There are more than 8 million private swimming pools in the U.S. [1][2]. Though known to be prodigious consumers of water and energy, apparently there has been no systematic analysis of their environmental impact to date. Additional impacts arise from pool chemical use and pool construction. Phoenix, Arizona, has one of the highest concentrations of pools in the country [3]. This is despite large evaporative water losses due to the hot, arid climate, and a reliance on imported water supplies [4]. Given this context a hybrid life cycle assessment of Phoenix area residential pools was undertaken to determine their water consumption, energy use and climate change impacts. The scope of the assessment was limited to operation and maintenance. A simplified operational model was defined to represent processes and characteristics of a typical pool, and using parameter values obtained from data sources in the public domain, impacts were calculated. Regional water and energy use were calculated by process-sum whereas economic input-output life cycle assessment (EIO-LCA) was used to determine impacts from pool chemicals. Secondary consumption of water from electricity supply, and electricity from water supply were included. Uncertainty was calculated or estimated for parameter values and carried through to results by error propagation.
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