Ecological and Economic Impacts of Crossbreeding: Life Cycle Assessment for Freshwater use in Ethiopian Smallholder Dairy Production System

Crossbred cows have positive economic impact through increased productivity gains. However, requires more input and resources. Freshwater is one of these resources utilized during the production process. According to the water footprint concept, freshwater consumption of a certain product can be categorized in to three groups, the blue, green and grey water. Consumption of blue water has an impact on human health (HH), ecosystem quality (EQ) and resource depletion (RD). This impact can be taken as ecological sustainability measure. This book discussed the overall sustainability impact and detail ecological influence and economic benefit of crossbreeding.