cycle assessment (LCA) protocol to explore water consumption for raw milk production from cradle to farm gate of five dairy farms in Hsinchu County and evaluate the stress-weighted water scarcity footprint (WSF) as well as the water scarcity productivity (WSP) of the 16 Taiwanese counties and cities. Results indicated that the highest stress-weighted WSF of the dairy farms for raw milk production was located in northern and central Taiwan and was around 44.8 H2Oeq/kg fat- and protein-corrected milk (FPCM). On the other hand, both the smallest stress-weighted WSF (about 2.2 H2Oeq/kg FPCM) and the highest WSP (0.749 kg FPCM/m3 water) of the dairy farms were located in Nantou and Chiayi Counties, because these two counties were the least water-stressed regions in Taiwan. The achievement of this study could be the first and important reference for the sustainable production of raw milk and optimizing the industrial policy of dairy farming by policy makers.
Highlights
With the increase of national income and living standards in Taiwan, increased demand for dairy products has stimulated rapid growth of the dairy industry
If accurate and clear spatial scale data could be obtained, it would help to improve the accuracy of the impact assessment. This is the first study in Taiwan that combines the production of raw milk with regional hydrological characteristics, which might lead to the improvement of existing regulations
The water stress in various regions of Taiwan varies considerably (WSI ranges from 0.05 to 1), which represents the feasibility of reducing environmental impact by changing the industrial location
Summary
With the increase of national income and living standards in Taiwan, increased demand for dairy products has stimulated rapid growth of the dairy industry. In 1980, Taiwan’s dairy farms raised 23,636 cows with an annual milk production of 50,154 t [1]. In 2017, the number of dairy cows increased to. The most common water resource for most Taiwanese dairy farms, as well as other livestock farms, is groundwater. Management of the existing groundwater wells and control of new well digging will be a tough task for releasing water scarcity stress in some regions. In 2013, the Council of Agriculture (COA) of Taiwan proposed a five-year “Golden Gallery New Agriculture Action Plan” to control the conditions of ground subsidence along with areas of the high-speed railroad (Available online: https://book.tndais.gov.tw/Magazine/mag87/87-1.pdf; accessed on 1 November 2019). The action plan aims to reduce the number of existing groundwater wells and subsidize wastewater recycling systems
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