Comparison of Water-focused Life Cycle Assessment and Water Footprint Assessment: The case of an Italian wine Eros Borsato a, ⁎, Elisa Giubilato b,c , Alex Zabeo b , Lucrezia Lamastra d , Paolo Criscione e , Paolo Tarolli a , Francesco Marinello a , Lisa Pizzol b a Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padova, Agripolis, 35020, Italy b GreenDecision s.r.l., Via delle industrie 21/8, 30175 Marghera, VE, Italy c Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, University Ca' Foscari of Venice, Via Torino 155, 30172 Mestre, Italy d Istituto di Chimica Agraria e Ambientale, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Via Emilia Parmense 84, 29122 Piacenza, Italy e DESAM Ingegneria e Ambiente s.r.l., 31021 Mogliano Veneto, Treviso, Italy HIGHLIGHTS • VIVA WATER indicator helps identifying optimal water management measures in vineyard stage. • Water-focused LCA supports a better in- terpretation in the cellar and bottling phases. • Wine production sustainability can ben- efit from the synergic application of dif- ferent WF methods. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT abstract article info Article history: Received 21 December 2018 Received in revised form 20 February 2019 Accepted 21 February 2019 Available online 22 February 2019 In recent decades, the debate on how to implement and measure sustainability in food production gained in- creasing importance and interest for agriculture. In the wine sector, producers are increasingly pursuing sustain- able practices, including measures for water preservation from degradation and overuse. But methodologies for assessing and communicating the impacts on water resources need to be understood in detail to guide the selec- tion of the most appropriate management practices, support environmental labelling and promote environmental-friendly products to consumers. This work focuses on the impacts on water resources associated with the production of Italian wine by comparing two methodologies: the Water-focused Life Cycle Assessment and the “Water” indicator included in the Italian “VIVA” certification framework, which is based on the Water Footprint Assessment. The two methodologies address the impact on freshwater consumption and degradation from a life cycle perspective. VIVA is based on a water balance method that reflects a volumetric measure of water consumption, while the LCA-based approach investigates both the freshwater consumption and depletion using different impact indicators. The study goal is to compare the two methodologies to understand how their out- comes can support and improve the management of water-related issues in wine production. One main conclu- sion is that the WATER indicator within VIVA framework can provide more precise recommendations for the optimal management of water use during the vineyard phase, while LCA approach highlights impact hotspots Keywords: Water footprint Informed decision-making Sustainability Viticulture LCA VIVA Science of the Total Environment 666 (2019) 1220–1231 Abbreviations: LCA, Life Cycle Assessment; VIVA, Italian wine certification of sustainable viticulture “Valutazione dell'Impatto in Vitivinicoltura sull'Ambiente”. ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: eros.borsato@phd.unipd.it (E. Borsato). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.331 0048-9697/© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Science of the Total Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv