Across the globe, billions of people lack access to safe drinking water. Many different point-of-use (POU) technologies have been developed that significantly reduce the disease-causing pathogens found in untreated water. With many different technologies available, it can be difficult to choose which technology to implement in specific areas. Beyond the cost of each technology, the environmental impacts could bring additional harm to a community. Life cycle assessments (LCAs) are used to make comparisons across different technologies. This study uses an LCA to compare boiling water, ceramic water filters, BioSand filters and POU chlorination as treatment options in the rural community of Thohoyandou, Limpopo Province, South Africa utilizing previously published, open-access data. Global warming potential, water use, energy use, smog formation, particulate matter and land use are the studied environmental impacts. Results found that boiling had the most impact on energy use, global warming potential, smog and land use; chlorination had the greatest impact on particulate matter and water use. A cost comparison found boiling water to be most expensive at 0.053 USD per liter and chlorination to be least expensive at 0.0005 USD per liter.

在全球范围内，数十亿人无法获得安全的饮用水。已经开发出许多不同的使用点（POU）技术，这些技术可大大减少未经处理的水中发现的致病性病原体。在有许多可用的不同技术的情况下，可能难以选择要在特定领域中实施的技术。除了每种技术的成本之外，环境影响还可能给社区带来更多危害。生命周期评估（LCA）用于对不同技术进行比较。这项研究使用LCA来比较沸腾水，陶瓷滤水器，BioSand滤水器和POU氯化作为南非林波波省Thohoyandou农村社区的处理选择，并利用先前发布的开放获取数据。全球变暖的潜力，用水，能源的使用，烟雾的形成，颗粒物和土地利用是研究的环境影响。结果发现，煮沸对能源使用，全球变暖潜能，烟雾和土地使用影响最大。氯化对颗粒物和水的使用影响最大。成本比较发现沸腾的水最昂贵，为每升0.053美元，而氯化的价格最低，为每升0.0005美元。